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”

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  1. Twitter’s alternative fact: Donald Trump tops the list of a**holes

    Eagle-eyed Twitter user Don Amaro has discovered that if you search Twitter for the word “a**hole” — or varities of that word with either fewer asterixes or more letters — the top result is Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

    http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/twitters-alternative-fact-donald-trump-tops-the-list-of-aholes/news-story/51f9702eb03c5afb829b7c709681f391

  2. Kay Jay,
    My late husband, on his travels as Australia’s youngest Swaggie, used to go from town to town and collect antique treasures from old, abandoned farmhouses, take them back to Sydney with him, restore them to their former glory and then sell them to grateful antique dealers. 🙂

  4. It seems we all might have an apology to make, as new research has confirmed that the appendix isn’t the useless waste of space that we all believed it to be.

    In fact, far from being redundant, it may well have actually been silently helping keep our immune system in check all these years.

    Can we get a refund on that appendectomy?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/01/22/turns-out-the-humble-appendix-actually-does-something/?utm_hp_ref=au-homepage

  5. It’s been suggested by one longtime critic of President Trump that he literally has no “real” friends at all in his life. At best, Trump deals in mutually beneficial alliances. As in the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

    One of Trump’s alleged recent friends was WikiLeaks. After all, he encouraged releases from the hacked DNC emails and denied Russian involvement, effectively punting credit, or blame, to the outfit launched by Julian Assange.

    Well, it appears as if that honeymoon is officially over. That’s because in a pair of tweets, WikiLeaks basically went to war with the president, putting out an open call for hackers, whistleblowers and leakers to send his tax returns to the transparency activism site:

    https://www.good.is/articles/wikileaks-trump-tax-returns

  7. Turnbull and the TPP: desperately pressing ahead despite negligible benefits

    TThis morning, Donald Trump formally withdrew America’s inclusion in the Trans Pacific Partnership. And yet so desperate is the Turnbull government to be seen to be doing something about the economy, and so blindly accepting is it of the benefits of trade agreements, that it remains determined to pursue a TPP even without the USA, and without any knowledge of whether such an agreement would benefit our economy.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/24/turnbull-and-the-tpp-desperately-pressing-ahead-despite-negligible-benefits

  8. A firm credited with helping Donald Trump win the US presidency by using unprecedented volumes of personal data to “determine the personality of every single adult” is contemplating an expansion into the Australian political arena.

    The subject of fascination, scepticism and concern in the 2016 US election, Cambridge Analytica was paid millions of dollars to create comprehensive “psychographic” profiles of Americans based on their basic details, consumer habits, social media activity and psychological traits.
    …
    The company amassed up to 5000 data points on every American adult and conducted hundreds of thousands of personality surveys, combining them to pinpoint millions of possible Trump voters. Their analysis of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – the rust-belt states that unexpectedly fell to the Republican candidate – proved prescient, while most traditional pollsters ended up on the wrong side of history.

    Cambridge Analytica chief executive officer Alexander Nix said big data was being used to do things considered impossible only five years ago. A better understanding of target audiences not only shapes political messaging but helps determine the allocation of campaign resources, which battleground electorates to visit and where to buy advertising .

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/cambridge-analytica-the-psychographic-data-firm-behind-donald-trump-eyes-australian-move-20161212-gt926e.html

  9. Now that the TPP is dead
    As we’ve noted, TPP is unlikely to come back from the dead, despite what some seem to think or hope. For example, the Japanese government has decided to go ahead and ratify TPP anyway. That seems foolish, since it has just thrown away most of its bargaining counters for other trade negotiations, in what amounts to an act of political seppuku. As Sean Flynn points out, Japan has form here, since it also ratified the infamous Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), just as pointlessly.

    One of the most important trade deals still under active discussion is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Techdirt first wrote about this 18 months ago, while recently we noted that many of its provisions are even worse than those in TPP. One aspect of RCEP that has received little attention so far is the corporate sovereignty chapter. The Transnational Institute (TNI) has put together a useful document looking at what it calls the “hidden costs” of including investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in RCEP. It provides an excellent summary of corporate sovereignty activity in Asia that complements a 2014 study from Friends of the Earth Europe, which looked at the same “hidden costs” of ISDS in Europe. Here are a few of the main findings for RCEP nations (pdf):
    from
    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161211/02272536245/study-shows-risks-including-corporate-sovereignty-other-huge-asian-trade-deal-rcep.shtml

  11. PhoenixRED

    POTUS is under audit and will not release until that is completed

    Without doubt he’ll dispute the outcome of the audit so the release of his tax returns won’t happen while he’s in office.

  13. norwester @ #1466 Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 2:51 am

    Kellyanne Conway’s fans probably knew this already, but I didn’t. Makes her recent performances even more amazing:
    https://mediamatters.org/research/2016/08/19/here-s-how-trump-s-new-campaign-manager-attacked-him-cable-news-pundit/212524

    It’s funny in a pathetic way.
    It just goes to show for some, politics is just a game where you sell your “integrity” to the highest bidder.

  14. “”Australian homeowners who have been sharing their homes for profit using Airbnb, or like services, could be subject to the same “robo-debt” recovery services that have targeted Centrelink recipients. “”
    If this government puts the same effort into using “robo-Tax” to recover tax being
    evaded by Multi Nationals and other businesses, the country would be rolling in cash!.

  16. For the second time in a year there has been a spate of deaths in the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot population at a captive breeding centre in Hobart.

    A common bacteria variety has killed up to 16 birds in the past month from a population of 136 at the Taroona facility.

    In January last year, rats got in and killed 14 parrots, which was described as “deeply disturbing” by the then federal environment minister Greg Hunt.

    In 2013, a cat breached a perimeter fence and startled two birds which died after flying into an aviary wall.

    Now, autopsies on four adults and a nestling in the government-run facility, as well as a nestling from Melaleuca, showed the dead birds tested positive to the bacteria pseudomonas aeruginosa.

    Orange-bellied parrots have previously died from the same bacterial infection at two mainland facilities.

    http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-24/infection-kills-16-endangered-orange-bellied-parrots/8205046?pfmredir=sm

  17. AD

    I noticed that as well.

    Is Ignatius saying that’s what the Trump official said or is it just a mistake by Ignatius himself?

    And 4 phone calls or 4 subjects? If it was 1 call with 4 distinct subjects it would not be unusual to split the original transcript into ‘bits’ for the purposes of disemination i.e. different people may only be given the ‘bits’ they need to know about rather than the whole.

  19. Boolenbach

    I did not know whether to laugh or cry at the Tom Engelheart piece. He is such a funny writer and cuts to the bone.

    it is however also an important article.

  20. Lizzie

    Sounds like nasty stuff:

    Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that can cause disease in plants and animals, including humans. A species of considerable medical importance, P. aeruginosa is a multidrug resistant pathogen recognised for its ubiquity, its intrinsically advanced antibiotic resistance mechanisms, and its association with serious illnesses – especially hospital-acquired infections such as ventilator-associated pneumonia and various sepsis syndromes.

  24. Essential federal poll

    TPP: ALP 54 (+1) L/NP 46 (-1)

    Primary: L/NP 35(-2) ALP 37(0) GR 10(0) NX 3(0) ON 9(+1) OTH 6(0)

    http://www.essentialvision.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Essential-Report_170124.pdf

    This is the first Essential poll for 2017 that has the normal 2 week rolling data & totals, last week only had 1 week’s data. The benchmark +/- is against 5 weeks ago. Note the questions on Australia day, a republic, trust in institutions, and Centrelink.

  25. That piece about the appendix is interesting which along with the discovery of a new organ and an extra sense makes school biology a tad outdated.

    Since someone posted about autism this morning (BK I think) do you recall the report from late last year re autism and lack of vitamin D? As a scientist this report ticked many boxes for me.

    First although there has been an increase in diagnosis of autism, there does seem to be an increase, especially in milder forms (anecdotal and gut feel only so if there are people with facts and figures feel free to correct).

    Assuming here is such an increase then you need to start looking at possible environmental factors. The ani-vaxers grabbed hold of this issue sadly but while association with vaccines unlikely (will have to abstain on those using mercury as a preservative), you still need to consider other possible causes.

    You need to look at environmental factors that have changed over the last 50 years – dietary, behavioural, atmospheric etc. Immediately if you understand this sort of thing possible culprits such as pesticides, herbicides, persistent organics, petroleum by-products, heavy metals spring to mind as possible causes.

    However behavioural and dietary changes also need to be considered also eg lack of exercise, increased sugar, even fluorescent light. However lack of vitamin D probably by mothers immediately seems to fit a bit like a jigsaw. fear of sunburn has been a trend since say mid 70s, so we would expect an increase in autism in children borne since that time. We would expect to see more autism in fair skinned families where the mother had been extra cautious about sun exposure and of course far more in families where the mother worked full time in an office environment, rarely getting outside even to hang the washing.

    Fascinating stuff.

  26. c@t

    Thanks for posting Keith Olbermann. He sums up precisely my thinking on Trump. Reason why I am clinging so much To the belief, he will be found to be guilty of treason, espionage or whatever. Anything to get him away for The levers of power. He is not mentally fit and my expectation is that the GOP Will wake up soon

  28. dtt

    I think the answer is more in the frequency of diagnosis.

    Anecdote alert! When I was about five, one of my friends had an autistic brother. Today, he would be considered at the extreme end of the scale – he ran around the house naked, defecating on the floor, etc.

    Autism was considered so unusual that his mother had written a book about him, which had made her mildly famous, and his was the only case of autism I ever heard of growing up.

    Tim Fischer – the former Deputy Prime Minister – lives locally and has an autistic son. Fischer says that, now he knows what the autism spectrum is, he recognises that he suffered from mild autism (and hence the ‘Two Minute Tim’ moniker).

    Nowadays he would be diagnosed and show up as a statistic, instead of only the extreme cases, such as my friend’s brother, being recognised.

  29. Now makes sense that Conway went out and said yes, the Donald WILL release his tax returns as soon as audit is finito

    …. Trump will very likely be scared of wikileaks — between them, and the threats from Anonymous (who has access to the “dark net”) he would know the jig would be up fairly quick.

  31. Good to see Kay Jay and Cat back on good terms.

    If only some others here were able to deal with their disagreements so swiftly and effectively.

  34. Wouldn’t it be great to get a Newspoll confirming that 54-46 from Essential.

    The panic in the LNP would be palpable, if it isn’t already.

  35. I loved that video of Turnbull and Lucy on the train to Campbelltown being studiously ignored by the commuters. Ratsak would too (being from around that neck of the woods). 🙂

  36. When I was a boy I thought my knees were unsightly and knobbly and for that reason did not like to wear shorts.
    Now that I am in my early 40’s I really like shorts and, in particular, the ones with mickey duck or goofy and the like.
    I must now confess that I like knees, I suppose that knee bone connected to the thigh bone etc.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLi55MV04a8
    Now please are there any other knee bone admirers out there ❓

  37. Given the blathering on about the TPP, I’d say that their is already some panic at LNP HQ. They’d sign anything at all to show that they’re “doing” something.

  38. VP

    They’d sign anything at all to show that they’re “doing” something.

    They rabbit on about having a Plan, but act as if they don’t know what the word means. It’s all farcical.

  40. DTT
    ” The ani-vaxers grabbed hold of this issue sadly but while association with vaccines unlikely (will have to abstain on those using mercury as a preservative),”

    It’s true that vaccines used to contain a preservative called thiomersol, which contains mercury. Thiomersal was included in vaccines in trace amounts, and there is no evidence that thiomersol is toxic at these amounts. It was phased out of vaccines for publicity reasons (not health reasons) – people freaked out when they heard the word ‘mercury’.
    Mercury is indeed highly toxic. A lot of elements are toxic (e.g. sodium, chlorine, iron). But the mercury in thiomersol is no more hazardous that the sodium and chlorine in sodium chloride (table salt); or the iron in haemoglobin.

  41. My new best friend from Telstra rang me back pretending he needed my drivers license number.
    I don’t have a driver’s license. I do have a photo card issued by the DMV
    Roads and Marine Services.
    My new friend pretended he didn’t know what a Photo Card is which prolonged the conversation delightfully.
    Dear Cynthia, is it too soon to invite him for coffee and biscuits ❓

  42. TPP: ALP 54 (+1) L/NP 46 (-1)
    .
    Loverly set of numbers. Oh to see 1 more % . The fun and games that would cause would be a wonder to behold. Schadenfreude party here we come.

  44. Poroti

    If the numbers get any worse Truffles will feel he must Do something Drastic, so perhaps it’s better they stay where they are. I’d prefer not to go to war with anyone. 😉

  45. vogon poet @ #1589 Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 11:38 am

    KJ,
    Does Nova Peris-Kneebone count ?

    With great, great respect to the lovely lady. You clever so and so. Before I turned 40 I was clever and my daughters hardly lie at all when confirming this. Why they giggle and turn away I know not. Have you been publish on Vogon? What is a Vogon? Is it one of those big moths?

  47. I am out on a limb with fellow followers on Geopolitics, but I do believe an isolationist US will create a vacuum that could (could!) be occupied by a resurgence in liberalism between other States.

    I believe this would suit the Chinese just fine and they will be a guiding, if not leading partner in this push. Australia should too – and that is why I am far more favourable now of the TPP 12-1+others V2.02 than the previous TPP.

    As a footnote, I can see Europe joining such a thing – especially with China pushing so hard to open up new trade routes to Europe.

    Isolationism isnt what it used to be.

  48. Based on last week’s Essential numbers I’d say this week was pretty bad for L/NP, especially LIB. Last week’s poll had LIB at 35PV and this week combine PV is 33, indicating that this week’s sample is around 31PV for LIB.

    2PP for this week’s sample was probably around 45 for the L/NP.

  49. A 54-46 Newspoll to Labor would likely make the Conservatives think that the Moderate Liberal experiment had failed and that, in the Age of Trumpism, a more populist and Conservative line would be the one to take. Even though a ’54’ to Labor would tend to suggest the opposite, especially as Malcolm Turnbull had basically assumed the Conservatives position and that has been what has seen him go down in the public’s estimation.

    Anyway, it’s the unity on the Right that is fraying (Pauline Hanson, Bernardi’s vanity project, the Monkey Podders, the lunatic Right White Nationalist Fringe + Danny Nahliah 😉 ), and so what will likely play out, as Trump’s project becomes a global embarrassment, is that the Right will be in disarray. Labor, on the other hand, will be seen as the united, coherent alternative. The Greens will still be there with their carefully-calculated appeal to a certain demographic, that will never likely see their support rise above 10%. So that’s the Left, fairly united.

    Until Nick Xenophon sniffs the breeze and goes from attempting to appeal to electors from the Right hand side, to the Left. 😀

  50. KJ,

    Vogons are one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy – not actually evil, but bad tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without an order, signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. If you want to get a lift from a Vogon, forget it. They are vile and ill tempered. If you want to get a drink from a Vogon, stick your finger down his throat. If you want to annoy a Vogon, feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

    Vogon poetry is, of course, the third worst in the universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their poet master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning”, four of the audience members died of internal hemorrhaging and the president of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived only by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos was reported to have been “disappointed” by the poem’s reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his 12-book epic entitled “My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles” when his own large intestine – in a desperate attempt to save life itself – leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain. The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex, in the destruction of the planet Earth. Vogon poetry is mild by comparison.

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