BludgerTrack: 52.3-47.7 to Labor

One stray poll brings the BludgerTrack aggregate back to life, but the result is much the same as it was at the close of business last year.

BludgerTrack returns following the break of the New Year polling drought, courtesy of GetUp! ReachTEL poll and the year’s debut for Essential Research – although BludgerTrack features only the latter, as it includes only media polls for the sake of consistency. Since the Essential result is the only data point available from the past month, it more or less single-handedly determines where things currently stand, which is to say in much the same place as they did before the start of the drought.

The Essential results on the primary vote were Coalition 38% (up one), Labor 37% (steady), Greens 9% (down one), One Nation 8% (steady) and Nick Xenophon Team 4% (up one), with Labor maintaining its 53-47 lead on two-party preferred. Being the first poll of the year, these results are purely from a one week sample of 1017, and not a rolling average combined the results of two consecutive weeks. The poll also featured the monthly leadership ratings, which both leaders down on “don’t know” for their personal approval. Malcolm Turnbull is up three on approval to 37% and two on approval to 48%, while Bill Shorten is respectively up two to 37% and six to 44%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is unchanged at 39-28.

Essential did not features its usual supplementary questions on selected current issues this week, but we do have an international survey by Ipsos that used a variety of measures to probe for Trumpian sentiment around the globe. This found Australia generally landing in the middle of the pack, but one exception was that 48% of Australians rated their country as being in decline, which compared favourably with most other countries – in particular the United States on 60%, and the United Kingdom on 57%.

My paywalled Crikey content has included a review of Mike Baird’s polling and electoral record from today:

Given the circumstances of his departure, and his success in keeping his nose clean as leader of a state that has become proverbial for political malfeasance, most reacted to the news sympathetically (Mark Latham being a seemingly inevitable exception). Even so, Baird leaves office with a patchy electoral record, and with recent polls suggesting the public was growing increasingly disenchanted with his leadership.

And yesterday, an analysis of the electorates where the Coalition is most likely to be punished for the Centrelink debacle:

Reports this week suggest the next targets will be disability support and, particularly dangerously, the aged pension … The highest concentrations of those on unemployment benefits tend to be in low-income areas of the big cities and remote regions with high indigenous populations. The former account for the most reliable Labor territory in the country, while electorates encompassing the latter usually bring together white conservative and indigenous Labor voters, with the former being decisively greater in number. But when pensioners come in to view, real problems start to emerge — especially for the Nationals, whose rural and regional heartland is distinctive for being whiter, poorer and older than the big cities.

And on Monday, a look at the Queensland seats most likely to fall to One Nation, based on analysis of the 2016 Senate vote:

Clear at the top of the list for the LNP is Lockyer, which covers the rural areas between Ipswich and Toowoomba … Labor’s danger areas include the two seats that cover Hanson’s old stamping ground of Ipswich, where the threat is intensified by the weakness of the LNP, since the One Nation candidates will have a low bar to clear in overtaking the LNP and scooping up their preferences.

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.

1,696 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.3-47.7 to Labor”

Comments Page 31 of 34
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  1. Nice little meme on facebook, wtte: Now that you understand alternative facts equals lies, maybe you’ll understand what alternative medicine means.

  2. BK
    Centrelink has been caught out and won’t reveal just how much money has been clawed back. Surely Tudge is toast!
    Would that be with Australian made and owned Vegemite!
    I’m sorry to hear about the throttling back. I expect to spend the entire day trying to un cancel an order to change my home fixed line phone plan. Telstra canceled the order themselves. Their robot phone service is well nigh useless. Ah Me!
    Thanks for your work this morning.

  3. If you want to see the world’s climate changing, fly over a tropical country. Thirty years ago, a wide belt of rainforest circled the earth, covering much of Latin America, south-east Asia and Africa. Today, it is being rapidly replaced by great swathes of palm oil trees and rubber plantations, land cleared for cattle grazing, soya farming, expanding cities, dams and logging.
    …
    The consensus of the world’s atmospheric scientists is that about 12% of all man-made climate emissions – nearly as much as the world’s 1.2bn cars and lorries – now comes from deforestation, mostly in tropical areas. Conserving forests is critical; the carbon locked up in Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 150m hectares of forests are nearly three times the world’s global annual emissions.

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/23/destroying-rainforests-quickly-gone-100-years-deforestation?CMP=share_btn_tw

  4. John Wren ‏@JohnWren1950 · 14h14 hours ago
    .@TurnbullMalcolm is it acceptable for one of your MPs to use the logo of the racist Australia First Party on their twitter profile? #auspol

    George Christensen, of course.

  5. The TPP:

    Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe reiterated their commitment to the TPP, despite Mr Trump’s opposition, in a phone call last night.

    Australia’s Trade Minister Steve Ciobo yesterday said the Federal Government was willing to work with the other 10 participating countries to find a way forward for the TPP.

    “If it comes to pass that we need to make small changes in order to capture the benefits of the TPP and not have the United States as part of it, well then, so be it,” he said.

    In other words the Coalition will sign us up to anything just so they can say they’ve completed a another trade agreement.

  6. Malcolm can get up at the NPI and deliver whatever speech he likes. We all know – and the msm should have a few clues too, by now – that he is utterly incapable of delivering anything.

  7. ABC’s Jane Norman says our government was ‘hopeful’ that senior Republicans could change Trumps mind on the TPP.

    From what has gone on earlier it looked to me that the majority of the Republicans in Congress were against approving it.

    Turnbull and Ciobo ‘lost in space’.

  9. Good Morning Bludgers 🙂
    I had a very good night’s sleep. So watch out! 40C here today but I will be sparking like a live wire! Don’t all groan at once. 😉 However, I will say that getting a good night’s sleep is beneficial for your judgement. You don’t tend to go off half-cocked. And it looks like some people need to get more sleep.

    Nevertheless, I accept your sincere apology, Kay Jay. And I will leave it at that.

  10. Good morning all,

    Re the TPP.

    Turnbull and Ciobo are a bit like the knight in the “Holy Grail” who keeps on calling his opponent a coward and goes on and on demanding the fight continues even as he squirms on the ground with his arms and legs cut off.

    Cheers and a great day to all.

  11. Ciobo on AM (on of two govt ministers given air time) basically saying that we can substitute China for the US with a few minor changes and blaming Labor for something.
    The man is an idiot.

  13. Lizzie

    Ministers on junkets – I forgot earlier that Ciobo & BishJnr are of to the US this week for ‘G’day USA’.

    Ciobo doing Washington, New York and Los Angeles.

  14. Nice little meme on facebook, wtte: Now that you understand alternative facts equals lies, maybe you’ll understand what alternative medicine means.

    Labor very nearly succeeded in getting the Private Health Funds to stop supporting Alternative Medicine if they wanted federal government funding. Alas they lost the 2013 election before it came to pass.

    I hope it’s still on the agenda because there is a whole diaspora of Liberal-supporting ‘Alternative Medicine’ practitioners out there who owe their livelihoods to this scam, whereby taxpayer money is funneled to them.

    In that way I am a Libertarian. If you want to support Alternative Medicine therapies, like Reiki, for example, then you pay for it yourself out of your own after-tax dollars.

    Sure, join a Private Health Fund who covers all that sort of stuff, but don’t expect the taxpayer to subsidise the fund.

  15. I have just spent an hour plus on the phone to Telstra. Job well done to my satisfaction. Difficult for the gentleman with English as second language and he facing difficulty speaking to a person with poor hearing.
    I can now recommend Telstra to those among us with persistence plus.
    I can now give my mobile phone to the daughter to use with unlimited calls. I have never made a call on it and conversely never received a call. ✔✔

  16. Kay Jay,
    Peace on this very hot day.

    No worries. Just remember, we need to fight Tories! That’s what we do! Not each other. 🙂

  19. “However, I will say that getting a good night’s sleep is beneficial for your judgement. You don’t tend to go off half-cocked. And it looks like some people need to get more sleep.”

    Mirror and personal pronouns needed.

  20. Morning all.

    So Trump bans funding for health care in developing countries for abortion counselling or if they have policies which advocate the right to abortion.

    The US is taking huge steps backwards in as little as mere days!

  22. I admit to my ignorance about the USA parliamentary system, but I don’t understand the President’s powers. If Trump can write things into law by decree, why couldn’t Obama do the same? I thought everything would have to go to the houses to be passed.

  24. Confessions

    So Trump bans funding for health care in developing countries for abortion counselling or if they have policies which advocate the right to abortion.

    That has been a ‘biggie’ for a while. I actually thought they had already done that. Anyway it will make the evangelicals happy with Trump. Which is ironic as at the start of his run for Repug candidate they said he had zero chance because the ‘evangelicals’ would never vote for Trump.

  25. psyclaw @ #1519 Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 9:02 am

    “However, I will say that getting a good night’s sleep is beneficial for your judgement. You don’t tend to go off half-cocked. And it looks like some people need to get more sleep.”
    Mirror and personal pronouns needed.

    Your grace and anybody else interested in the hum drum of everyday life.
    Think calm thoughts please. Restful colour – green.
    I have found and printed many photos of my Marie Darling – some from the time she was a postulant? Marie left one week prior to taking final vows. Very sad for her because of medical problems. But wonderful for me and for Marie eventually.
    I expect this is boring stuff. But boring or not it is part of a well lived life which has included many ups and downs.
    I am now investigating iinet after I have managed to get Telstra to sort out some of the problems they (Telstra) caused with my accounts.
    Now if internet ADSL speed would get cracking I could then do what I usually do – not much. Today is vacuuming and floor washing to enable me to tell Trish the favourite daughter tomorrow what a good useful old man I am. She, of course, knows better and is slowly getting the hang of telling little fibs.
    On this prospective very hot day I think we all need to keep cool. Abbee the regimental dog is already in her bedroom waiting to be air conditioned.
    A good day to everybody. ⚓
    What’s the anchor for, good question.

  27. Poroti:

    Australia had a similar policy under the Howard govt which Labor reversed when it resumed office. To my knowledge the current govt hasn’t reinstated it.

  30. This is a very good article from Bloomberg via the smh (and I think Michael Bloomberg will be a dark horse in the race against Trump), about China waiting in the wings to replace the TPP with the RECP and thus increase it’s global trade dominance at the expense of America:

    http://www.smh.com.au/world/china-eyes-opportunity-as-us-pulls-out-of-transpacific-partnership-20170123-gtxbi1.html

    It seems that Donald Trump may be able to say that he is ‘draining the swamp’ but that by doing so he will turn America into a backwater.

  32. Moree going through a record hot stretch. Could end up being 34 days over 35°.

    Hope the cotton and the climate deniers out there are coping.

  33. ‘Fess,
    Australia had a similar policy under the Howard govt which Labor reversed when it resumed office. To my knowledge the current govt hasn’t reinstated it.

    Didn’t Tony Abbott try to do it as well when he came to power but Julie Bishop stopped him?

  34. victoria @ #1526 Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 9:26 am

    @PressSec changed the story on Flynn’s calls to the Russian ambassador. @just_security’s been keeping track. https://www.justsecurity.org/36674/trump-admin-story-flynns-calls-russian-ambassador/ …

    In true American tradition, they are just audience-testing a couple of different sets of “alternative facts”. When they have determined which set gets them the best ratings, they will let us all know where the truth lies.

  35. C@t
    Its 10 degrees outside, sunny, light breeze, heading for 20deg.

    Jetstar have specials Syd to Ade at the moment.

    Come to Adelaide to escape the heat? Never heard that said before.

  36. c@tmomma @ #1531 Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 9:33 am

    Kay Jay,
    It’s too hot today to go to the Post Office. 🙂

    Quite right and as today I have been refused Marriage by the young man at Telstra who so ably assisted me, we may have a tele drink together. 웃 No I have no idea what the little figure signifies and I know if I don’t get cracking with my house work it will never get down.
    I had some really brilliant nothing stories to write when I woke at 3.00. Sadly/happily they have blow away like LNP policies.
    I am also worn out be Rafa’s victory last night.

  40. peter love @ #1529 Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 9:30 am

    Another lurker. Kayjays posts are the highlight to me.

    Bless you my Son. I take it you understand my posts are essentially nothing but written Rorschach images. They are about sex and nothing but sex. The trick is finding where said sex resides. I know for sure it’s not in my bedroom because Abbee keeps a really, really sharp lookout for frisky carryings on.
    Vacuuming, cleaning, washing machine, floor washing. All pleasure today and I have a headache. Poor me. Alcoholics joke – poor me, poor me, pour me a drink!

  41. Can someone give me a Ctar1 like (brief) synopsis of what went down last night?

    Or is there a risk of being turned into pillars of salt?

  42. Hope the cotton pickers and the climate deniers out there are coping.

    There, fixed it. 🙂

    My late husband used to pick cotton out of Wee Waa. Thick layers of mud sticking to your shoes as you trudge up and down the rows of cotton in the almost 100% humidity due to the combination of high temperatures and the conditions needed to grow the cotton in, ie lots of water.

    I just hope that they have machines now to do the jobs that the men, mainly Indigenous with the odd Swaggie like my husband, used to do, because it was back-breaking, hell-on-earth kind of stuff.

    My husband did it because he left home at 12 after his mother remarried and went out there every year to make enough money to support himself through high school. In the 1960s there weren’t many other industries that would take anyone of any age or colour to work for them. Correspondingly, the pay was very good for those times.

    It’s also how he ended up on Charlie Perkin’s ‘Freedom Bus’. He had seen, up close and personal, what the exploitation of Indigenous Australians looked like, he thought it had to change and he wanted to express his support for their cause.

    It was also a good way to get back to Sydney. 🙂

  43. SK:

    I think it’s best to let whatever went down lie. I hate it when other people arrive on a new day trying to revive tensions from the day before.

  44. Zoomster, the locals are complaining about the weather. Too cold and wet they say.

    FFS. This place normally jumps from winter wet and cold to summer freaking hot and dry – no spring or autumn weather. So enjoy it, I say, as the week long stretches of 40deg plus are just around the corner.

  45. Kellyanne Conway backpedals: Trump will release his tax returns after audit is completed

    President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway backpedaled on a statement she made on Sunday that Trump would not release his tax returns.

    “On taxes, answers (& repeated questions) are same from campaign: POTUS is under audit and will not release until that is completed,” tweeted Conway.

    http://www.businessinsider.com.au/kellyanne-conway-backpedals-trump-will-release-his-tax-returns-after-audit-is-completed-2017-1

  46. C@tmomma
    #1542 Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 9:48 am
    FWIW very, very few Orstrayans have ever seen a swaggie walking through a country town. The ones I saw passing through Leeton many years ago remain in my memory.
    Once a jolly swagman indeed.

  47. ‘fess.
    Fair enough. I only mentioned it as there were posts today referring to it that didnt really make sense to me.

    I can certainly live without knowing.

    The day is bright and crisp and I am off to the playground and cafe with the kids and a few other kids tagging along. Father Duck.

  48. White House press secretary Sean Spicer delivered his first briefing of Donald Trump’s presidency Monday, and CNN’s Reality Check Team monitored his statements and checked the claims.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/23/politics/sean-spicer-white-house-news-conference-fact-check/index.html?sr=fbpol012317sean-spicer-white-house-news-conference-fact-check1045PMVODtopLink&linkId=33697066

    Reality check as opposed to the more reserved ‘fact check’. Love it, so apt for Trump’s govt!!

  50. Simon Katich,
    Come to Adelaide to escape the heat? Never heard that said before.

    It won’t last. 😉

    However, thank you for the kind offer but I think I will carefully position myself between the godsend Air Con provided out of the goodness of GG and the Bludgers’ hearts and the TV, upon which will be the Tennis (hopefully not too hot in Melbourne today for them).

    Then later we are to get a thunderstorm, whereupon I will be bumped up into full fret mode as I wait to see whether a lightning strike on the ironstone ridge, upon which Chez Hillbilly is built, does it’s thing and lands a direct hit on my electrical wiring, jumps the circuit breaker and blows up the TV and the modem as I watch.

    It has happened before. 🙁

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