BludgerTrack quarterly breakdown: March 2017

A closer look at federal polling trends at state level, as Labor surges in Western Australia as One Nation loses some of its lustre.

Below is a detailed look at what the BludgerTrack poll aggregate is picking up at state level, enhanced now with Newspoll’s quarterly breakdowns, to add to the unpublished breakdowns provided by Essential Research and a few scattered results from Galaxy, ReachTEL and Ipsos. Of greatest note are the state election-fuelled blowout to Labor in Western Australia, and the apparent downturn for One Nation over the past month or two, not just in Western Australia but also in Queensland.

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.

1,002 comments on “BludgerTrack quarterly breakdown: March 2017”

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  2. CNN is doing its map ‘thing’ again – a couple of hours ago they had the Sinpo launch site located in the N-W of NK, now they have it on the S-E coast.

  3. Remember how it was commented upon yesterday that Trump is wanting to go back to an unreconstructed Intelligence, absent context and analysis, which will mirror Bush’s ‘Office of Special Plans’ so that war hawks could use it to shape foreign military incursions? Or how Trump has attempted to ban Muslims from countries which had nothing much to do with terrorism and let off the ones which could provide economic opportunities for America?

    Remember also that yesterday someone pointed out that China has stated that the Palestinians deserve their own State?

    Well, the guy who wrote this article for Vox, a founding Editor of ‘American Conservative’ magazine of all things, gives a perspective to one of the demographics who formed the coalesced coalition of voters who propelled Trump into the White House:

    http://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/4/14/15293136/syria-strikes-trump-war

    I could almost say that he mirrors a lot of the concerns that daretotread had about Hillary and the War Hawks and why Trump was considered the ‘safer’ option. Not that I could have ever agreed that that would ever have been true due to the obviously erratic and ill-considered, impulsive nature of Trump’s personality. Still it was interesting to read how those aspects of Trump were ignored and others that spoke to them were favoured.

    I just wish that people who thought this way hadn’t been so contemptuous of those of us who believed that Trump’s faults far-outweighed his ‘virtues’ 🙂

  4. ctar1 @ #902 Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 11:04 am

    CNN is doing its map ‘thing’ again – a couple of hours ago they had the Sinpo launch site located in the N-W of NK, now they have it on the S-E coast.

    They seem to be geographically challenged.
    I saw a screen shot at the time of Cyclone Debbie where they had Queensland in the west of Tasmania.
    I could only think they had confused it with Queenstown. 🙂

  5. The Washington Post seems to have gone a bit Daily Telegraph..

    Debunking The Washington Post’s Latest Outrageous Attacks On Social Security

    The Post sensationally – and inaccurately – claimed, in a recent front-page story entitled, “Disabled, or just desperate?”, that as many as one in three working-age Americans living in the nation’s rural communities are turning to disability benefits ……………………………The claim is part of his admitted campaign to convince his boss, Donald Trump, to break his promise not to cut Social Security. Soon after, The Washington Post released its now-discredited article, which implied that Social Security’s earned benefits were creating a culture of dependency and despair in the nation’s rural communities. Unfortunately, this story, part of a barely-concealed Post vendetta against Social Security, is only the opening salvo in what will be a series of articles.

    Not content with a serial, longform attack on those collecting their earned Social Security benefits, the Post’s Editorial Board used the error-riddled article as an excuse for an editorial calling for vague reforms (that is, benefit cuts) to these vital, but inadequately modest Social Security benefits.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/debunking-the-washington-posts-latest-outrageous-attacks_us_58f0de53e4b048372700d790

  6. I was travelling through Queenstown in 1994. Stopping at a corner shop, I was invited to sign two petitions:
    (a) Queenstown jobs for Queenstown people;
    (b) reintroduction of death penalty.

  7. Good morning all,

    Interesting development this morning re the failed missile launch. When does a launch become a launch ? When does it become a act of provocation ?

    What I do find interesting as well as a pure observer is the constant ” analysis ” of what Trump will do next ? Perhaps I have missed it but there seems to be very little concentration on and analysis ofwhat South Korea itself thinks of the latest Trump chest pumping. They have, obviously, the most skin in the game and while Trump engages in this bullshit just off their coastline thousands of miles away from his own country perhaps South Korea would be keen to have a whisper in the ear of the US. Has South Korea made any statements supporting a US response ? I have seen nothing from them. Easy for Trump to play his games when it is not the US in the immediate firing line from a North Korea brain fart. Trump is very brave with the lives of the citizens of another country.

    Cheers.

  8. I had forgotten about this crisis. We can only hope there is a William Perry lurking in the current White House.

    Former Defense Secretary William Perry on why we didn’t go to war with North Korea

    In 1994, the United States was on the brink of war with North Korea……………………The Pentagon drew up plans to destroy the facility with cruise missiles and F-117 Stealth fighters. William J. Perry, who as Defense secretary had drawn up the plan, ultimately decided not to proceed…………………. . Perry, now an 88-year-old professor emeritus at Stanford University, remains convinced that the Clinton administration did the right thing in averting military action,

    http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-fg-perry-north-korea-20170414-story.html

  9. [ I was travelling through Queenstown in 1994. Stopping at a corner shop, I was invited to sign two petitions:
    (a) Queenstown jobs for Queenstown people;
    (b) reintroduction of death penalty. ]

    So how fast did you leave Queenstown then??

  14. trog sorrenson @ #841 Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 8:22 am

    It is surprising that people as smart as Gates, Branson, Bloomberg, Bezos and others are still touting nuclear.

    Not if you assume their overriding interest is in seeing a reduction in C02 levels, and that they are willing to use all practical means of doing so. Then it makes perfect sense.

  15. itzadream @ #870 Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 9:40 am

    Those yellow tailed blacks ?looikeets, huge birds with calls like creaking doors, are actually cockatoos. I’m mad about them. We have heaps, and Banksias are their favourite. Also Hakeas. We’re trying to reestablish the smaller red tailed glossy black cockatoo by planting out She Oaks, courtesy of National Parks and Wildlife.

    Anyone else got Gang Gangs? Always in pairs, and around when the wattles go to seed.

    And lyrebirds – my sacred cows – are everywhere (edge of Morton National Park). Actually they do most damage, but forgiven all, with claws any excavator would be proud of.

    We also border Morton national park. We have gangs of gang gangs, plus all the other birds you mentioned. We particularly like our glossy blacks!

  18. I think it was Poroti the other day who suggested something on Pawleen based on the Dolly Parton song, “Jolene”.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m71Jbi7NkU

    Little did Poroti know, but reports are leaking out that Pawleen has decided that the Moslems are on the up and up and Western civilisation is doomed. Therefore, she has decided to become a fifth columnist, don the burka, and fight them from within. However, her chief of staff is not so sure. Here he is pleading with her to have second thoughts.

    Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen
    I’m begging of you please don’t join Islam
    Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen
    Please don’t become their number 1 fan
    :- (
    Your intellect is beyond compare
    With flaming locks of crimson hair
    With ivory skin and eyes that hate the Greens
    :- (
    Your smile is like a crocodile
    Your voice shrill like a dentist’s drill
    Don’t be a has-been to the cause, Pawleen
    :- (
    All covered up from head to toe
    At Party gigs for all we know
    Could lurk under that burk Gillian Triggs, Pawleen
    :- (
    And I can’t easily understand
    How you could blithely take that stand
    What’s wrong with pork-flavoured Easter Eggs, Pawleen
    :- (
    Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen
    I’m begging of you please don’t join Islam
    Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen
    Please don’t become their number 1 fan
    :- (
    When you make your choice of food
    Don’t let ‘em keep you fooled
    Remember your old favourites, Pawleen
    :- (
    Like pork snags fresh off the pan
    Don’t impose your self-styled ban
    On pork ribs, spam and pork crackling too, Pawleen
    :- (
    Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen
    I’m begging of you please don’t join Islam
    Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen, Pawleen
    Please don’t become their number 1 fan

  20. briefly @ #810 Saturday, April 15, 2017 at 10:54 pm

    Socrates
    Saturday, April 15, 2017 at 10:39 pm
    Briefly
    I agree the current GST structure is a perverse incentive to undertax mining, and should be changed (mining industry is 80% foreign owned). Even so, there is no excuse for WA’s royalties to be lower than other states and riddled with exemptions. Putting them up will also highlight the lack of federal policy attention.
    Who says they are riddled with exemptions? There’s a flat 7% ad valorem royalty on iron ore.
    Increasing the royalties means WA will be raising revenue here only to see it withheld by the Commonwealth and passed to others. It’s a dog of an idea when we have high unemployment, especially among the FIFO workforce. In the area where I live and work, FIFO workers number almost 40% of the labour force. We have the highest unemployment in a generation and falling household incomes. We have among the highest mortgage default rates in the country, very high vacancy rates and a declining property market. (There are as many houses for sale in Perth as there are in Sydney.) The working people of this area recorded a swing of around 20% to Labor in last month’s election.
    Really….the solutions to this do not lie here in WA. They lie with the Commonwealth.

    Like most Australian’s you’ve been badly misinformed about employment numbers in mining.

    Mining is a massively capital intensive operation, very few people are involved in the mining operation and the mine operators are working extremely hard to automate what little human operation is left on their sites.

    Mine sites operate a small permanent maintenance operation and during maintenance shutdowns there is a large spike in numbers for a week or two.

    The first mine sites I was on were the iron ore loading operations at Parker Point, East Intercourse Island and Cape Lambert, and in 2007 the entire train unloading, ore stockpiling and ship loading were fully automated. the only people on site were there for maintenance or construction. I’ve been on many since, and over the last 10 years there have been increasingly few workers on site for any purpose.

    The only substantial employment in mining occurs during the construction and abandonment (demolition) phase. That phase is over and WA is only going to see more unemployed FIFO workers as automation displaces the few workers who are left on mine sites.

    You are right that many of the solutions to states’ finances lies with the Commonwealth, however part of the solution is for all states to ensure that the Australian people get decent return for the extraction of minerals that we can only sell once.

    For the record I was born in and live in WA.

  21. kevjohnno @ #816 Saturday, April 15, 2017 at 11:19 pm

    +1 Poroti.
    We’ll see, but given that “the word” always seems to be that things are about to come to a head in the next week or two I’m starting to feel like asking “Are we there yet?”. I’d still bet on full term if anyone was running an impeachment pool. Like you I think Trump is a total idiot but that has never been an impediment to high office.

    Unfortunately I agree. As much as I’d like to see Trump removed from office, I very much doubt it’s going to happen.

    I employ someone in the US (Ohio) and I’ve asked for the local take on Trump and his response is there is a huge difference between how the very politically engaged see it versus how it is playing out in the overwhelming majority of the population. He’s still well supported among his base.

  24. Some of the mining practices in Western Tasmania sure stand in stark contrast to the beauty of the place.

    They mined asbestos for a fortunately brief time at Zeehan either before at the same time as Lang Hancock found the Witenoom Gorge.

  26. Acerbic Conehead,
    Brilliant as usual. I do think you should give Bryan Dawe a call. I hear he’s minus a partner. We need our satirists you know! 🙂

  27. Acerbic Conehead
    Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    We have got ourselves the songwriter. Now all that is needed is a band 🙂

  29. After more than 20 years of national competition policy in Australia, Dr Ben-David said it was time for a reappraisal. He said Australia’s relatively small population mostly spread over a small number of large cities meant competition had limits.

    This applied not just to energy, but also other areas including banking, insurance, supermarkets and petrol.

    “We should stop pretending we have a highly competitive market, and start to think about how we regulate the market for what it is, not what we would like it to be,” he said.

    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/households-being-lured-into-misleading-electricity-and-gas-deals-energy-watchdog-20170415-gvlgyw.html

  30. poroti,
    We have got ourselves the songwriter. Now all that is needed is a band

    I suggest Narns gets the call. 🙂

  31. These lazy, hazy days of Autumn are deceptive. They lull you into a false sense of security and get you to thinking you should wash and polish the car after the rain.

    Then, all you have to show for it is a clean car and a bent and broken body. 😉

  32. C@Tmomma

    Narns have a bit of musical talent then or has Narns confessed at some stage to having my level of musical talent…………zero ? 🙂

  34. Alec Baldwin returns to SNL as Trump holding ‘Elimination Night’ ceremony between Kushner and Bannon

    After patting himself on the back for dropping the MOAB — “It’s so big and fat it looks like me in my golf clothes,” he said

    Kushner, he said, looks nice in photos, whereas Bannon takes “the worst photos I’ve ever seen in my life.”

    Steve, I’m sorry, this is goodbye. Take him back to Hell,” said Trump,

    “Jared you are such an inspiration,” Trump said. “You’ve shown everybody if you’re born rich and marry my daughter, you can do anything you want. Now, just…fix everything.”

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/alec-baldwin-returns-to-snl-as-trump-holding-elimination-night-ceremony-between-kushner-and-bannon/

  35. ‘Shut up so I can apologize!’: Melissa McCarthy kills it as Sean Spicer the White House Easter Bunny

    “Shut up so I can apologize,” Spicer said. “You all got your wish this week, didn’t ya? Spicey finally made a mistake.”

    ‘Boo-hoo, what about the Holocaust centers?’ And yeah, I know they’re not called the Holocaust centers. Duh. I know that. I’m aware. I clearly meant to say concentration clubs, okay? Let it drop!”

    He then proceeded to perform the Easter story with puppets before wishing everyone a happy Easter and telling them to eat as much candy as they want “because it’s probably our last Easter on Earth.”

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/shut-up-so-i-can-apologize-melissa-mccarthey-kills-it-as-sean-spicer-the-white-house-easter-bunny/

  36. The Sydney Morning Herald
    2 mins ·
    Analysis: Whether Kim Jong-un follows up with a nuclear test or second missile launch, in the coming hours, or on April 25, the 85th anniversary of the creation of the Korean People’s Army, is yet to be seen.

  37. Shoot-from-the-lip Donald Trump needs to cool it, or this unpredictable, irrational and dangerous US President risks ­triggering World War III.

    Publicly threatening to attack North Korea is lunacy and would make firing missiles into Syria and dropping a monster bomb in Afghanistan look like an Easter stroll in the park.

    Nobody doubts the world would be a safer place without tyrant Kim Jong-un but Trump is stupidly feeding the nuclear-armed ­dictator’s paranoia and dicing with a confrontation with another superpower, China.

    The warning “conflict could break out at any moment” from China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, should make Trump stop and think.

    From the Mirroronline.

  38. poroti,
    Narns have a bit of musical talent then or has Narns confessed at some stage to having my level of musical talent…………zero ?

    Narns is a professional muso possessed of mucho musical talent. He even has videos on You Tube! 🙂

    His style is of a kind that many here would favour. A Country Rock thang.

  39. grimace @ #921 Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    As much as I’d like to see Trump removed from office, I very much doubt it’s going to happen.
    I employ someone in the US (Ohio) and I’ve asked for the local take on Trump and his response is there is a huge difference between how the very politically engaged see it versus how it is playing out in the overwhelming majority of the population. He’s still well supported among his base.

    Makes no difference how popular he is. If he’s broken any laws, he has to go.

  40. dan gulberry @ #939 Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 3:42 pm

    grimace @ #921 Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    As much as I’d like to see Trump removed from office, I very much doubt it’s going to happen.
    I employ someone in the US (Ohio) and I’ve asked for the local take on Trump and his response is there is a huge difference between how the very politically engaged see it versus how it is playing out in the overwhelming majority of the population. He’s still well supported among his base.

    Makes no difference how popular he is. If he’s broken any laws, he has to go.

    You seem to have a misguided view of our legal systems. 🙂

  41. Shoot-from-the-lip Donald Trump needs to cool it, or this unpredictable, irrational and dangerous US President risks ­triggering World War III.

    His first 100 days score card is going to be very interesting. That’s assuming he even gives one.

  43. C@Tmomma

    Excellent news. We should sent an invite to Pauline Pantsdown for a guest appearance in the video clip. I think Bushfire has the video skills.

  44. The impeachment, or not, of Trump is a calculated political exercise. Popularity and politics are all that matter.

    My very limited view of the situation is that’s it’s more likely than not that Trump and those close to him have broken a number of laws during the election. Trump very likely has several patsies set up to take the fall and will have done his best to cloud the issue of his personal involvement with a view to creating reasonable doubt in hypothetical future criminal proceedings.

    Should Trump be personally charged he’ll throw unlimited resources (in practice) at his defence and will probably get off because of it. Our legal system strongly favours those with immense resources with which to represent themselves.

  46. Trump is a toxic bundle of contradictions and he sounds increasingly unhinged.

    We want the US to show peaceful leadership, yet Trump behaves like a tin-pot commander-in-chief, playing into Kim’s hands with the spectre of a devastating Third World War in which there would be no winners, only losers.

  47. Because Victoria is off duty at Easter lunch, I have decided to fill her place. 🙂
    Here is Claude Taylor’s latest Tweet:

    Claude Taylor‏ @TrueFactsStated 2h2 hours ago
    More
    Comey is coming w/ a blizzard of indictments but that’s just the 1st wave. The 2nd is NY AG with RICO. On account of Trump being a mobster.

  48. Sky News Australia
    23 mins ·
    Opposition leader Bill Shorten says Australian taxpayers should not be providing a loan to Adani coal mine.

  49. grimace Sunday, April 16, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    The impeachment, or not, of Trump is a calculated political exercise. Popularity and politics are all that matter.

    Should Trump be personally charged he’ll throw unlimited resources (in practice) at his defence and will probably get off because of it.

    ***************************************

    Bill Maher – In America, you’re guilty until proven wealthy.

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