BludgerTrack: 52.3-47.7 to Labor

Signs of a gentle trend back to the Coalition, although it comes off a lean period for new poll results.

We’re now at the end of a two-week period where Essential Research has furnished the only new federal poll results, causing its reading of the situation to loom unusually large in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate. This week’s sample produced a fairly close result, so Labor is down half a point on two-party preferred and three on the seat projection, losing one in Queensland and two in Western Australia, where it may be coming back to earth after the state election bounce. Nothing new this week on leadership ratings.

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.

788 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.3-47.7 to Labor”

Comments Page 13 of 16
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  1. Bemused.

    A politician with a video presser can get local regional and national coverage. Just add to website that all candidates generally have nowadays. Have a link to Youtube.

    Voters can view. Media can get a copy. As for local there are newspapers and radio. Even community radio. Photos and audio can work for them.

    Its just as easy to do a video press release if not easier than to fax to media a print only one.

  2. The Sydney Morning Herald
    20 mins ·
    Senior government ministers are studiously refusing to comment on the possible contempt of court charges against three frontbenchers amid fears the situation could morph into a political and constitutional crisis.

    If only something as dramatic as that would happen.

  3. Guytaur:

    You’d be surprised at the number of MPs who use facebook to show video ‘pressers’ in exactly the way you describe. It’s already happening.

  4. guytaur @ #601 Sunday, June 18, 2017 at 2:30 pm

    Bemused.
    A politician with a video presser can get local regional and national coverage. Just add to website that all candidates generally have nowadays. Have a link to Youtube.
    Voters can view. Media can get a copy. As for local there are newspapers and radio. Even community radio. Photos and audio can work for them.
    Its just as easy to do a video press release if not easier than to fax to media a print only one.

    Video doesn’t work to well on local radio and even worse on local newspapers.
    An ordinary candidate will very rarely, if ever, get on TV so you are really talking about preparing stuff for social media and I agree with you on that.

  7. Bemused

    Thats just journalists being lazy. Its certainly not a quality problem. Unless you think 4K is poor quality

  9. Tanya Plibersek has been very underwhelming in the school funding debate over the past couple of months. She needs to come up with a bit more than just parroting 22 billion, 22 billion, 22 billion as she is just not cutting through in the media or out in the suburbs. She seemed to be relying on the promised scare campaign from the Catholic Schools sector which all appears to have fizzled out rather quickly. She still has the AEU on side s you would expect, but her performance has been poor.

  10. Guytaur
    Picked up the Passport in Apple the other day – Very neat! Had to slap myself twice before I put it down again!

  12. Briefly, Joe Bullock got a high paying job, and a potential (not realised) lifelong pension, as a monetary kickback for agreeing to persuade/’go along with’ his factional colleagues to rig an internal Labor Party election/decision in favour of his ‘enemies’. In my book that is corrupt. You plainly regard this type of behaviour as fine. I disagree. In this case it lead to an appalling, damaging result, where the WA electors were saddled with a cretinous Abbott supporter as their supposed representative.

  13. Confessions

    Good presses can serve both functions. Also has the advantage of being seen to engage with voters at all times noot having a cosy media only relationship.

    As evidenced by politicians releasing press releases on twitter.
    All they need is a video link for more engagement.

  17. Yabba88

    Yada yada…

    Bullock had a lifelong record of organising unskilled, low-paid, otherwise-marginalised workers. He is not an Abbott supporter. He’s not Catholic, though he is a religious conservative. He has antique views on SSM that are objectionable to many, not least to me. He was chosen with the support of his factional opponents – the Left – after decades of service but also left the public domain defeated, rejected and humiliated. His preselection was a mistake. Labor was punished for it electorally. If anything, Bullock was punished rather than rewarded…but that is how politics goes a lot of the time.

    btw…do you suppose that politicians should not be paid?

  18. Australia rocked up at a climate change conference aimed squarely at securing the agreement of developed countries to reduce emissions and walked away with a leave pass to crank them up by 8 per cent.

    And that’s not all, either. Because at the 11th hour, we also held out for a special clause to allow emissions from land clearing to be included in the agreement, which inflated our 1990 baseline by 30 per cent and guaranteed we’d hit our 2012 target even if emissions from other sectors went gangbusters – which they pretty much did. So when it comes to doing deals and putting one’s short-term economic interests ahead of the greater good, The Donald could learn a thing or two from us right there.

    …That, of course, was just the beginning of our stunning metamorphosis to international climate change persona non grata, and it’s been a downhill run ever since. Just tally, for instance, the number of times our former environment minister crowed about how Australia didn’t just meet, but indeed beat the aforesaid emissions reduction goal – a goal that didn’t actually require us to reduce emissions as such, and in any case was set in a manner that gave us a dastardly handicap compared to everyone else in the running. You can just imagine the smug satisfaction in cabinet, and in industry boardrooms around the nation, the chest thumping – our second favourite national sport in the arena of international diplomacy after shirtfronting.

    http://www.theage.com.au/comment/trumps-climate-snub-hold-the-outrage-were-just-as-bad-20170613-gwq5ab.html

  19. Phyll

    You too? 😆

    So close to being one of those annying people with a drone recoding your walk for posterity.

  20. Senior government ministers are studiously refusing to comment on the possible contempt of court charges against three frontbenchers amid fears the situation could morph into a political and constitutional crisis.

    So it’s just starting to dawn on these imbeciles how stupid they’ve been eh?

    Nothing changed when Trumble took over. Just a different moron leading the same pack of idiots.

  22. Anthony Albanese is a down-the-line neoliberal who would pose no threat to powerful people. He mocks socialists and has supported austerity when in government. Billionaires would be quite happy to have Albanese as PM. Billionaires would be incensed by someone with Corbyn’s views ascending to the job of PM. Albanese as PM would be nowhere near as good for society as Corbyn as PM.

  23. Briefly, You are absolutely correct, of course. Pardon me for expressing my foolish meanderings. Bullock was plainly a triumph of the negotiators art. Nothing corrupt or underhanded occurred. A great man. Not in the least self-interested. Represented his state with distinction. An example to us all.

  24. Phylactella
    There is a post script to the most damaging single organism that ever lived. Sad but in a way fitting that the person who unintentionally caused so much damage to the world also unintentionally did himself in as well

    In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. This led him to devise an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. This system was the eventual cause of his own death when he was entangled in the ropes of this device and died of strangulation at the age of 55

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.

  25. I think that if it is useful to distinguish between morals and ethics, it is that morals are general statements of what is good or bad conduct, and ethics are the detailed “how to” questions of applying moral principles to specific real life contexts.

  26. yabba88 @ #564 Sunday, June 18, 2017 at 12:36 pm

    Briefly, The WA Labor Party selected Joe Bullock as No 1 on its senate ticket. Prima facie evidence of corruption, at the very least. Also very, very, very stupid.

    I disagree strongly with some of Bullock’s socially conservative views and I agree it was not a good idea to put him at #1 on the WA Senate ticket. That is not evidence of corruption. Every major party, and larger minor parties like the Greens have a factional based system which strongly influences the preselection of MP’s and Senators.

    If as you assert the preselection of Bullock is corrupt, then so is the preselection of nearly every other MP and senator currently in Parliament.

    Disclosure: about half a lifetime ago I was an SDA shop steward.

  28. question @ #578 Sunday, June 18, 2017 at 1:06 pm

    Good advice, but how do we influence the multitude of pundits with ongoing delusions that Turnbull has a plan, when clearly he never has?

    Corbyn and UK Labour, using the same techniques as Labor in Australia has used in the last few elections, overcame all expectations and a tsunami of wall to wall media opposition and negativity to get to within a few thousand votes (out of tens of millions cast) of winning power in the UK parliament.

  29. Yada yada, Bullock quit, well aware his preselection would not be renewed at the DD. He became a casualty of the competition for power rather than its beneficiary. He lost. Moreover, his fellow-travellers lost control of the Right too, doubtless in part because of the discredit he aroused. He is an example of defeat….of anachronism. But feel free…fight yesterday’s wars. Tories enjoy that.

  30. As evidenced by politicians releasing press releases on twitter.

    I did social media training for work last year and we were told that twitter is a medium preferred by journalists, whereas Facebook is better for connecting with the wider public. So that would explain why you are seeing MPs linking press releases on twitter, whereas as a regular Fb user I can’t recall the last time I saw any of the MPs I follow link to a press release. It’s all about videos and photos and occasionally linking to an article in the media.

  31. Who is an actual Corbyn analogue in Labor right now? I don’t believe their is one.
    Late Stage Capitalism is a great subreddit to follow:

  32. guytaur @ #583 Sunday, June 18, 2017 at 1:21 pm

    Bemused
    Filmimg local debates and even do your presser invite questions from media but if nonjournalists turn up go do one at local shopping centre film yourself with voters asking questions. Submit to media. Modern smartphone quality good enough for media/pr person to organise

    Labor already do this. I’ve seen a number of events live “broadcast” over Facebook, and there are other platforms where Labor events have been “broadcast”. IIRC C@t is across some of the other platforms that Labor use to broadcast events.

  33. Incidentally, Bullock quit before the end of the last Parliament, opening the way for the appointment of Pat Dodson, a person of great stature. Bullock did not have to do that. He got no credit for it. But there’s no doubt his actions helped Labor in the lat election.

  34. guytaur @ #607 Sunday, June 18, 2017 at 2:37 pm

    Bemused
    Thats just journalists being lazy. Its certainly not a quality problem. Unless you think 4K is poor quality

    It is just lovely quality Guytaur, but the point I was trying to make is that it doesn’t work with a suburban newspaper or community radio station.

  35. taylormade @ #609 Sunday, June 18, 2017 at 2:42 pm

    Tanya Plibersek has been very underwhelming in the school funding debate over the past couple of months. She needs to come up with a bit more than just parroting 22 billion, 22 billion, 22 billion as she is just not cutting through in the media or out in the suburbs. She seemed to be relying on the promised scare campaign from the Catholic Schools sector which all appears to have fizzled out rather quickly. She still has the AEU on side s you would expect, but her performance has been poor.

    Will you visit the ‘Three Stooges Ministers’ when they are in the slammer?
    Some inside reports would be nice. 😐

  36. guytaur @ #607 Sunday, June 18, 2017 at 2:37 pm

    Bemused
    Thats just journalists being lazy. Its certainly not a quality problem. Unless you think 4K is poor quality

    From the sounds of it, you need a referral to the photography nut I work with for a diatribe on how there is so more to getting a quality image than just the number of megapixels.

  38. Bemused

    You are wrong about radio. The only thing that stops them using audio of live press conferences is access. Radio uses audio of politicians statements all the time.

    This is just another fotm.

    My point is it is to the advantage of the candidate to include it not exclude it bas others have pointed out its done for social media anyway. Not that much of an effort to provide video for media as well.

    The more this happens the more the media will have to pay attention not just ignore. Thats the point. Its not like its some grat new burden for politicians to do

  44. yabba88 @ #623 Sunday, June 18, 2017 at 3:38 pm

    Briefly, You are absolutely correct, of course. Pardon me for expressing my foolish meanderings. Bullock was plainly a triumph of the negotiators art. Nothing corrupt or underhanded occurred. A great man. Not in the least self-interested. Represented his state with distinction. An example to us all.

    Has anyone ever seen Briefly? Are we sure he is not Joe Bullock or a former Bullock staffer? 😛

  45. Also don’t forget the media is releasing these styles of press releases. See abc twitter links to video stories on News 24.

    If the media can do it for advertising. Public Relations press releases so can politicians

  46. Grimace

    I’ve seen a number of events live “broadcast” over Facebook

    Shorten did an town hall thing over live facebook about 12 mths ago.

  49. Guytaur:

    The purpose of issuing media releases is so the media have a ready made story they can simply copy and paste and publish. The issuing body wins because their story gets published, the media outlet wins because they don’t have to waste resources in preparing a report.

    The more I see of tweets linked here and my own experience of Facebook, my view is the two are communicating to vastly different audiences. Twitter is more of a circle jerk whereas Facebook feels more like communicating with actual people.

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