BludgerTrack: 52.6-47.4 to Labor

Another week of stasis in the polls results in another stable reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate.

This week’s results from Newspoll and Essential Research have resulted in very slight movement to the Coalition on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate’s two-party preferred reading, although Labor makes a net gain on the seat projection as gains in Western Australia and South Australia balance out a loss in Queensland. The new leadership numbers from Newspoll see the preferred prime minister rating maintain its condition of dead calm since the election, and both leaders’ net approval ratings continue their slow downward trend.

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.

721 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.6-47.4 to Labor”

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  1. The Kouk reminding us that smartypants Morrison is just playing naming games to gain attention for his Budget.

    Stephen Koukoulas‏Verified account @TheKouk · 3h3 hours ago
    By the way, the budget papers have ALWAYS published split of recurrent/capital expenditure. Morrison bringing table to the front #insiders

  3. I think the Adani financial argument is easier to make rather than a jobs one. Butler did say that given state of the market for thermal coal, a new mine would displace other mines leading to job losses in those areas.
    A lot of people consider a mining or manufacturing job to be a ‘real’ job, and services or tourism a second class of jobs.
    Many years ago Hanson said ‘we can’t run an economy on the basis of buying and selling to each other’. The economists begged to differ.

  4. You can’t win an argument just by defending your weaknesses or emphasising your opponent’s weaknesses – you have to attack and destroy your opponent’s strengths. If you watch carefully you’ll see that’s what Labor is doing. Butler’s points this morning were a particular example of this.

  6. “you have to attack and destroy your opponent’s strengths”

    Some inroads into the ‘better economic manager’ view Australia believes in for the Liberal Party would be welcome.

  7. It seems to me that educating the entire next generation of Australians is analogous to infrastructure spending. Without a well educated workforce our society would soon start to regress in lots of ways.
    In that case education spending is ‘good’ debt not ‘bad’; and it should not be a user pays enterprise like a toll road.

  8. Federal Labor is stepping back from its support of Adani’s proposed multi-billion-dollar Queensland coal project.

    The Indian company is still to decide whether to proceed with its Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin.

    Earlier this month, Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten backed the project.

    “I support the Adani coal mine so long as it stacks up. I hope it stacks up,” Mr Shorten said.

    But Labor’s energy and environment spokesman Mark Butler today warned the development could hurt other coalmining areas.

    “It will simply displace existing coal operations elsewhere in Australia,” Mr Butler said.

    “There will be jobs lost elsewhere in Queensland or there will be jobs lost in the Hunter Valley.”

    Environmentalists are furiously campaigning against what would be Australia’s biggest coal mine.

    The Federal Coalition and Queensland Labor Government support the venture and the hundreds of jobs it would deliver.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-30/federal-labor-backtracks-on-support-of-adani-coal-mine/8483932?smid=abcnews-Twitter_Organic&WT.tsrc=Twitter_Organic&sf74789507=1

  11. According to Mr Jenkyn, it’s a clanging, banging, beeping and whirring business, and has often breached the noise limits under QGC’s site-specific Environmental Authority (EA) issued by the Queensland Government.

    “QGC media says they operate from 6am to 6pm, but we can hear machinery, helicopters and tankers at any time,” Mr Jenkyn said.

    …Mr Jenkyn believes gases including sulphur dioxide coming from wells and the Kenya plant as well as lack of sleep, are harming the family’s and the block’s health.

    Mrs Jenkyn and Aaron are asthmatics and Mrs Jenkyn recently had an asthma-related heart attack.

    The rich birdlife which once inhabited the block has gone and last year 18 of the Jenkyns’ cattle died inexplicably.

    Aaron has developed unexplained rashes, and the family is now buying in water for fear their on-farm supply has been soured by CSG activity.

    “We can’t stop the industry, but we would like them to show respect for the land and the landholders,” Mrs Jenkyn said.

    http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/3581997/chinchilla-familys-csg-battle/?cs=4698

  12. Brian Henderson on Insiders this morning said Gillard et. al did not regulate the reservation of some gas production for Australia and that in hindsight this was a bad thing; he then said that all the gas companies had given the Govt. of the time assurances that they would put aside some of their production for local use.
    Of course Santos and the others renigged on this undertaking and now have contracts around the world for 100% of the gas.
    That led to the argument that we need to do more drilling & exploration esp. CSG to increase supply. That would not solve anything without some legislation because the Gas Co.s would still ship 100% of production offshore no matter how much was produced.
    Naturally future Gove

  13. It’s the opposite of pork-barrelling when it’s a Labor state govt: zip the purse.

    The upgrades include $435 million for the Gippsland line, $200 million for the Barwon South West region and $110 million for track duplication between South Geelong and Waurn Ponds and a future rail extension to Torquay.

    Premier Daniel Andrews said Victoria was owed the money from the federal government’s asset-recycling scheme for leasing the Port of Melbourne.

    But on Sunday Mr Chester again rejected the premier’s assertion that the federal government owed Victoria the cash, arguing the state government had failed to meet the deadline for the asset-recycling initiative.

    “What we’ve seen today basically is Premier Andrews has written a Santa wish list to the prime minister without any of their own money on the table,” he said.

    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-government-145b-rail-upgrade-a-santa-wish-list-federal-transport-minister-20170430-gvvmt0.html?platform=hootsuite

  14. Does Trump ever know what he’s talking about?

    CNN Breaking News‏Verified account @cnnbrk · 3h3 hours ago

    Trump: “We have ended the war on beautiful clean coal, and we are putting our great coal miners back to work”

  15. Democrats need to adopt progressive economic policies if they want to defeat Republicans:

    Another potential issue for Democrats may be the perception that party elites are too close to Wall Street. A key part of Senator Bernie Sanders’s case against Clinton during the presidential primary was that the Democratic front-runner was cozy with the financial industry. When news broke earlier this week that former President Barack Obama will accept $400,000 to speak at a Wall Street conference, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive voice, said she was “troubled” by the news, while Sanders called it “unfortunate,” at a “time when people are so frustrated with the power of Wall Street and big-money interests.”

    …. some critics believe that, despite his support for financial regulatory reform, Obama was far from tough on Wall Street—and that Democrats need to reckon with the extent to which their party has let down the working class. “Democrats can’t win until they recognize how bad Obama’s financial policies were,” Matt Stoller, a fellow with the Open Markets Program at New America, wrote in The Washington Post after the election, arguing that Obama’s policy agenda concentrated power in the hands of corporate elites at the expense of less wealthy Americans.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/democratic-party-out-of-touch-obama-wall-street-speech/524784/

  18. Trump: “We have ended the war on beautiful clean coal, and we are putting our great coal miners back to work”

    Like the Liberal party did with their coal love, he’s over-egging it to the point of coal worship. Very bizarre.

  21. Fess

    You must be better at Americanese than I am.
    At least I was correct in criticising the use of reticent, rather than reluctant, which is becoming very common.

  22. confessions @ #567 Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 2:06 pm

    Trump: “We have ended the war on beautiful clean coal, and we are putting our great coal miners back to work”

    Like the Liberal party did with their coal love, he’s over-egging it to the point of coal worship. Very bizarre.

    This years fashion trend;

    Coal Jewellery – Show your conservative side.

  23. Barney,
    I have seen iron ore polished and set and sold as jewellery (gemstones) – a bit gray but not unattractive.

  25. Lizzie:

    I’m an avid novel reader and most of the books I read are either written by Americans or published in America.

  26. Boolean, there’s a whole branch of literature in economics dedicated to “human capital” development, conceptualised just as you say.

  28. victoria Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 10:13 am

    For those interested in the Trump imbroglio. This is James Comey when he went before congress in March. His statement is quite extraordinary and a clear reminder that the Trump treason conspiracy is not a creation of keyboard warriors.

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

    Victoria/Confessions – when you get a chance read through the Mensch/Taylor/Laufer twitter messages for today.

    I have my fingers crossed this is all on the level and if so there seems to be a brightening of light at the end of the tunnel – with Laufer talking of Grand Juries/large number of people/weeks to a month for this to come to a head …….

  29. Thanks to the link from Andrew Elder, confessions. This just about sums up the current situation in relation to our esteemed political journalists:

    “To be fair to the press gallery, while they remain deeply flawed we have seen this year some actual outbreaks of something approaching real journalism. Press gallery claim to be hunting for truth 24/7, but this is bullshit. In the first year of both the Turnbull and Rudd governments, the press gallery behaved as if the government could do no wrong. Throughout the entirety of the Gillard government, the government apparently could not do anything right. We are not in a position where the government is dead, where the opposition are wildly popular or where they have the gallery bluffed like Abbott did. Yet, the embarrassing gushing about Real Malcolm is behind us, and lately gallery reporting sometimes starts from a position of scepticism about what is being announced. It was genuinely shocking to see a carpet-stroller like Barrie Cassidy brave the choppy waters of ministerial authority – like Justin Bieber playing Macbeth, it’s so incredible that it is even being contemplated that actual critique can’t and doesn’t take place. It can’t last, and it’s a product of an uncertain environment where gallery narratives simply aren’t strong enough to sustain regular stories. Normal (dis)service will resume soon enough.”

  30. Fess

    In ye olden days, like when I was a teenager, there was little difference between English and American in books.
    PS I absolutely refuse to adopt “gotten”.

  31. And I love this, from the same article, on Brandis:

    “Brandis has spent decades trying to cultivate gravitas on the barren fields of his own abilities, and it hasn’t worked; that’s why it is time for him to go.”

  33. confessions
    Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 3:12 pm
    PhoenixRed:
    Do you have links? I’m not really a twitter user.

    *******************************************
    Neither am I Confessions – never sent or received one in my life – you have to wade through a lot of crappola sometimes – but try this to get to Louise’s site through google :

    https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch

  34. lizzie:

    Just out of curiosity what did you think were especially indicative of Americanese in the quiz? Q4 got me because here we’d say high school certificate not diploma. I just thought degrees was used in that context because the subject was about university graduates.

  36. Neither am I Confessions – never sent or received one in my life – you have to wade through a lot of crappola sometimes – but try this to get to Louise’s site through google :

    https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch

    Keep scrolling down – a lot – to get to most recent stuff ….

  37. lizzie @ #579 Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 3:10 pm

    Fess
    In ye olden days, like when I was a teenager, there was little difference between English and American in books.
    PS I absolutely refuse to adopt “gotten”.

    One that really bugs me is “lighted”.
    When ever I see it in a book I translate it to “lit”.

  38. Annastacia

    The Queensland premier has unleashed an extraordinary attack on Malcolm Turnbull, saying he’s a shallow thinker who doesn’t understand his job as prime minister.

    Annastacia Palaszczuk has branded Turnbull an arrogant and disrespectful leader, and now believes he’s a worse prime minister than Tony Abbott.

    “All we’ve seen lately is a fly-in, fly-out prime minister who is espousing thought bubbles without any deep policy conversation,” she told reporters on Sunday.

    The premier said it took a lot to get her angry, but she was fed up with Turnbull’s approach to national leadership.

    Turnbull snaps back, of course.

    On Sunday afternoon Turnbull hit back at Palaszczuk’s stinging criticism of him, labelling her comments a “bitter, personal and wildly inaccurate” attack.

    In a statement the prime minister said it was hard to know what prompted the angry outburst, which he described as “personal abuse”.

    Gotta keep them Labor Premiers at heel.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/30/annastacia-palaszczuk-unleashes-on-pm-malcolm-turnbull-is-worse-than-tony-abbott?CMP=share_btn_tw

  42. This is a well-written article about the problems that stem from only caring about whether society works well for the highly intelligent, and the problems caused by ignoring the need to drastically reduce poverty and financial inequality:

    We must stop glorifying intelligence and treating our society as a playground for the smart minority. We should instead begin shaping our economy, our schools, even our culture with an eye to the abilities and needs of the majority, and to the full range of human capacity.
    …
    When Michael Young, a British sociologist, coined the term meritocracy in 1958, it was in a dystopian satire. At the time, the world he imagined, in which intelligence fully determined who thrived and who languished, was understood to be predatory, pathological, far-fetched. Today, however, we’ve almost finished installing such a system, and we have embraced the idea of a meritocracy with few reservations, even treating it as virtuous. That can’t be right. Smart people should feel entitled to make the most of their gift. But they should not be permitted to reshape society so as to instate giftedness as a universal yardstick of human worth.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-war-on-stupid-people/485618/

  43. PhonexiRed:

    The problem with reading someone’s twitter page is the content is historical and out of context. Mensch has a lot of tweets that retweets and so it means nothing to me seeing them on their own.

  44. The Queensland premier really ripped into Turnbull. It was front page in the Sunday Mail this morning, a paper that is not a friend of labor. The editorial also gave Turnbull a big serve.

    Turnbull does not seem to be very popular atm here in Queensland.

    There was a state Galaxy poll in the paper yesterday and previously the Courier Mail has followed the state poll with a Federal voting intentions poll one or two days later. Perhaps it will out tomorrow ? If so, it will be very interesting.

    Cheers.

  47. victoria Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 3:30 pm
    PhoenixRed
    Yes I have caught up with the latest. I am hopeful. Now waiting for the Jester to have something to say.
    Fess
    Meanwhile this twitterfeed is helpful

    ****************************************
    THANKS Victoria – you are the twitter expert here – your twitterfeed condenses the issue much better ….

    I hope Andrew Laufer is on the money as he seems to have great knowledge of the legal processes involved …… and Claude Taylor seems very, very sure of his sources ….

    Hopefully !!!!

    As Samantha Bee joked to the journalists :

    “Your job has never been harder. The president is trying to undermine your legitimacy. He tells his fans not to trust you. You basically get paid to stand in a cage while a geriatric orangutan and his pet mob scream at you. It’s like a reverse zoo, but you carry on.”

    Maybe sometime soon the roles get reversed and we see him and his bunch of traitors behind bars so we can scream abuse at him ….

  48. **SK – All of those mentioned are the left overs of the Byzantine Empire.**
    OK, this will stretch my memory, but pretty sure the slavs were rarely under byzantine control. What I cant remember, and probably never understood, was the relationship between the Slavs and the Bulgars (who I think were originally from a similar area of Central Asia to the turkic groups) wrt the Bulgarian Empire. There is a group of swarthy peoples often discriminated against in Bulgaria. Indian? Gypsy? Turk? I will have to google… later.

    I am also pretty sure the crusaders did a fair share of their rape and pillage in the balkans.

    It is a very layered and overlapping history where the detail – even from millenia ago –
    seems to still mean a hell of lot to some of them.

  50. nicholas @ #591 Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    This is a well-written article about the problems that stem from only caring about whether society works well for the highly intelligent, and the problems caused by ignoring the need to drastically reduce poverty and financial inequality:

    Where in the world is such a Utopia?

    Where is the link between intelligence and affluence?

    I would have thought the problems of poverty and financial inequality were as a result of Governments failing to constrain the excesses of Capitalism and not redistributing wealth appropriately.

    Sounds like you may be conflicted with support of the Government’s reluctance to listen to experts and your desire for a fairer society.

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