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 3 of 16
1 2 3 4 … 16

  1. phoenixRed

    Trump and all the Presidents men are lawyering up. Lawyers are doing a roaring trade in Washington DC right about now!!

  3. ItzaDream,
    I once knew a lady, when I lived in WA, who grew the beautiful WA Wildflowers for export and local sale. As you would know, they have amazing wildflowers in WA! 🙂


  4. victoria
    Saturday, June 17, 2017 at 9:46 am

    doyley

    we have border security on all sorts of items coming into the country. surely a test can be devised to establish whether building products are made to code and dont for example contain asbestos, and are highly flammable.

    The solution is simple for faulty material. Make the builder responsible for replacing faulty material and make sure it happens.Looks at blue scope steals current marketing pitch; Australian standards and traceable testing. As some one above pointed out above; a Chinese certificate is not worth the paper it is printed on.

    But the fire was not a case of faulty material; it was faulty specification.
    We will see what happens with the Lacross case. If the builder has to pay the builder will take more care in passing the risk to a design firm; a large consulting firm will not take the risk.
    They saved a couple of hundred thousand dollars;it will cost someone millions to replace. It will cost a lot more if there is another fire before it is replaced.

  5. victoria Saturday, June 17, 2017 at 11:32 am

    PhoenixRed

    I just saw the tweet you posted from Claude Taylor. Too funny!

    *********************************************
    The only jobs Trump has created so far are all in the legal profession !

  6. frednk

    problem with holding builder responsible. phoenix companies and sub contracting work out. As I asked earlier, where will the buck stop?

  7. To the eye, there are two types of cladding used on buildings since “reconstituted” granite fell out of favour. There are those that proudly boast a brandname on the protective coversheet which is peeled off after installation, and those that are totally anonymous. I presume the latter have styrofoam or similar inside. The branded ones, Alpolic and Alucobond, both say on their websites that they are “mineral”-filled. Do any of the many engineers who contribute here have any inside info on just what the mineral might be?

  8. phoenixRed

    precisely. Trump’s latest tweets are indicative of just how much of a shit show this whole imbroglio has become.
    from what I have gleaned from Rick Wilson who is a GOP insider. The GOP are still far from entertaining the whole impeachment road.

  9. Trog, if you’re still around, I’d like to take exception to your assumptions about Shorten and climate/energy policy.

    Just prior to the election, I watched an unpublicised forum where Bill answered questions (without notes) on these topics exclusively for over an hour. He knew the topic in detail, had strong policy platforms that are consistent with labor policy now.

    I admit to being surprised at how he was SO across the policy topic since he was party leader. Also, he was far from wooden or quoting from a talking point sheets but demonstrated an understanding of how the various policy aspects were interrelated, and was passionate about the need for sound policy in govt.

    I think we need to be a little hesitant about making sweeping assertions about such things.

  11. There’s a theme emerging in Mueller’s Russia probe that could prove damning for Trump

    Mueller, who was appointed as special counsel last month to lead the probe into Russia’s election interference, is also homing in on money laundering and the business dealings of Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, according to reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

    The developments indicate Mueller is taking a follow-the-money approach to the investigation that could leave Trump’s sprawling business empire hugely vulnerable.

    Mueller has hired Lisa Page and Andrew Weissmann. Page is a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s organized-crime section whose cases centered on international organized crime and money laundering, and Weissmann is a seasoned prosecutor who oversaw cases against high-ranking organized criminals on Wall Street in the early 1990s and, later, against 30 people implicated in the Enron fraud scandal.

    Mueller has also recruited James Quarles, who specialized in campaign-finance research for the Watergate task force, according to Wired; Michael Dreeben, considered by some to be “the best criminal appellate lawyer in America”; and Aaron Zebley, a former senior counselor in the DOJ’s National Security Division specializing in cybersecurity.

    http://www.pulse.ng/bi/politics/politics-theres-a-theme-emerging-in-muellers-russia-probe-that-could-prove-damning-for-trump-id6853107.html

  14. fess
    should be interesting. btw Malcolm Nance has been very dismissive of Mensch, Taylor etc. and John Schindler doesnt think much of him.

  15. I would like to make the assumption that most of the towers constructed and under construction at Docklands and surrounds in Melbourne would either be using substandard materials or construction techniques and would also constitute a significant fire hazard given the size of each of the units and the number of residents/tenants per m2.

  16. Limited through mix

    agree with you re the size of the units. I know there was some discussion as to increasing the minimum size of each unit. Not sure what has eventuated in that area

  18. Victoria @9:48
    “surely a test can be devised to establish whether building products are made to code and dont for example contain asbestos, and are highly flammable.”
    My guess is : try to set a sample on fire. Simple, and hopefully not spectacular.
    BTW, asbestos has a dual personality! wonderful, if you don’t want to catch fire; terrible if you don’t want to die of cancer! Aluminium seems the opposite. Not carcinogenic, but a a fire accelerator.

  19. Gippslander

    I was thinking along the lines of testing random containers and the items therein, with a quick test that involves probing the product with some type of chemical to give a result as to its constitution and fire retardant abilities.

  20. victoria @ #108 Saturday, June 17, 2017 at 11:40 am

    phoenixRed
    precisely. Trump’s latest tweets are indicative of just how much of a shit show this whole imbroglio has become.
    from what I have gleaned from Rick Wilson who is a GOP insider. The GOP are still far from entertaining the whole impeachment road.

    They will entertain it if and when it becomes and existential threat to the seats of enough Congress persons. And only then. There is not an ethical shred amongst them, but they will be very alive to whether their districts are going to turn against them in the wake of continuing scandals around their President.

  21. 28 April 2015: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-28/overcrowding-substandard-building-contributed-docklands-fire/6426588

    Substandard cladding has been blamed for the rapid spread of a fire that caused more than $2 million worth of damage to a high-rise apartment building in Melbourne’s Docklands in November.

    The MFB said the building’s external cladding did not meet building code requirements, and allowed the blaze to spread quickly up the building.

    The MFB also found that firefighters found “high occupancy rates” in some apartments and excessive amount of combustible storage on balconies.

  24. 17 Feb 2016: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-17/melbourne-apartments-contain-non-compliant-cladding-audit-finds/7175242

    Half of Melbourne’s high-rise apartments contain non-compliant external cladding, a Victorian Building Authority audit has found.

    But the authority said the buildings were all safe to occupy and residents were not at risk.

    The audit was done on 170 buildings and 51 per cent were found to have used the wrong cladding.

    But only two buildings — the Lacrosse apartments and Harvest Apartments in South Melbourne — required immediate emergency action.

    Victorian Building Authority chief executive Prue Rigby said the audit’s findings showed the building industry had failed at a number of levels.

    “It was through the design phase, it was through the approval phase and it was through the building phase,” she said.

    “That says clearly to us that there is a misunderstanding … about the requirements about the national construction code.”

  25. If my memory serves me correctly, didn’t the Coalition, in the dying days of the Howard government, introduce scanning of Containers coming into our ports and change the Regulations around inspecting them?

  26. TPOF

    I would have thought that the GOP can see that a tipping point has been reached. The only reason I believe they are holding back, is some of them are knee deep in the muck. I am looking at Ryan, Pence, McConnell, Chaffetz, Nunes just to name a few

  30. 18 Dec 2016: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbournes-faulty-building-crisis-20161217-gtdbb0.html

    Victoria is facing a crisis of faulty, dangerous and leaking buildings that experts warn is comparable in scale to the historical scourge of asbestos.

    Builders Collective of Australia president Phil Dwyer said there would be an “endemic failure of the building industry” in the next 10 years as a consequence of developers chasing profits at the expensive of longevity.

    Veteran building regulation expert Stephen Kip said it was extremely likely lives would be lost in Victoria due to poor building standards.

    He said he was aware of at least half a dozen occupied buildings that he considered unsafe for people to live in, mainly because of major fire safety risks caused by insufficient fire separation and the use of combustible cladding.

    Mr Kip said there was a big problem with lightweight polystyrene cladding being installed on medium-sized apartment buildings because water would leak through the joints of the cladding.

    While many agree there are pervasive flaws with the standard of new buildings in Victoria, there is not yet consensus about how to reform the industry, amid fears any changes might increase the cost of building homes.

  31. Someone posted earlier that testing / certifying at point of installation would be the way to go.

    I accept that there are significant problems checking every container entering Australia and the problem of dodgy Phoenix companies. So inspection at the actual site well may be the best option.

    Any oversight must be undertaken by a government body, no contracting out to some tick and flick private.

    Perhaps the ABCC can finally do something useful and be the national body with full oversight powers instead of targeting unions which are simply trying to make workplaces safer and ensure Australian standard materials are used. Perhaps even, as a ” radical ” option, work hand in hand with unions instead of trying to bash them senseless.

    Cheers.

  32. lost post, trying again

    Yes, C@T, I know. Fabulous wildflowers. They have a perfect climate, more Mediterranean, unlike our wet and humid springs and summers. But I think they have transport problems, with a limited local market.

    It is still on my bucket list, tho I have done the north, Kimberley and Broome and around (had family up there), by road, long trips, long stories.

  34. Ah, good, Pegasus is back. I hope she takes this article to her fellow Greens:

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jun/16/gonski-20-will-cut-school-funding-by-12bn-over-10-years-budget-office-says

    Because it outlines how David Leyonhjelm is happy to vote for Gonski 2.0 now as he has had the Parliamentary Budget Office cost it and they have come back saying it will DECREASE funding to schools over the next 10 years.

    Sarah Hanson-Young should stick to the principles she espoused in May:

    The Greens will determine their position in the party room next week, before a push by the government to pass the bill that week before the winter recess.

    The PBO costing appears to bear out a concern expressed about the Gonski 2.0 changes by Greens education spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, who has noted it “does provide a smaller amount – a reduction – to what has been legislated”.

    “I don’t think in 2017, when we are weighing up priorities of government spending, that we should be looking for savings in our education budget,” she said in May.

  35. This pdf gives a very good explanation of the requirements and properties of external cladding systems. Well worth a look.
    file:///C:/Users/Ken/Downloads/43426_KIP_AUS%20Building%20Facades%20LR.pdf

  37. doyley @ #70 Saturday, June 17, 2017 at 9:42 am

    Victoria,
    Agree completely. It is time , way beyond time, for construction and material supply companies in this country to be held to account.
    The same old lines will be thrown out about how hard it to distinguish between products, how hard to ensure the products are really up to Australian standards etc etc.
    The simple test is if you are paying cheap as shit prices for something then you are buying a cheap as shit and non compliant product. The bottom line / profit driven ideology however continues to convienently ignore this.
    Cheers.

    Whoever manufactures a product in Australia or imports a product from overseas is responsible for the warranty, so I would have thought they also were responsible for seeing it meets safety standards etc.
    If not, then they ought to be.
    And add to that importers being responsible for the provenance of the product they import. If they cannot be sure of the authenticity of its origins then they shouldn’t import it.

  38. coincidentally a family member is working in the CBD today in the removal of cooling towers that have been decommissioned and new ones being installed on rooftop of building. his crew were audited today. I will get further details later on. Thought it was interesting that an audit has taken place on a Saturday morning.

  39. Meanwhile both the Coalition and Labor are happy to accept donations from developers.

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/news/greens-aim-to-outlaw-political-donations-from-property-developers/news-story/8e2307591412c14b46fef8ee403bfb93

    LAWS banning property developers from making political donations and harsher penalties for candidates who abuse the donation system will be put to State Parliament before the next election.

    The Greens will reintroduce donation legislation in a bid to fix what they describe as “rife developer corruption” at local and state level.

    Similar legislation was voted down last year by both major parties.

    Melbourne Greens MP Ellen Sandell said the influence of developers was “phenomenal” and should not be underestimated.

    “It is outrageous that developers can donate to politicians and political parties.

    “They expect something in return because otherwise they wouldn’t do it,” she said.

    “We have seen poor quality, large scale development that doesn’t give any thought to design or community influence or people who actually live in the city.

    “It is all about profits. We have seen this with the rezoning of Fishermans Bend where developers have reaped enormous profits.”

  41. PhRD

    Even if some of the Trump ‘entourage’ are innocent they would be very dumb not to have a legal adviser even if they are just asked to be a witness.

  42. Jenauthor

    Just prior to the election, I watched an unpublicised forum where Bill answered questions (without notes) on these topics exclusively for over an hour. He knew the topic in detail, had strong policy platforms that are consistent with labor policy now.

    It’s good to hear that Jenauthor, I guess that I haven’t had that experience. Maybe I would change my opinion if I did.

  43. Good Afternoon

    I an watching a repeat of the Link with Stan Grant on Climate Change. He went to Blacktown. The issue climate change. Its no wonder the LNP polling is so bad.

    The self confessed LNP voters want more renewables. Not more coal. Even the not convinced there is human induced climate change say go with renewables for the jobs and lack of pollution.

    So going on Mr Grants anecdotal experience the more the LNP promote coal the more they lose. This is in the area dominated by the Murdoch press

  44. On Trump.

    Its starting to dawn on the GOP they are losing associating themselves with Trump. Meanwhile they are pushing their healthcare repeal Bill in secret backroom sessions.

    This might get the bill passed but it will mean a backlash in the Midterms.

    As a result Nate Silver is giving 50/59 odds on impeachment right now. If the Democrats do win the House again those odds will change dramatically

  45. Ah, peg – the Greens were opposed to huge donations from individuals, I recall – until an individual made a huge donation.

  46. The political donation system is rotten to the core.
    All donations from companies of any sort should be banned and the amount an individual can donate be severely limited.

    Too many vested interests destroying the public interest.

  47. Jack a randa

    The fire resistant panels will have a core that is actually a composite of mineral wool and polymers. Higher quality panels have a higher proportion of mineral wool. Mineral wool is not a “pure” metal but a product of coal slag. It will typically contain aluminium oxide. Nothing toxic in it, if you were wondering.

  48. ***********

    Trump hires another attorney weeks after his lawyer sent out typo-filled criminal defense

    *********

    See, good spelling IS important!

  49. Thanks Frednk, BK, Soc, and others. So the better panels have variants of rock wool in an aluminium sandwich eh? Safe enough unless ignited by an Exocet missile I guess. Though the safety of the workers making the rock wool is another question – it depends on the standards observed in the country of manufacture. If I bought into a tower I’d still practice finding the fire stairs and the fire-hose cupboard with my eyes shut, and demand a look at the maintenance and inspection records. But I’d generally feel fairly safe in Australia.

  50. George Takei‏Verified account @GeorgeTakei 4h4 hours ago
    More
    Uh-oh, now Mike Pence has lawyered up. Even Donald’s own lawyer has hired a lawyer. And to think I doubted Donald’s ability to create jobs.

Comments Page 3 of 16
1 2 3 4 … 16

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *