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poll aggregate is picking up at state level, enhanced now with Newspoll’s quarterly breakdowns, to add to the unpublished breakdowns provided by Essential Research and a few scattered results from Galaxy, ReachTEL and Ipsos.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”

Comments Page 3 of 21
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  2. A very good ‘Conversation Hour’ on ABC 774 with Billy Bragg who has much more substance to him than I used to think. He is far more than a mere songwriter and musician.
    The program is recorded an placed on the website for later listening.

    I hope this post does not cause Adrian too much anguish to hear such things are broadcast by the ABC.

  3. Is anyone else concerned that Trump’s sudden change of tune on NATO means he’s decided to start a large-scale conflict and drag every U.S. ally along with him?

  5. Things in Australian Tax Law that need to be dealt with:

    48 Australians who earned more than $1m in 2014-5 payed zero tax it has been revealed.

    Nineteen reduced their taxable income to zero by claiming a combined $20.2m for the “cost of managing tax affairs” – nearly $1.1m each.

    Nine claimed gifts or donations worth $27.5m to help them do so.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/12/forty-eight-australians-who-earned-more-than-1m-in-2014-15-paid-no-income-tax

    Note these two points:

    * As well as paying no income tax none of them paid the Medicare levy i.e. paid nothing for the use of government provided services and contributed nothing to government health, education, welfare or any other government provided services.

    * The tax office says the “cost of managing tax affairs” includes the cost of getting tax advice from a registered tax agent, barrister or solicitor, the cost of preparing and lodging tax returns and activity statements, and the cost of court appeals – Yep, even the cost of their appeals against ATO tax assessments are paid for by the rest of us who do pay tax.

    This is all part of the ‘Sovereign Citizen’ bulls#it i.e. about tax avoidance by individuals and the selling of tax avoidance schemes.

    Their donations to ‘charities’ are generally to organisations that provide no services or assistance to people in need.

  6. ‘Laura Tingle‏Verified account @latingle · 46m46 minutes ago

    It’s the planet, Stupid (or how John Clarke made journalists redundant) ‘

    The wonderful John Clarke played his part, but mostly it has been journalists making themselves redundant.

  7. Read this interesting synopsis about the Middle East . Can’t find name of author but rings true.
    “Here’s a brief explanation of what’s going down in Syria.
    Back in 2000, Saudi Arabia (Quatar) proposed 2 oil pipelines. The purpose was to bring Natural Gas from the middle East to western Europe. They were labeled plan A and plan B.
    Plan A ran through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and Syria.
    Plan B bypassed Syria, instead going through Iraq.
    Plan A is the easiest and most direct route, with the most profits for US and European allies.
    Assad, the leader of Syria and a strong ally of Russia, blocked the plan A pipeline. This lead the US and NATO forces to look at plan B, which prompted the invasion of Iraq to make them complicit in the construction.
    Russia does not want this pipe built at all, as they export 70% of their natural gas product to Europe, and this pipeline would hurt their economy. They enlist Iran to help block plan B, and Syria to block plan A.
    Russia begins sending aid to Assad, to help him keep power during the civil war, so they can continue to block the pipeline. The US and NATO forces send aid to the rebels, so they can over throw Assad and build the pipeline unhindered.
    So, basically, here’s the boiled down version. The US and Russia are in a proxy war in Syria over a pipeline which would end European dependency on Russian natural gas, so Europe would be free (er) to back sanctions and possible military actions against Russia if the need ever arose.
    Our involvement in Syria has nothing to do with humanitarian aid or chemical weapons. It has to do with money, oil, and ending Russian dominance in the European energy market.
    Keep your eyes open. And keep looking deeper.”

  8. ctar1 @ #105 Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 12:18 pm

    Things in Australian Tax Law that need to be dealt with:

    48 Australians who earned more than $1m in 2014-5 payed zero tax it has been revealed.
    Nineteen reduced their taxable income to zero by claiming a combined $20.2m for the “cost of managing tax affairs” – nearly $1.1m each.
    Nine claimed gifts or donations worth $27.5m to help them do so.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/12/forty-eight-australians-who-earned-more-than-1m-in-2014-15-paid-no-income-tax
    Note these two points:
    * As well as paying no income tax none of them paid the Medicare levy i.e. paid nothing for the use of government provided services and contributed nothing to government health, education, welfare or any other government provided services.
    * The tax office says the “cost of managing tax affairs” includes the cost of getting tax advice from a registered tax agent, barrister or solicitor, the cost of preparing and lodging tax returns and activity statements, and the cost of court appeals – Yep, even the cost of their appeals against ATO tax assessments are paid for by the rest of us who do pay tax.
    This is all part of the ‘Sovereign Citizen’ bulls#it i.e. about tax avoidance by individuals and the selling of tax avoidance schemes.
    Their donations to ‘charities’ are generally to organisations that provide no services or assistance to people in need.

    The thing with this is, if these deductions are real how are these people able to live?

    Surely for this to occur they should be in just as much financial difficulty as any other low wage person.

  10. BiGD

    ‘Family Trusts’ rate high in ways to do so.

    WWP, I think, would be very much more knowledgeable on this stuff than I am.

  12. On housing policy, negative gearing and CGT discounts Labor needs to be careful not go get sucked into detail and loose people.

    They should stick to saying that the purpose of the housing market is to efficiency house people and that it is not a wealth creation vehicle, it’s not a retirement savings mechanism and it’s not to be used as a method of minimising tax. They can finish by pointing out that rising property values benefit only people with one house, for all others it’s a zero sum game which only results in higher council and water rates.

  16. Gladys is the same as Mal the Magnificent. Captive to the hard right in the party.

    Let’s hope that Labor can get it’s act together in NSW.

  20. @ Barney in Go Dau

    Without reservation we need to have a crackdown on people with extremely high gross earning who end up paying no tax. We also need to crack down on family trusts as a methodology of reducing taxable incomes. It’s a disgrace that these individuals are able to get away without paying their fair share of tax.

    The cost of managing tax affairs, including the cost of court appeals has always been a deductible expense and is accessed by everyone who uses a tax agent to complete their income tax return. The criteria for a given cost to be deductible is for it to be a necessary business expense, i.e., business class flights for a company are a deductible expense even though there are cheaper ways of achieving the same outcome. Given these individuals are reducing their million dollar incomes to the point where their taxable income is zero or near zero, I’d be interested to interrogate whether or not the cost of managing their tax affairs is a necessary business expense. Specifically, are they personally being billed for the cost of managing tax affairs of entities they control in order to artificially reduce their own income tax bill?

    If they are getting a tax deduction for a donation to a charity, then the said charity has been given Deductible Gift Recipient Status by the ATO and presumably meets the criteria for that. If they don’t, then it’s a matter between the ATO and that charity, not between the taxpayer and the charity.

  21. I think that if most of the benefits of negative gearing went to people on lower incomes; then the Liberals, courtesy of News Corp, would have cracked down on it by now.

  23. William writes, ‘A closer look at federal polling trends at state level, as Labor surges in Western Australia as One Nation loses some of its lustre.’
    Yeah.
    Nacreous pearls before us swine.

  24. CTar1

    I’m keeping stumm on errors at the moment because the colder weather has affected my hands and my own typos are legion!

  33. I was just polled by Reachtel on my mobile and was given a choice to participate in one of four short polls. I chose the fourth option for politics and gave my first preference to the Labor Party.

    The poll then went on to ask me about learning about how I could support one of four charities, there was not an option for “none of the above”. To end the survey I pressed a random number and now I’m going to get pestered in the next few days about donating.

    Anyone know what is behind this survey?

  35. grimace @ #133 Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 1:45 pm

    I was just polled by Reachtel on my mobile and was given a choice to participate in one of four short polls. I chose the fourth option for politics and gave my first preference to the Labor Party.
    The poll then went on to ask me about learning about how I could support one of four charities, there was not an option for “none of the above”. To end the survey I pressed a random number and now I’m going to get pestered in the next few days about donating.
    Anyone know what is behind this survey?

    I got that one too and just hung up where you pressed a random number.

  36. BK – maybe the pro abortionists should take a ‘religious’ approach to it and invoke the Monty Python ditty ?

    Every sperm is sacred
    Every sperm is great
    If a sperm is wasted
    God gets quite irate.

  39. ‘cost of court appeals has always been a deductible expense’

    I think that should only be the case if the appeal is successful in MO. In fact I believe if the appeal fails the person should also pay the costs of the ATO.

    This would concentrate the minds of the would be tax dodger as to whether the appeal is worthwhile.

  40. bemused @ #102 Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 11:56 am

    A very good ‘Conversation Hour’ on ABC 774 with Billy Bragg who has much more substance to him than I used to think. He is far more than a mere songwriter and musician.
    The program is recorded an placed on the website for later listening.
    I hope this post does not cause Adrian too much anguish to hear such things are broadcast by the ABC.

    Link to the above, Billy starts at just after 15 minutes.
    https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/perQmnW6pL

  43. A question about negative gearing, how can politicians vote on it when they have negatively geared property without having a conflict of interest? and that goes for any of them. Do they abstain or how does it work?

  44. voice endeavour @ #141 Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    So Family First get their seat back (probably temporarily as she has admitted she never renounced her Kenyn citizenship as required)
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/13/family-firsts-lucy-gichuhi-to-fill-bob-days-senate-seat-after-recount

    I saw a reference to a quote from Kenyan Embassy that Kenyan citizenship is lost on taking up citizenship of another country.

    So if this is true it doesn’t seem to be a problem.

  46. barry reynolds @ #143 Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    A question about negative gearing, how can politicians vote on it when they have negatively geared property without having a conflict of interest? and that goes for any of them. Do they abstain or how does it work?

    My understanding with the major Parties that if you have a conflict of interest you should exclude yourself from the party room decision and then you vote in the Parliament in accordance with the Party’s decision.

  47. Barney,
    If she were a Kenyan spy you would expect the Kenyan Embassy to say that. 😉

    No matter her political views, having someone with her background is good for parliament.

  50. barney in go dau @ #140 Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    bemused @ #102 Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 11:56 am

    A very good ‘Conversation Hour’ on ABC 774 with Billy Bragg who has much more substance to him than I used to think. He is far more than a mere songwriter and musician.
    The program is recorded an placed on the website for later listening.
    I hope this post does not cause Adrian too much anguish to hear such things are broadcast by the ABC.

    Link to the above, Billy starts at just after 15 minutes.
    https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/perQmnW6pL

    Thanks Barney, I was going to do that myself but you saved me the effort.
    What did you think of it? I had a few distractions while it is on so may listen again.
    I was mightily impressed with him on Q&A. While I have long appreciated his music and knew his heart was in the right place, he surprised me with his intellectual depth and rose even further in my estimation.

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