BludgerTrack: 52.5-47.5 to Labor

As the weeks go by, so do the opinion polls.

The Coalition had relatively good numbers this week from Essential Research, but unchanged ones from Newspoll. The first of these is cancelled out by the fading impact of the Coalition’s improved result from the post-budget poll from Ipsos, so BludgerTrack once again goes nowhere this week. Newspoll’s leadership numbers have the net approval trends improving for Malcolm Turnbull but deteriorating for Bill Shorten, but the opposite is true on preferred prime minister, so take your pick really.

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.

1,589 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.5-47.5 to Labor”

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  1. Rightly or wrongly, there are issues in Western politics in which one side can never win, no matter what they do, and the other is Teflon coated no matter what they actually do. National security is one such issue for the progressives, education is one such issue for conservatives.

    Yeah, but cutting 10s of thousands of coppers from the force and 100s of millions of pounds out of their funding tends to get noticed when loons shouting allu ahkbar make regular appearances killing people. The fact May was the Home Sec who oversaw this makes it doubly potent.

    Had the Maybot not completely fucked up the campaign she’d brush this off, but the longer the election has gone the less inspiring she has looked. Not getting ahead of myself, but it is the sort of thing than could actually be the coup de grace to a badly faltering campaign.

    Corbyn gets extra credit because police numbers have been in the manifesto from day one. So he looks like he was ahead of the game and Theresa is now desperately trying to deflect.

    As someone else noted, once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. This is attack no. 3 this year. It is quite possible that soft Tory voters will notice a pattern forming and think there might be something to this less police = greater danger malarkey. Sir Lynton will be desperately searching for dead cats.


  4. Frednk, Grimace
    In addition to the other good reasons for preferring wind and solar to nuclear now, there is also this one I posted earlier today.
    https://nuclear-news.net/2017/05/19/areva-and-edf-pin-their-hopes-on-delayed-super-costly-olkiluoto-3-nuclear-project/

    Watts bar no 1 is the last built nuclear reactor in the USA; now 20 years old. No 2 was to change that; it achieved commercial operation this year but it is cl0sed again with a yet to be determined fault. The build of no 2 started in a similar time frame as no 1. Billion of dollars over budget; decades and no result.

  5. zoomster @ #1150 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 9:58 pm

    Grimace
    Thanks for the offer, but (either because of my advanced age or the lack of employment opportunities locally) the job network people are being very kind to me.
    Mind you, in the past they have fallen on my neck with cries of joy, because they know I will find employment off my own bat and they’ll benefit from this.
    One of them used to do my compulsory interviews whilst we watched our sons play soccer…

    I’m glad to hear you are having a reasonable experience with the parasites known as job network providers. The stories I hear out of my wife have left me in a state of despair about the wanton mistreatment of their “clients”, and the gross waste of resources that the job network providers are.

    I wish you the best in your dealings with them.

  7. Grimace

    Well, whilst my experience has been positive, they treated my son as if he was a piece of excrement…

  10. There is a small group of posters here whose zeal to push their agenda exceeds their ability to prosecute an argument

    P1,

    Your talent for self-reference is amazing 🙂

  12. Watts bar no 1 is the last built nuclear reactor in the USA; now 20 years old. No 2 was to change that; it achieved commercial operation this year but it is cl0sed again with a yet to be determined fault. The build of no 2 started in a similar time frame as no 1. Billion of dollars over budget; decades and no result

    I had an American friend who was one of the low-paid workers doing grunt work on Watts bar 2. Some of the stories he told me about the culture there were hair curling. Basically the whole industry knows its dead so people (including high level people) were just in it for whatever they could get out of it.

  13. David Leyonhjelm is a dangerous dickhead! Q&A was good value tonight though.

    Christian Porter, after a question about Housing Affordability, aided and abetted by Dangerous Dickhead David, was reduced to whining, ‘What about the poor Investors!?!”
    You know you’ve reached peak absurdity when politicians are reduced to saying that in order to protect their dwindling base of voters.

    Dangerous Dickhead David thinks the solution is simply increasing Supply, especially for Sydney, and basically ruining what makes this place the Emerald City, and essentially turning it into Hong Kong or Calcutta by over-developing the buggery out of it.

    Albo also made the very good point that, not only do we have a Housing Affordability crisis but a Rental crisis on top of that…unless you move to Woop Woop. Which just serves to hollow out the diversity of our major cities as all the young couples, students and low paid workers are no longer able to afford to live in close proximity to work and play areas.

  15. I just read the Coorey article on Shorten’s positive comments in a prospective low emissions target.

    Am I overthinking this, or will comments from Labor like that, rile up Turnbull’s right wing?

  17. c@tmomma @ #1163 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:05 pm

    David Leyonhjelm is a dangerous dickhead! Q&A was good value tonight though.
    Christian Porter, after a question about Housing Affordability, aided and abetted by Dangerous Dickhead David, was reduced to whining, ‘What about the poor Investors!?!”
    You know you’ve reached peak absurdity when politicians are reduced to saying that in order to protect their dwindling base of voters.
    Dangerous Dickhead David thinks the solution is simply increasing Supply, especially for Sydney, and basically ruining what makes this place the Emerald City, and essentially turning it into Hong Kong or Calcutta by over-developing the buggery out of it.
    Albo also made the very good point that, not only do we have a Housing Affordability crisis but a Rental crisis on top of that…unless you move to Woop Woop. Which just serves to hollow out the diversity of our major cities as all the young couples, students and low paid workers are no longer able to afford to live in close proximity to work and play areas.

    I don’t agree with Porter, but what’s your solution?

  18. bemused @ #1167 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:13 pm

    c@tmomma @ #1163 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:05 pm

    David Leyonhjelm is a dangerous dickhead! Q&A was good value tonight though.
    Christian Porter, after a question about Housing Affordability, aided and abetted by Dangerous Dickhead David, was reduced to whining, ‘What about the poor Investors!?!”
    You know you’ve reached peak absurdity when politicians are reduced to saying that in order to protect their dwindling base of voters.
    Dangerous Dickhead David thinks the solution is simply increasing Supply, especially for Sydney, and basically ruining what makes this place the Emerald City, and essentially turning it into Hong Kong or Calcutta by over-developing the buggery out of it.
    Albo also made the very good point that, not only do we have a Housing Affordability crisis but a Rental crisis on top of that…unless you move to Woop Woop. Which just serves to hollow out the diversity of our major cities as all the young couples, students and low paid workers are no longer able to afford to live in close proximity to work and play areas.

    I don’t agree with Porter, but what’s your solution?

    Kill negative gearing and the CGT discount. Return the CGT discount to an indexing basis.

  20. bemused @ #1167 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:13 pm

    c@tmomma @ #1163 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:05 pm

    David Leyonhjelm is a dangerous dickhead! Q&A was good value tonight though.
    Christian Porter, after a question about Housing Affordability, aided and abetted by Dangerous Dickhead David, was reduced to whining, ‘What about the poor Investors!?!”
    You know you’ve reached peak absurdity when politicians are reduced to saying that in order to protect their dwindling base of voters.
    Dangerous Dickhead David thinks the solution is simply increasing Supply, especially for Sydney, and basically ruining what makes this place the Emerald City, and essentially turning it into Hong Kong or Calcutta by over-developing the buggery out of it.
    Albo also made the very good point that, not only do we have a Housing Affordability crisis but a Rental crisis on top of that…unless you move to Woop Woop. Which just serves to hollow out the diversity of our major cities as all the young couples, students and low paid workers are no longer able to afford to live in close proximity to work and play areas.

    I don’t agree with Porter, but what’s your solution?

    I’d also kill of CGT rollover relief unless the proceeds are being rolled into a productive asset.

  21. grimace @ #1168 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:16 pm

    bemused @ #1167 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:13 pm

    c@tmomma @ #1163 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:05 pm

    David Leyonhjelm is a dangerous dickhead! Q&A was good value tonight though.
    Christian Porter, after a question about Housing Affordability, aided and abetted by Dangerous Dickhead David, was reduced to whining, ‘What about the poor Investors!?!”
    You know you’ve reached peak absurdity when politicians are reduced to saying that in order to protect their dwindling base of voters.
    Dangerous Dickhead David thinks the solution is simply increasing Supply, especially for Sydney, and basically ruining what makes this place the Emerald City, and essentially turning it into Hong Kong or Calcutta by over-developing the buggery out of it.
    Albo also made the very good point that, not only do we have a Housing Affordability crisis but a Rental crisis on top of that…unless you move to Woop Woop. Which just serves to hollow out the diversity of our major cities as all the young couples, students and low paid workers are no longer able to afford to live in close proximity to work and play areas.

    I don’t agree with Porter, but what’s your solution?

    Kill negative gearing and the CGT discount. Return the CGT discount to an indexing basis.

    That is a start, but there is still the problem of demand for housing close to the city outstripping supply.
    Densification is inevitable, but again is only part of the solution.

  23. grimace @ #1168 Monday, June 5th, 2017 – 11:16 pm

    Kill negative gearing and the CGT discount. Return the CGT discount to an indexing basis.

    Yes. It’s not a hard question. Stop subsidizing loss-making investments, and investors will stop bidding up the prices on houses to the point where they become unaffordable to anyone not eligible to have their interest costs treated as a tax write-off (such as, you know, people who actually want to live in the houses instead of just make money from them).

  24. The Guardian just now in UK live politics blog: “London attack: Corbyn says May should resign over police funding record – latest updates”.

  25. a r @ #1173 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:21 pm

    grimace @ #1168 Monday, June 5th, 2017 – 11:16 pm

    Kill negative gearing and the CGT discount. Return the CGT discount to an indexing basis.

    Yes. It’s not a hard question. Stop subsidizing loss-making investments, and investors will stop bidding up the prices on houses to the point where they become unaffordable to anyone not eligible to have their interest costs treated as a tax write-off (such as, you know, people who actually want to live in the houses instead of just make money from them).

    Renting or owning, there are still more people wanting to live in the inner suburbs than there is accommodation.
    Three solutions spring to mind.
    1. Densification so more people can live in those suburbs.
    2. Growth of secondary centres such as Parramatta, with industry, employment, entertainment and all the other things that make the CBD attractive.
    3. Re-jig public transport so that it services such centres as well as the CBD

  26. @ Bemused

    IIRC, the median price for Sydney housing is now over $1m. If you were to plug the median wage* of a couple into a mortgage calculator, you only get about half way to being able to safely service the loan payments on a median priced home. There is demonstrably something distorting Sydney house prices and driving the median house price to about twice that of what a median income earner could service (a loan of about 5x your income is about the limit). That something is a tax policy that allows investors to deliberately incur a tax loss on their “investment” against other taxable income, and then get a 50% discount on any capital gain they earned when they sold that property, very likely having never turned a profit from renting that same property out.

    Property that is relatively close to the city has always been more expensive than that which is further away, and that won’t change unless for some reason it becomes relatively undesirable for some reason.

    *I use the median wage because more accurately reflects the actual mid point of earnings, rather than the mean wage at which about 70% earn less and 30% more.

  27. bemused @ #1175 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:28 pm

    a r @ #1173 Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:21 pm

    grimace @ #1168 Monday, June 5th, 2017 – 11:16 pm

    Kill negative gearing and the CGT discount. Return the CGT discount to an indexing basis.

    Yes. It’s not a hard question. Stop subsidizing loss-making investments, and investors will stop bidding up the prices on houses to the point where they become unaffordable to anyone not eligible to have their interest costs treated as a tax write-off (such as, you know, people who actually want to live in the houses instead of just make money from them).

    Renting or owning, there are still more people wanting to live in the inner suburbs than there is accommodation.
    Three solutions spring to mind.
    1. Densification so more people can live in those suburbs.
    2. Growth of secondary centres such as Parramatta, with industry, employment, entertainment and all the other things that make the CBD attractive.
    3. Re-jig public transport so that it services such centres as well as the CBD

    All of which are good ideas which would be ineffective tinkering around the edges until we address the colossal subsidy enjoyed by property investors.

  28. bemused @ #1175 Monday, June 5th, 2017 – 11:28 pm

    Renting or owning, there are still more people wanting to live in the inner suburbs than there is accommodation.
    Three solutions spring to mind.
    1. Densification so more people can live in those suburbs.
    2. Growth of secondary centres such as Parramatta, with industry, employment, entertainment and all the other things that make the CBD attractive.
    3. Re-jig public transport so that it services such centres as well as the CBD

    True, though I tend to count that as a separate issue. Extreme demand and constrained supply mean that living in (or directly adjacent to) a major urban center is always going to cost. Not quite as concerned about that, as while I think everyone should have affordable access to reasonably located housing I don’t think that extends to meaning that everyone should be able to get into a house/unit smack in the center of a major city.

    In any case, I’d fully support #2 and #3. Having everything happen in a super-dense urban center is so 20th-century. There’s no reason not to take advantage of technology to allow people to do the same things while remaining dispersed over a wider area. And with public transit there to stitch together any gaps.

  31. I’m yet to see a considered way to get rid of the ‘negative gearing’ part of the equation, obviously the CGT discount should never have been introduced and should be phased out.

  32. I find it hilarious after all the partisan nonsense about Dastyari – who didn’t break any rules and declared things properly – but no they still bang on about it and not about the fact the Government still haven’t changed the rules so it would in the future be wrong.
    I remember the night the absolute morons in the MSM were celebrating ‘getting him’.

  33. bemused Monday, June 5, 2017 at 11:28 pm

    1. Densification so more people can live in those suburbs.
    …
    3. Re-jig public transport so that it services such centres as well as the CBD

    Increasing urban density also brings other infrastructure benefits.

    Fast and frequent public transport helps*. Of course, high urban density helps make such public transport feasible.

    * I’ve just spent three weeks in Japan.

  34. Qatar:

    – Population 2.7m

    – 2m of whom are men

    – Nearly 90% of Qatar’s population are migrant workers, many of whom are working on the construction boom fueled by the successful World Cup bid.

  35. ‘Uninterruptible power supply’ except when:

    British Airways IT chaos was caused by human error

    …

    Willie Walsh. boss of IAG, said that an electrical engineer disconnected the uninterruptible power supply which shut down BA’s data centre.

    …

    “This resulted in the total immediate loss of power to the facility, bypassing the backup generators and batteries… After a few minutes of this shutdown, it was turned back on in an unplanned and uncontrolled fashion, which created physical damage to the systems and significantly exacerbated the problem.”

    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40159202

  37. So Police in UK shot the terrorists in like almost the same manor as Sydney Siege Cafe, like a ‘execution’ style.


  39. Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 4:52 am

    ‘Uninterruptible power supply’ except when:

    British Airways IT chaos was caused by human error

    …

    Willie Walsh. boss of IAG, said that an electrical engineer disconnected the uninterruptible power supply which shut down BA’s data centre.

    I’m glad it was not me.
    He/she will be in line for the 2MW club hall of fame. The 2MW club is the small group of people that have accidentally dropped 2MW of load or more. Normally it is only people caught in lifts; processes ruined. Bringing down BA is pretty impressive; but will he/she be in trouble.

  40. Trump Doesn’t Know How His Own Government Works As He Blames DOJ For Executive Order

    A raging Trump took to social media to blame the Department of Justice for a presidential executive order that he signed, which proves that Trump has no idea how the government that he is supposed to be running works

    The DOJ doesn’t control executive orders. The president does, and Trump’s complaint illustrates the biggest problem with his administration. The President doesn’t understand how the government that he is leading works. Trump’s ignorance is why his administration is a dysfunctional failure.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/05/trump-government-works-blames-doj-executive-order.html

  41. Chuck Schumer Tells Trump To Look In The Mirror If Wants To Blame Somebody For His Failures

    Senator Chuck Schumer told President Trump to look in the mirror if he wants to blame someone for the slow pace of his confirmations. “If the President is looking for someone to blame on the slow pace of confirmations, he needs only to look in the mirror,” the Senate Democratic Leader said in a statement sent to PoliticusUSA.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/05/schumer-tells-trump-mirror-blame.html

  42. White House Announces It Won’t Block Comey Testimony With Executive Privilege Claim

    The White House has announced that Trump won’t assert executive privilege and block James Comey from testifying in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

    It wasn’t some great and grand gesture on Trump’s part. If he tried to block Comey from testifying, he would likely lose and then look guilty of obstruction of justice. Comey’s story was going to get out whether Trump tried to block him or not. The administration doesn’t get a gold star for avoiding doing something completely stupid for once/

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/05/white-house-announces-block-comey-testimony-executive-privilege-claim.html

  43. Trump Rocked By New Poll Showing People Don’t Believe Him On Paris Climate Deal

    A new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that voters oppose Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Accord by a 2 to 1 margin, but the bigger problem for the White House is that people don’t believe his reasons for leaving the deal.

    Trump’s constant lies are coming back to haunt him, as a sizable number of Americans aren’t buying what he is selling. This president has lost the ear of the American people. When he talks, many tune him out, and many many more don’t believe him. The White House thought that pulling out of the Paris climate deal would be a win for them, hence the Rose Garden ceremony, but the opposite has happened.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/05/trump-rocked-poll-showing-people-paris-climate-deal.html

  44. Bombshell intel leak reveals Russia cyber attack targeted voting software and election officials

    According to a report at The Intercept, an internal document at the NSA shows that Russian military intelligence “executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election.”

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/bombshell-intel-leak-reveals-russia-cyber-attack-targeted-voting-software-and-election-officials/

  45. Jared Kushner’s family needs $250 million to pay off Chinese investors — but US banks wary of lending

    Jared Kushner’s family is seeking a $250 million loan to pay back Chinese investors in a real estate development — but U.S. banks aren’t exactly eager to do business with them.

    Kushner Companies have shopping around for a loan against their 50-story Trump Bay Street luxury tower in Jersey City, which they would use to repay investors and pay off a mortgage on the development, reported Bloomberg Politics.

    The family would keep $50 million from the loan, sources told the website.

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/jared-kushners-family-needs-250-million-to-pay-off-chinese-investors-but-us-banks-wary-of-lending/

  46. British party leader calls for Donald Trump to be banned from UK for attacking London mayor during crisis

    President Donald Trump is getting pushback from political leaders in the United Kingdom after he used terrorist attacks to lash out at London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

    Following the recent terrorist attacks that killed seven in London, Trump repeatedly and incorrectly blasted Khan by suggesting that the mayor had said that there was “no reason to be alarmed” by the terrorist attacks. In fact, Khan had been informing citizens that they should not be alarmed by the sight of armed policeman on London streets.

    Trump also used the tragedy to push a ban on some Muslim travelers.

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/british-party-leader-calls-for-donald-trump-to-be-banned-from-uk-for-attacking-london-mayor-during-crisis/

  47. British party leader calls for Donald Trump to be banned from UK

    What an excellent idea. Can we ban him from Australia too?

  50. All you need to know about a ‘low’ emissions target, from an article in today’s SMH:

    ‘Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, a climate change sceptic, has indicated he believed the LET could be the way forward to allow the development of next generation coal-fired power stations as well as renewable energy.’

    It has always been about coal. Canavan wants to build a new coal fired power plant in northern Queensland, this way the federal government gets to fund it.
    From the article:
    Frydenberg hits phones to keep colleagues in line over climate
    Josh Frydenberg has hit the phones to Coalition backbench to calm growing concerns about the federal government’s climate change review.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/josh-frydenberg-hits-the-phones-to-keep-government-mps-in-line-over-climate-paris-deal-20170605-gwkm4e.html?btis

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