BludgerTrack: 53.0-47.0 to Labor

Movement to the Coalition and Malcolm Turnbull after a better-than-usual result from Essential Research.

Slight movement back to the Coalition on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week after a soft result for Labor from Essential Research, which together with a Queensland-only result from Galaxy was the only new federal poll this week. This causes a 0.3% cut in the Labor primary vote and two losses on the seat projection – one in New South Wales and one in Queensland. Essential also had leadership ratings this week, and while the weak result for Bill Shorten hasn’t made too much difference to the poll aggregate reading, the difference is sufficient to put Malcolm Turnbull back in the lead on net approval.

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.

1,228 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.0-47.0 to Labor”

Comments Page 2 of 25
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  2. Fess:

    I dont think even Kerry O’Brien or Sarah Ferguson could get much out of any pollie now. They will refuse to engage with the questions they dont like etc “dont accept that assumption” “fake news”

  3. So Frydernberg admits power prices will go up.

    Can anybody tell me if power prices ever went down?

    They best we used to be able to hope for was in the days when State Governments were sole providers of electricity prices did not go up as much in an election year.

    Back in the 70s when I lived in rural WA, country people paid more per unit than city folk and there was a strong campaign for pricing parity.

    Charles Court eventually gave us pricing parity, by raising city prices to match the country.

    That, obviously, was not what the campaigners had in mind.

  4. ‘3. It is just nonsense to single out any single program, such as NDIS, and say it is unfunded and imply everything else is funded. ‘

    Somebody non political was talking about this the other day, pointing out that defence spending is never ‘unfunded’, and I wondered why Labor doesn’t point this out on a consistent basis.

  6. Ides:

    The fake news stuff is just a way to try to discredit and shut down the media. I hope our govt doesn’t pursue that line. Parody is also a great way of cutting through, which is why I find the late night comedians in the US such great analysis of politics.

  7. Ides of March (and Rex)

    I don’t agree that Shorten has “shit delivery”. It WAS pretty shit when he first took over, with too many ums an aahs, but it improved greatly in the early part of last year and he was very effective during the July 2 election (which is reflected in the fact that he won 14 seats).

    It is also reflected in the current state of Bludgertrack which indicates that an election held now would produce a Labor government with a clear majority. Not bad considering that just over twelve months ago the Liberals were leading 54/46 IIRC and Labor was heading for an absolute thrashing.

  8. frednk @ #5 Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 7:49 am

    Bemused
    I you want to get cars off the rad Perth have got it wrong.
    In Melbourne the commute takes less time by train; it is that simple.

    Where have I said otherwise.
    As far as I can see we are in furious agreement on that.
    The issue in some contention is how do you get train passengers to the station? Do you build endless carparks at stations or do you try to offer a public transport alternative? I am not in a position to do the necessary research, but I really would like to see a trial conducted using a small fleet of regular shuttle busses within the catchment area of a suburban station. They have to be regular and with a short duration journey or it won’t work. That is why the present suburban busses do not really meet the need.

  9. Morning all

    Fess

    I caught up with Bill Maher. Thanks again. Milo Y was as expected, a tosser.
    I took particular note of the former Intell guy, and he expressed precisely why I have the view that Trump was in serious shit. He talked about then Fisa Warrants that I have mentioned in past. These are not your run of the mill warrents

  10. CNN Politics
    6 mins · Silver Spring, MD, United States ·
    President Donald J. Trump begins a rally in Melbourne, Florida by slamming the media. “I also want to speak to you without the filter of the fake news,” he says. cnn.it/2l7kSqZ

    He’s apparently calling this a campaign rally. Bizarre.

  13. Vic:

    Yep I also took note of the ex intell guy. It’s also worth remembering that the FBI has 3 separate investigations into the Russian hacking.

  16. Fess:

    Ive already seen it occuring in Australia. Its prominent on QANDA to say “i’ll take that as a comment” to try and deflect. Xenophons stunt the other day to write fake on The Oz.

    As for Trump, I read he already filed his application for 2020. I cant remember the full details but there was something about being able to take donations already and tax write-offs.

    Darn:

    Shorten has definitely inproved. However his delivery is still pretty shit which is dissapointing when Labor has some policies I think are pretty decent. Can we agree at least the zingers are gone?

  17. guytaur:

    Clearly Trump finds this governing business too hard and he’d rather be holding rallies where he can just promise without having to deliver.

  18. guytaur @ #24 Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 9:01 am

    P1
    Read and learn.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/australia-positioned-to-be-renewable-energy-superpower-20170216-guf55r.html

    I read that article. While I generally respect Ross Garnaut, I am afraid this is not his shining moment …

    “Nowhere in the developed world are solar and wind resources together so abundant as in the west-facing coasts and peninsulas of southern Australia. South Australian resources are particularly rich…

    Yes, WA and SA are “good to go” with solar and wind. Which is of course why they are already getting a significant proportion of their minute energy requirements from renewables. Just a shame they have no industry there – it is nearly all in the east. Still, losses from transmission over such distances would only be about 15% (SA) or 30% (WA). In fact, WA is getting close to the maximum practical distance for high voltage transmission. Perhaps we could charge batteries in WA, truck them over to NSW, then return the empties? I mean, SA already has bottle recycling – surely this is just the same thing on a bigger scale?

    “Play our cards right, and Australia’s exceptionally rich endowment per person in renewable energy resources makes us a low-cost location for energy supply in a low-carbon world economy.

    Now this is good – “per person”! Read that as (“we have a heap of unused desert per person that could be used for solar … assuming people were willing to move there, of course!)

    “That would make us the economically rational location within the developed world of a high proportion of energy-intensive processing and manufacturing activity.

    Umm. In the developed world? So would presumably exclude both China and India, who will continue to have much cheaper power than we will? Because not only are they going to continue to burn coal (cheap!) but they are also investing in renewables at a scale we simply cannot contemplate (scale!). Not to mention that their labour costs are a fraction of ours.

    “Play our cards right, and Australia is a superpower of the low-carbon world economy.”

    Now on this point he may be right … except that (sadly) most of us won’t live to see it.

  22. player one @ #32 Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 9:23 am

    From BK’s links …

    The NSW government has confirmed that it did not check whether Australian employees were suitable to fill 32 computer software jobs, which its contractor filled using overseas workers. Nice.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/nsw-government-passes-the-buck-over-hiring-of-it-workers-on-457-visas-20170207-gu7hpk.html

    Anyone in the industry will tell you this has been going on on a significant scale for decades now. All the big consulting companies (I have worked for several) have been quietly slipping in cheaper overseas personnel to replace qualified local staff. There was no shortage of IT skills in Australia – but if there isn’t by now then there soon will be, as locals have been forced out of the industry in droves.

    Well, at last something I can agree with P1 on.
    This is absolutely scandalous!
    Now there is concern about young people choosing not to study IT. Is it any wonder?
    A good quote from that article:

    NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge asked the Department of Finance for the labour market testing but it was unable to provide it saying this was the responsibility of the contractors.

    “The Coalition have now got to the point where they are even outsourcing their outsourcing,” Mr Shoebridge said.

    “Without any oversight by the state government they have allowed a low-wage multinational to decide for itself there were no skilled local workers to do government IT work.

    “We know this is rubbish and that there are a bunch of locally-trained workers, it’s just that this is a multinational that doesn’t want to pay them a fair wage. Their entire business model is based on undercutting local wages and conditions.”

    Mr Shoebridge said Australian residents trained in IT skills had a right to feel betrayed.

    “Of course Infosys is going to say there are no suitably qualified local workers because they make their profit by bringing in low wage workers in the first place,” he said.

    “This is why it is so outrageous that the Coalition government has washed its hands of doing the market testing itself.

    “This is the solution they wanted because it is all about cost saving and for them the hundreds of unemployed locals are just expendable.”

    A state government spokesman confirmed it did not conduct any market testing on the use of 457 visas because this was not part of contract negotiations.

    “The direct employment of staff by contract vendors is the responsibility of those suppliers,” the spokesman said.

    Victor Dominello, the Minister for Finance, Services and Property, said in line with Department of Immigration and Border Protection requirements “any 457 visa holders working for GovConnect are employed to meet critical skills shortages”.

    Fairfax Media contacted Infosys for comment but received no response. Unisys said it had not employed any workers on 457 visas.

    I started my IT career working for a multi-national employing almost 100% Australian staff and providing any necessary training.

    Now, Indian multi-nationals like Infosys, Tata, Wipro etc employ mainly Indian nationals either in Australia or offshore doing the work once done by Australians. They just need a few Australians for some of the client facing roles and a token number elsewhere.

    4C exposed how they do not even try to employ Australians before picking up the phone and having someone on the plane from India.

    457s in industries such as IT are just a scam and should be done away with.

  23. Fess:

    I 100% agree with you on pollie free QANDA. Normally the ones during Science Week or Sydney Writers/Festival of Dangerous Ideas are good. I also thought that barring one insidious token anti pollie, the episode hosted by Tom Ballard was great as well.

  25. Good descriptor of what Trump is doing……..

    1m
    Eric Garland‏ @ericgarland
    Other traitors betrayed certain interests or weakened us in battle.

    Trump aimed to destroy our entire democracy.

    He is a putrid villain.

    14

    26

    2m
    Eric Garland‏ @ericgarland
    Trump is attacking the media because that’s how you are going to hear that he’s the greatest traitor in our history.

    Nothing more to it.

    53

    115

    Eric Garland Retweeted

    32m
    Olivia Nuzzi‏ @Olivianuzzi
    The president of the United States is using a campaign rally to attack the free press. Democracy itself is under threat.

  26. Don’t know where to start on Insiders, whether it’s Frydenberg’s readily confirmable lies about the costs of coal and carbon capture and storage, or Labor’s ineptitude in tackling such a political gimme as this.
    1) “Clean coal” i.e. super critical coal is only marginally “cleaner” than old technology power stations.
    2) CCS has been on the books for many years, but has received no interest from the generators because they know damn well it is prohibitively expensive because of the additional power requirement to capture and liquify the CO2
    3) Frydenberg is in fact saying that we will take a technology that has no interest or possible financial support i.e. super critical coal and add yet another unsupportable cost i.e. carbon capture and storage, add it on top and this is a solution.
    And Shorten and Bowen are too fucking clueless to rip this obvious stupidity apart.
    Looks like the Labor hacks are rapidly backing off sensible, cost effective policy in this area, and this is a disaster for Australia economically and for the planet.

  28. darn @ #47 Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 9:43 am

    I simply can’t understand this set!
    http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/more-than-20-drug-overdoses-at-melbourne-dance-party-many-critical-20170218-gug4vk.html

    Neither can I BK. I find myself asking more and more, why should we keep worrying about these idiots. They get more than enough warning about the dangers of what they are doing and still they persist. There’s only so much you can do to try and protect morons from themselves. You reach the stage where it is hard to find any sympathy for them.
    When a tragedy inevitably strikes (as it may well do here) the people I feel for most are the bereaved loved ones who have to live the rest of their lives with an ache in their hearts that will never go away.

    Well said Darn.
    The agony endured by parents, siblings and friends caused by their behaviour is indescribable. It is the only reason I see for wasting precious hospital resources on these selfish morons.

  29. Ides:

    The concept of Qanda when it first started was a good one, but now it’s just used to generate outrage and make the news headlines the next day.

  32. adrian @ #54 Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 9:54 am

    ‘3. It is just nonsense to single out any single program, such as NDIS, and say it is unfunded and imply everything else is funded. ‘
    Somebody non political was talking about this the other day, pointing out that defence spending is never ‘unfunded’, and I wondered why Labor doesn’t point this out on a consistent basis.

    I am in furious agreement.

  33. Scary given the global uncertainty in the Trump era:

    When North Korea tested a missile that fell harmlessly into the sea this month, it was more than just an attempt by its 33-year-old leader, Kim Jong-un, to jolt a new American president. Arms experts observed something new: solid-fuel technology that makes such missiles easier to hide and launch quickly. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has progressed in four areas that bear watching: arsenal size, bomb strength, missile technology and ability to elude detection.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-threat.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

  35. Like others I just do not understand the pill popping culture at music events.

    Alcohol was always my drug of choice and at times of my life I have drunk too much of it. Age has brought more sober habits.

    But I never bought a beer wondering if the first mouthful might kill me.

  37. What Shorten should have said.

    Well Sabra, I am not going to be drawn into any cheap journalistic gotchas about the price of fixing the Australian power system. The issues are complex, we are working on a solution, and will have detailed costings before the next election.
    What we do know is this; Australians understand that once you pay off the costs of solar and wind that the ongoing fuel costs are zero, so power prices will drop. On the other hand the Coalition are pushing a crazy scheme promoting “clean coal” which in fact will push power prices through the roof and will do absolutely nothing prevent climate change, destruction of the reef and the dangerous weather events we are now seeing everywhere. Labor want to get power prices down, provide jobs in energy sector, and we want to protect the planet while providing genuine energy security”.

  39. Trog, a few fays ago i listened to a ‘grid executive’ (not sue who) explaining that they should be allowed to tap into all that rooftop solar being installed, even with batteries in place. Even if they ‘promise’ to pay market rates I can see them taking the energy when the price is low and then feeding energy back to the householder when the price is high.

    I do not trust them at all to be fair to consumers.

  41. trog sorrenson @ #76 Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 10:28 am

    CCS has been on the books for many years, but has received no interest from the generators because they know damn well it is prohibitively expensive …

    Now, it just seems odd to me that you would raise this point, because whenever I raise something similar, the response of the alt-left is to scream “but just wait – it will get cheaper!”. But of course if I were to say that here you would then probably respond “but not fast enough!”

    But still, I guess I could then always resort to the favorite argument of the alt-left – i.e. “your information is out of date!”

  42. Booleanbach

    I do not trust them at all to be fair to consumers.

    I wouldn’t trust them either. What is needed is for the market to be opened up so that anyone can trade electricity with anyone else. Existing power companies would be on a level playing field with Booleanbach – or even P1.

  44. Umm…what?!

    BuzzFeed Oz Politics
    12 mins ·
    Energy minister confirms he’s looking at changing the rules around Australia’s “green bank” so it can fund coal fired power stations.

    The ‘green bank’ is supposed to fund clean energy, otherwise what’s the point of it being a green bank?

  45. Rossmcg @ 9.20am,
    It is reported in WA this morning that Turnbull will tell us later today that money for freeways cannot be diverted to rail if labor wins the state election.

    The first thing that jumped out at me after reading this was that there must be something in the Constitution wrt the Sovereign power of the States to make their own decisions about what they do with Commonwealth monies that could deep six this assertion by Turnbull (?)

    Also, hasn’t precedent been set already by the Andrews government in Victoria that the money ‘hypothecated’ by Abbott for the EW Link could, indeed, be used by the State government for their Rail projects?

    There is also a voice in the back of my mind saying that Liberal State governments, when Labor were in government federally between 2007 and 2013, thumbed their noses at attempts by Labor to tell them what to do with Commonwealth Government Grant monies?

    I may be completely wrong, of course, and it wouldn’t be the first time, as I haven’t put in the research time to prove it, but, if I were the WA Labor Party I wouldn’t stand for Turnbull flouncing in to my State election and making those sort of announcements, IF it could be proven he doesn’t have the right to do it. At the very least, even if it has to be dependent upon a High Court Challenge or somesuch, they can at least shoot it down on Day 1 as an idea until such time as the matter is decided.

    Lawyers on board please feel free to shoot me down in flames if you already know the answer. 🙂

  46. trog sorrenson @ #87 Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 10:41 am

    What Shorten should have said.

    Well Sabra, I am not going to be drawn into any cheap journalistic gotchas about the price of fixing the Australian power system. The issues are complex, we are working on a solution, and will have detailed costings before the next election.
    What we do know is this; Australians understand that once you pay off the costs of solar and wind that the ongoing fuel costs are zero, so power prices will drop. On the other hand the Coalition are pushing a crazy scheme promoting “clean coal” which in fact will push power prices through the roof and will do absolutely nothing prevent climate change, destruction of the reef and the dangerous weather events we are now seeing everywhere. Labor want to get power prices down, provide jobs in energy sector, and we want to protect the planet while providing genuine energy security”.

    How can an opposition provide costings when so many of the investment decisions are in the hands of the private sector?
    The basis of the question is nonsensical. Which kind of undermines part of your proposed response.

  47. booleanbach @ #89 Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 10:41 am

    Trog, a few fays ago i listened to a ‘grid executive’ (not sue who) explaining that they should be allowed to tap into all that rooftop solar being installed, even with batteries in place. Even if they ‘promise’ to pay market rates I can see them taking the energy when the price is low and then feeding energy back to the householder when the price is high.
    I do not trust them at all to be fair to consumers.

    One thing I have been expecting for a while is for consumers to be penalized for going off-grid. Like water and sewage, you will be hit with an annual fee if the grid passes your house, whether or not you are connected.

  48. P1

    Now, it just seems odd to me that you would raise this point, because whenever I raise something similar, the response of the alt-left is to scream “but just wait – it will get cheaper!”.

    CCS is not so much a technology as an engineering solution – a bit like geothermal power.
    It cannot get cheaper than a certain point because it is constrained by the thermodynamics of energy intensive liquification of the gas – without even considering costs of transport, sequestration etc.
    Also.
    Your frequent references to the alt-left is inane. The term alt-left is actually a creation of the alt-right.
    Unless, of course, you consider yourself from the alt-right?

  50. The wowserism evident today is extraordinary.

    MDMA, eg, is quite a safe drug, and if it were controlled and regulated so that people taking it knew what was in their pill and how concentrated, then it would be safer than most other things people do for ‘enjoyment’.

    You’re not going to make the world safer and happier by tut-tutting at young people. You are going to make the world safer and happier by abandoning this war on drugs and making sure people know what they are taking.

    And let’s see if this gets through … 4 posts in a row of mine lost today by PB.

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