BludgerTrack: 53.6-46.4 to Labor

New poll this week from Newspoll (better for the Coalition), Essential Research (worse) and YouGov (about the same) add up to no change at all on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, except that the Coalition is up a seat in Victoria and down one in Western Australia. The leadership ratings from Newspoll cause Malcolm Turnbull to gain a little ground on preferred prime minister, but lose it on net approval. Full details at the bottom.

First though, some news on forthcoming by-elections, which will get dedicated pages and threads soon enough:

• A date is yet to be set for the by-election in the Victorian state seat of Northcote following the death of on August 23. There will presumably be no Liberal candidate, but the Greens are highly competitive in the seat, having fallen 6.0% short of unseating Richardson at the 2014 election. Clare Burns, a political organiser with the Victorian Trades Hall Council and former speech pathologist, has been preselected unopposed as Labor’s candidate. The Greens will hold a preselection ballot today.

• There are now three state by-elections looming in New South Wales, and the date for them has been set at October 14. Cootamundra and Blacktown were already on the cards, following the respective retirements of Nationals MP Katrina Hodgkinson and Labor MP John Robertson, and Murray was added to the list earlier this week after Nationals MP Adrian Piccoli announced his retirement.

And some localised polling snippets:

• There was a rare Northern Territory opinion poll a fortnight ago, conducted by MediaReach for the Northern Territory News and encompassing a sample of 1400. On the primary vote, the poll has Labor on 43%, compared with 42.2% last year; the Country Liberal Party on 38%, recovering from 31.8%; and “others” on 19%. The respondent-allocated preference result is 50-50, compared with 58.5-41.5 to Labor last year, which implies a near-perfect reversal of the 63-37 preference split in favour of Labor last year.

(UPDATE: I had a report here on Tony Windsor’s prospects on New England, but I wasn’t looking closely enough and it was actually from before the last election.)

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.

795 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.6-46.4 to Labor”

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  1. **government gingerly asks business if they’d mind not continuing the decades long shift of income to profit share.**
    I like.
    I often wonder if real, wide ranging changes to political donations (and other methods of influence peddling) would benefit the Liberal party the most. Sure, they would lose their rudder and sails for a while but they would eventually find direction and energy from an unlikely source for them – what is good for the Australian public.

  2. Panicking White House Is Setting Up Legal Defense Fund To Cover Costs Of Russia Investigation

    Two key figures in the Russia investigation who are no longer with the administration are actually struggling to pay their legal fees.

    “In most cases, third parties can pay for federal workers’ legal defense funds,” the Daily Beast reported. “As The Daily Beast reported in August, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn—two targets of the probe—are already facing significant financial strain because of high legal bills.”

    As the special counsel investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia continues to pick up steam and more in the administration are targeted, it’s clear the scandal isn’t going anywhere – and neither are the mounting legal fees.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/09/09/panicking-white-house-setting-legal-defense-fund-cover-costs-russia-investigation.html

  3. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago sits in Hurricane Irma’s path — and the federal government is insuring it

    With Hurricane Irma threatening all of South Florida, the Huffington Post has learned that President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is federally insured.

    A Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesperson told HuffPost the beachfront property is insured through the National Flood Insurance Program.

    Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago for $10 million and has already received $17 million in insurance payouts for hurricane damages. Being deposed under oath, Trump admitted pocketing some of the money.

    “It really beat up Mar-a-Lago very badly,” Trump claimed, though he only applied for building permits to do $3,000 worth of hurricane repairs.

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/trumps-mar-a-lago-sits-in-hurricane-irmas-path-and-the-federal-government-is-insuring-it/

  4. Oakeshott Country @ #500 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 11:22 am

    in the debate on AFL/NRL crowds (TV ratings are another story that the Victorians like to ignore) the fundamental demographic of Rugby League tends to be ignored. League started as the working/lower middle class game while Union was upper middle/upper class. League’s attempts to escape that demographic have been largely unsuccessful. League and greyhounds continue to be a natural mix. Meanwhile Union is on its last legs in Sydney and I suspect much of the Swans support comes from that demographic.

    A shame really.
    I played Union and I can assure you the demographics of my teams was certainly not middle/upper class. It is just a better game IMHO.

  5. George Clooney: ‘Failed screenwriter’ Steve Bannon is not welcomed back in Hollywood

    It doesn’t look like Steve Bannon is welcomed back in Tinseltown.

    Hollywood superstar George Clooney destroyed Bannon at the Toronto International Film Festival, claiming former producer and financier would be sucking up to him if he was still trying to be a big-screen big shot.

    “Steve Bannon is a failed f*cking screenwriter, and if you’ve ever read (his) screenplay, it’s unbelievable,” Clooney told Entertainment Weekly

    “Now, if he’d somehow managed miraculously to get that thing produced, he’d still be in Hollywood, still making movies and licking my ass to get me to do one of his stupid-ass screenplays.”

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/george-clooney-failed-screenwriter-steve-bannon-would-be-licking-his-ass-if-he-was-still-trying-to-make-it-in-hollywood/

  6. bemused @ #510 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 11:34 am

    Oakeshott Country @ #500 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 11:22 am

    in the debate on AFL/NRL crowds (TV ratings are another story that the Victorians like to ignore) the fundamental demographic of Rugby League tends to be ignored. League started as the working/lower middle class game while Union was upper middle/upper class. League’s attempts to escape that demographic have been largely unsuccessful. League and greyhounds continue to be a natural mix. Meanwhile Union is on its last legs in Sydney and I suspect much of the Swans support comes from that demographic.

    A shame really.
    I played Union and I can assure you the demographics of my teams was certainly not middle/upper class. It is just a better game IMHO.

    Union is a terrible game. Very boring.

  7. Russians are traveling to Trump’s American properties to give birth and get dual citizenship for their babies

    The president’s affection for Vladimir Putin and accommodating stance on Russia have had a trickledown effect: a Russian baby boom centered on Trump’s Miami properties. While the trend of Russians traveling to Florida to give birth was being noticed as far back as 2014, a recent Daily Beast investigation indicates many of those expectant parents are booking Trump properties for their short-term accommodations. Wealthy Russian couples not only want to give their babies the dividends that come with American citizenship, they want their birthing experience to be as luxurious as possible. Trump properties offer high-end digs, as well as a brand now recognized as extremely hospitable to all things Russian

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/russians-are-traveling-to-trumps-american-properties-to-give-birth-and-get-dual-citizenship-for-their-babies/


  8. jenauthor

    I think Murphy has finally had enough of the crippling of our country by the Lib’s short term political expediency measures.
    ……

    I think she, and other more serious journalists can see us going the way of the US if this rubbish is allowed to just take over uncontested.

    The guardian allow comments; she gets given the message pretty regularly that the punters are little fed up with the turd polishing and expect journalists to filter out the rubbish not add to it.

  9. Rex Douglas @ #514 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 11:36 am

    bemused @ #510 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 11:34 am

    Oakeshott Country @ #500 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 11:22 am

    in the debate on AFL/NRL crowds (TV ratings are another story that the Victorians like to ignore) the fundamental demographic of Rugby League tends to be ignored. League started as the working/lower middle class game while Union was upper middle/upper class. League’s attempts to escape that demographic have been largely unsuccessful. League and greyhounds continue to be a natural mix. Meanwhile Union is on its last legs in Sydney and I suspect much of the Swans support comes from that demographic.

    A shame really.
    I played Union and I can assure you the demographics of my teams was certainly not middle/upper class. It is just a better game IMHO.

    Union is a terrible game. Very boring.

    I would sooner watch paint dry than watch AFL.
    But I am not a sports watcher, never have been. I used to love playing.

  10. sonar @ #480 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 10:29 am

    I think Insiders is on the ABC to allow PB’ers the opportunity to talk back to the TV…My 88 year pld dad talks back to his TV all the time…..I once said to him..” dad,you do realise that they can’t hear you “…to which he smiiled and said..” I know, but it makes me feel better”

    My elderly mother reached a stage where she had trouble working the TV. I arrived one day and the women’s hockey was on, in which she was clearly uninterested. “You don’t have to watch that you know Mum, I’ll change it”. “Oh no”, she said, “I wouldn’t want to stop their game.”

  11. **Union is a terrible game. Very boring.**
    Played properly and with just a little understanding of whats involved it is certainly not boring.
    The recent All Blacks v Lions matches are an example.

    The problem IMO is that the game is struggling under recent changes in training regimes (bigger players) and bringing in 7 substitution options.

  12. **I played Union and I can assure you the demographics of my teams was certainly not middle/upper class.**
    Yeah, in my home town too. Union and League were played alongside each other with quite a bit of cross over of players from year to year. But that was outside Sydney Metro. A lot of NSW country Union clubs were starting to struggle in the 90’s and I assume that has only become worse.

  13. Jenauthor,

    I think Stutchbury’s look is more ‘silent-movie’ leading man. He seems to be caked with make-up.

    If he had a moustache and a top hat, you could easily picture him tying Katharine Murphy to the railroad tracks.

  14. Rex Douglas @ #529 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 11:57 am

    https://thewest.com.au/politics/labor-hedges-on-coal-fired-power-station-ng-s-1770583

    …”With the Liddell power station, it’s 50 years old. What car do (people) drive that is 50 years old?” Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne on Friday.
    “If something can be done, which is commercial, Labor is not going to immediately rule that out.

    Clinging to dirty energy production.

    Said in the knowledge that most likely nothing can be done that is commercial.

  15. Speaking of Rugby League, after Ian Roberts had a word:

    “But one of the key pillars of rugby league is inclusiveness – and the game has a duty to back up its policy with action,” Greenberg said. “There is a place for everyone in rugby league. It might be as a junior, as a volunteer, as a match official or as an NRL player. And we need to treat everyone equally both on and off the field and that’s why we will publicly support the same-sex marriage proposal.”

    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nrl-answers-plea-from-ian-roberts-to-support-samesex-marriage-20170908-gye1tp.html

  16. bemused @ #529 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 12:01 pm

    Rex Douglas @ #529 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 11:57 am

    https://thewest.com.au/politics/labor-hedges-on-coal-fired-power-station-ng-s-1770583

    …”With the Liddell power station, it’s 50 years old. What car do (people) drive that is 50 years old?” Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne on Friday.
    “If something can be done, which is commercial, Labor is not going to immediately rule that out.

    Clinging to dirty energy production.

    Said in the knowledge that most likely nothing can be done that is commercial.

    You just hope that’s the case.

    From the horses mouth, the ALP aren’t ruling out supporting the continuation of dirty energy production.

  17. Poor Rex(Mod lib) and the rest of his liberal mates have not worked out yet that coal is not commercial. Come on mod lib; out yourself and take the pounding you deserve over your support for Turnbull.

  18. **I wonder how much influence Joel Fitzgibbon has on the ALP clinging to dirty energy production ?**
    The upper Hunter has a future post coal. It is a beautiful area, opportunities abound. And there are many who hate the mines. How downstream will cope is another matter. Losing the Coal Port will hurt (i think it is one of the largest in the world).

    But that wont be for many a year as so much of the Coal from the Hunter mines is exported rather than just used in the local Power Stations.

    But the closing of a powerstation with resulting job losses will have Fitzgibbon walking the fence while towing the line.

  19. Simon Katich @ #533 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 12:06 pm

    **I wonder how much influence Joel Fitzgibbon has on the ALP clinging to dirty energy production ?**
    The upper Hunter has a future post coal. It is a beautiful area, opportunities abound. And there are many who hate the mines. How downstream will cope is another matter. Losing the Coal Port will hurt (i think it is one of the largest in the world).

    But that wont be for many a year as so much of the Coal from the Hunter mines is exported rather than just used in the local Power Stations.

    But the closing of a powerstation with resulting job losses will have Fitzgibbon walking the fence while towing the line.

    Fitzgibbon has the chance to create a great legacy by championing the cause of those affected workers and transitioning them into clean energy production.

  20. lizzie @ #496 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 9:15 am

    We hear very little about the WA communities that were closed. This is a typical example of government imposing their will on aboriginal communities. Did I hear someone say the miners required the land to be cleared of objectors?

    It’s been a journey of tragedy and dispossession for this 27-year-old Wajuk, Balardung, Kija and Yulparitja man, who was working as a college administrator when he joined the protest against the forced closure of isolated communities by the Western Australia state government – including Mulan, the community he had lived in as a child.

    https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/sep/08/6000km-only-20-minutes-with-the-pm-prime-minister-clinton-pryor-relives-epic-walk-across-australia-indigenous?CMP=share_btn_tw

    Before the intervention, I saw a couple of Aboriginal communities in northern WA and was shocked by what I saw. Then someone told me what I saw was nothing compared to how bad the ones further inland were. What I saw was shameful for a rich country like Australia.

    Approaching the first one, from a distance (several km), I thought it was a rubbish tip. Approaching the second, I knew better. As it stands, these communities are not at the end of the line. They 1,000km past the end of the line and the residents of them have little hope of reaching equality of outcomes with every other Australian.

    I have no idea what the solution to the problems faced by our Indigenous people is. Despite enormous resources over decades, what we have been doing has not worked. A big part of the problem is that the suffering of our indigenous people is done out of sight of ordinary Australians.

    As an immensely rich country, we must do better.

  21. Oakeshott Country earlier
    “Meanwhile Union is on its last legs in Sydney and I suspect much of the Swans support comes from that demographic.”

    Presumably you wouldn’t support the cutting of the Western Force” by the Sydney centric ARU. Perth was an area where RU was actually growing both at the top and the base.

  22. P1 lovely graph. Problem for you is it means nothing.

    All it does is tell you what has happenef. NOT why it has has happened. And NOTHING about what will happen.

    Extrapolations are only ever meaningful if there is a theory about mechanism. You don’t care for such subtlty. All along you’ve claimed that solar etc cannot be rolled out at sufficient speed. All along you have haf no argument as to why you think so.

    Here’s a hint. The rate has been determined by policy settings. NOT fundamental constraints like production.

  23. Newcastle is allegedly the biggest coal exporting port in the world but I understand that most of the exported coal is cokable and used for iron smelting. I would think the port’s future is secure for the medium term.

  24. It is rather restful to find a Bludger topic about which I do not care at all: the fate of RU.

    Meanwhile, and getting onto some really important stuff, when are they going to hang, draw and quarter – uh no… when are they going to discipline, the umpie who allowed Shuey to milk a finals-winning free kick by lifting his arm?

  25. DB Cooper

    I think Stutchbury’s look is more ‘silent-movie’ leading man. He seems to be caked with make-up.

    And has dark smudges around the eyelashes. Very thirties!

  26. Rex Douglas @ #531 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 10:04 am

    bemused @ #529 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 12:01 pm

    Rex Douglas @ #529 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 11:57 am

    https://thewest.com.au/politics/labor-hedges-on-coal-fired-power-station-ng-s-1770583

    …”With the Liddell power station, it’s 50 years old. What car do (people) drive that is 50 years old?” Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne on Friday.
    “If something can be done, which is commercial, Labor is not going to immediately rule that out.

    Clinging to dirty energy production.

    Said in the knowledge that most likely nothing can be done that is commercial.

    You just hope that’s the case.

    From the horses mouth, the ALP aren’t ruling out supporting the continuation of dirty energy production.

    Rex,

    The company I work for does work on coal fired power plants and I’m actively involved in their biggest maintenance contract at a coal fired power plant. I was involved in the refurbishment of the A & B units at Muja. It cost the WA government $308 million to fail at refurbishing 400MW of capacity at Muja.

    I’d be very surprised if Liddel could be economically refurbished.

    There has been public commentary from GE who manufactured the turbines at Liddel, AGL and a retired senior engineer with knowledge of the operation of Liddel, who have all come out and said it can’t be done.

    Delta, the company named as a potential buyer of Liddel have come out and said they won’t do it without someone else (i.e., the government) picking up the tab for the decommissioning and remediation of the site, and they want hundreds of millions in subsidies to pay for the refurbishment.

    A reasonable person could conclude that the refurbishment of Liddle can’t economically be done and that we’d be better off spending our money on new renewable generation.

  27. Prior to coming out, Ian Roberts used to get around the clubs/pubs of Manly with a gaggle of the most stunning Northern Beaches plastic fantastic young women you can imagine.

    And lets not forget what Ian Roberts did to Gary Jacks face (although he unreservedly apologised to Jack and his family).

    He was also somewhat illiterate, but ended up studying at NIDA and got bit parts in Star Wars and Superman movies.

  28. Player One @ #535 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 10:09 am

    grimace @ #487 Sunday, September 10th, 2017 – 10:59 am

    In the 18 months to June 2017*, Australia added an average of 61MW per month of small scale PV systems, or just over 1GW. If you look at the first six months of 2017*, the average is 74MW per month of small scale PV or 444MW.

    Here is the actual data, already graphed …

    http://pv-map.apvi.org.au/analyses

    It shows amazingly consistent linear growth nearly all the way back to 2010.

    I downloaded the source data to that graph, which is where I got the numbers from.

  29. The ugly fact is that Labor is stuck with the consequences of Coalition’s Coal Fervor over the past three decades.

    Labor will have to do the best it can with the Mother of All Coalition Messes.

    Based on past climate policy performance we can be sure that the Greens will do their best to assist the Coalition against their common enemy.

  30. Falcon
    I think the Union has reaped what it sowed. It always wanted to be elitist but was seduced by Murdoch’s gold and couldn’t cut it as a professional sport
    Here’s a lesson for Twiggy; there is already a rebel rugby competition – it’s called League.
    The Force might survive if it persuades the NRL that the time is ripe for expansion.

  31. FalconWA – you wont find many people supporting the ARU in anything they do. Like many boards and certainly like most large sporting governing bodies the ARU is full of gravy train, freeloading crony incompetents.

    I for one hope the Force succeed big time in an Asia/Pacific competition and stick it to the pricks.

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