BludgerTrack: 53.9-46.1 to Labor

The Coalition’s dire position weakens still further, as One Nation recovers from a recent dip.

Three new polls this week, from ReachTEL, Essential Research and YouGov, has moved Labor to a just-shy-of-career-best result in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, on which they now hold a two-party lead of 53.9-46.1. However, the seat projection total is unchanged, as a gain for Labor in Queensland is balanced by a loss in South Australia. The big move on the primary vote is to One Nation at the expense of the Coalition. No new results this week for the leadership trends.

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.

599 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.9-46.1 to Labor”

Comments Page 11 of 12
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  1. Steve777

    Re The Intercept. It has some good stuff at times. The Wikipedia entry says….

    The Intercept is an online publication launched in February 2014 by First Look Media, a news organization created and funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The editors and top award winning journalists are Betsy Reed, Glenn Greenwald, and Jeremy Scahill;……..the publication serves as a platform to report on the documents released by Edward Snowden Producing journalism across a wide range of issues” in the long term.

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

  3. Steve777:

    Nobody disputes his jesus freakery. But a President Pence is definitely not going to be anger tweeting at 3am trying to antagonise American enemies. It isn’t saying much, but that alone means he is a better alternative for President than Trump.

  4. All the main politicians including Pence used “Unspeakable Evil”.
    Only making shit worse by focusing on the people doing it.

  5. **My main point was how DTT picks up something from an article that ‘could happens’ and turns it into ‘would happen’**
    My main concern was that we have 2yrs studying politics in common.

  6. **How petty can Malcolm Turnbull get?**
    Pretty petty. When he recently boasted about bring Playboy to Australia he aslso took the opportunity to sledge Rudd regarding the strip club thingo.

    A rather unlikable chap if ever I saw one.

  7. Socrates
    Hello all. No doubt others have already commented on this. Looks like Bronwyn Bishop has a worthy successor.
    “David Leyonhjelm, the Liberal Democrat senator from New South Wales, charged taxpayers $9,392.59 to fly to Perth in December, booking the trip as “electorate business”.

    Socrates would you or anyone else have a link for this please

  8. mari

    Damn that is a good point. An organisation started in Australia wins a Nobel and the government is crickets rather than Oi Oi Oi ‘Straya.

  9. poroti
    mari
    Damn that is a good point. An organisation started in Australia wins a Nobel and the government is crickets rather than Oi Oi Oi ‘Straya.

    He is getting a pasting on Twitter Deserved!

  11. mikehilliard
    mari

    I thought I’d just missed our PM raving about ICAN’s nobel prize, seems not.

    No you didn’t what a wanker

  13. Oakshott

    I am quite sure I got a better grasp of bacteriology than most GPs (as advised by my GP) and also I am sorry to say than some bloody infectious diseases specialists. despite your specialist quals I really have not seen much evidence of you having a lot of undertanding of infection control, and I would not be surprised to find you were one of those surgeons who though hand washing was beneath them.

    When NSW hospitals can mange not to infect patients with Staff aureus or superbugs please feel free to lord it over me you arrogant sexist god doctor, but until then have a smidgeon of humility.

    I have said NOTHING on infection control that would not be backed up by anyone competent in the area, although I by no means put myself up as an expert.

    Indeed you arrogant p**k all I have ever said re infection in Australia was that should Ebola arrive we would have a bit of a job containing it, because we have limited specialist facilities. I also pointed out that which any medical person worth employing should also know by now – Ebola has a higher infectivity rate than AIDS and the protective measure taken to minimise spread need to go further than with AIDS. On the other hand chlorine bleach is effective which is great, but it will not help if you have blood in the eye. Hardly revolutionary or way out stuff boyo.

    The very fact that you keep raising this issue is pretty bloody pathetic and confirms my fears that the Australian medical profession is too complacent, too arrogant and probably too lazy to cope with any kind of genuine infectious diseases outbreak, since the old ideas of infection control and quarantine seem to have been chucked out in favour of god knows what.

    Forget about Ebola and think closer to home. What about a more virulent strain of the Hendra virus (one with the same infectivity rate as its cousin measles. How would the medical system cope in the period before a vaccine could be developed.

    In case you are not aware, we got very, very close to that scenario in Brisbane and I think the efforts of a sensible public health officer who had his staff carbolic the gutters after the vet autopsy of the horses left a trail of blood and guts had a lot to do with preventing its spread into the feral rat and cat community.

    So if Hendra or a similar virus mutates again and we have a disease with the morbidity of Hendra or measles in an unimmunized community plus the ability for person to person contact via coughing (like measles) plus perhaps animal transfer how would our health system cope.

    Possibly you can assure me that your hospital has disaster planned this sort of scenario and it would all be AOK. I hope so. If not take you so called superior knowledge of microbiology and stick it where the sun don’t shine.

  14. After reading DTT’s post @7:11PM, I put “Us Trump in Charge?” into Google, which came up with many articles in credible publications whose headings suggestthe the John Kelly / James Mattis / the US Military is in charge of wide swathes of policy, including the USA’s military might. Not very comforting.

  16. OPINION(Latest from Richo)
    Gas shortage? We have John Howard to thank
    Then Prime Minister John Howard with the Chinese Chairman of the National People’s Congress Li Peng at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2002.
    Then Prime Minister John Howard with the Chinese Chairman of the National People’s Congress Li Peng at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

    Much of the blame for the gas shortage that Australia is suffering domestically has been sheeted home to the Rudd-Gillard governments. These were politically weak Labor governments responsible for too many stuff-ups.

    The allegation that in an unseemly rush to push up exports, huge amounts of gas were earmarked for export leaving the domestic market well short of the supply targets for that period, let alone the future, was so easy to believe. The obscenity of gas being priced cheaper for export than for sale to the domestic market became a reality. It is still the case today as the gas companies gouge profits for shareholders with scant regard for Australia’s national interest.

    It was easy to accept that it was all the fault of Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard that this somewhat ridiculous situation ever developed. With the average punter, the view seems to be that they had stuffed up so much that it was easy to apportion the blame on them. It was easy. It was also wrong.

    I do not seek to defend Rudd or Gillard or their administrations. The record should be set straight, however, as to when the rot on gas price and supply set in. Way back in 2002, John Howard was about to head off for an official visit to China. He wanted to impress his Chinese hosts with a big announcement. Howard went to China and had his big announcement. Australia would supply liquid petroleum gas to China. The source would be the North West shelf, which was then just starting to come on line. As was the case then, export price was a matter to be negotiated between governments. The companies supplying the gas then had to agree to the price but didn’t really have much choice but to accept.

    In their haste to have a big announcement, the Howard government virtually gave the gas away. The price agreed with the Chinese sent a chilling message to a furious Japanese government. The Japanese gas contracts with Australia were set at a much higher rate than that given the Chinese. The Japanese — Australian allies — could not believe how well the Chinese had been treated compared to them. The upshot of all this was a renegotiated deal with much lower price for the Japanese.

    All the drama we are currently experiencing has its genesis on that visit to China by John Howard 15 years ago. This does not absolve the Rudd and Gillard governments, which were guilty of following a bad policy precedent. It just puts into perspective a discussion which is critical to Australia’s economic performance. It shows that neither side of politics comes to this table with clean hands. There should be room for bi-partisanship on an issue where the government and the opposition have both mightily contributed to today’s energy mess.

    There is absolutely no sign of this happening as the Prime Minister endlessly attempts to jawbone the gas companies into submission. Labor continues to pretend that renewables provide the answers to our energy supply problems within a totally unrealistic time-frame. Even when this country is in real strife we can not only point out the greed of the gas companies as they chase obscene profits at the expense of Australia’s economic future, we should bemoan the complete absence of true statesmen and women in our country.

    At a critical time for the nation, the likes of Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten would rather score points than join forces to fix a problem as large as this.

    Way back on the day of the Howard announcement in 2002, former Labor Senator Tom Wheelwright was living in Hong Kong working for Lucent Technologies. That day he took a call from a friend who was fairly senior in the Chinese government. The Chinese, he told Wheelwright, just could not believe the price John Howard’s government were prepared to accept.

    Let’s start from square one and never again be regarded as mugs by the rest of the world.

  17. Confessions @ #478 Sunday, October 8th, 2017 – 2:57 pm

    Just found this in the Saturday Paper – the article is about how Aust dodged a bullet with CBS busying Ch10 rather than Rupe, but this grabbed my attention:

    On Tuesday, March 28, The Bolt Report drew a national audience at 7pm of just 27,000. Of those, 23,000 were aged over 55. Alan Jones’s 8pm show did a little better, with 34,000 viewers, and Paul Murray Live at 9pm topped out with 55,000. Meanwhile Insiders powers on, with an average 550,000 viewers.

    So, to Day’s point that audiences “prefer opinion and debate”, perhaps one should add a caveat. Says Barrie Cassidy: “They want fact-based debate, rather than ideological bombast.”

    This is so true for me. I don’t see the point of watching Insiders when it deploys panelists who just spout talking points from one side of politics. And I don’t watch those shows. Same goes for Qanda if it’s dominated by politicians.

    I noted from watching Insiders this morning that whenever they have Tingle, Lenore Taylor, Mega George or even Andrew Probyn, the discussion tends to centre around policy debates rather than the atmospherics or politics of issues.

    The comparison between Bolt, Jones & Murray vs Insiders is somewhat fact-free as Insiders broadcast on free to air TV and is available to be streamed for free. IIRC only about a third of Australians have Foxtel, and only portion (no idea what size) would have the subscription that includes Sky.

  20. I am glad I do not live in the Eastern States. Our own resident shock jocks in Adelaide are pretty tame compared to the toxic sludge that clogs up the airways in Sydney and Melbourne.

  21. Just to reassure everyone, despite dtt’s assertions state Health systems ‘game’ virtually every conceivable scenario, even ones they believe are fairly unlikely.

    For example, for our small local country hospital (less than thirty beds) one of the scenarios gamed was a flu outbreak affecting over 50% of the population (including medical staff) during a flood event which isolated the town.

    I know that other scenarios ‘gamed’ included outbreaks of highly infectious diseases such as avian flu.

  23. zoomster

    puff

    I don’t think Melbourne has a shock jock.

    Compared to Sydney’s collection of putrid broadcasters they have not.

  24. C@tmomma

    This morning you mentioned you were heading out, did you watch Daniel Andrews being interviewed on Insiders? He made some very good points on why his Government will adopt the security measures put forward at COAG. I understand we will disagree on about pretty much everything but you have been coping it a bit and Andrews summed up how a leader must look at this issue.

    I am not going to get into a debate about the new security measures simply telling someone about an interview.

  25. My take on the US election situation is that Trump’s incompetence & inexperience is a danger to the entire world, and the sooner he is gone the better for the ~7.2 billion people who played no part in the US political process.

    Notwithstanding that Mike Pence may well be a loony RWNJ who will be very successful at enacting the legislative agenda of the right, he is much less likely than Trump to start a nuclear war as a result of inexperience and/or incompetence, and therefore is a safer bet for the ~7.2 billion people of the world who are not Americans and as such had absolutely no role in the election of a dangerously incompetent and inexperience fool to arguably the most powerful publicly elected office in the world, and for whom a nuclear war would be catastrophic.

    As for a great many millions of Americans, including Republican supporters whose lives would be adversely impacted by the ascension of Pence to President, while my empathy is with them, the harsh reality is that they will be living with the outcomes of the policies they voted for, and living in the society that they had created for themselves.

  26. On this from twitter –

    ICAN Australia (@ican_australia) Tweeted:

    FYI, the Australian prime minister has declined to congratulate us on our Nobel Peace Prize. @TurnbullMalcolm #nuclearban #nobelprize

    Is there more to this or can “declined to congratulate” be replaced with “not congratulated”?

  27. Bludgers will doubtless be pleased to know that c@t’s ability as a bludger is not confined to this saloon. We had lunch today in Sydney and then had a look at some works in the NSW Art Gallery. She knows a lot more about painting than she lets on here at PB, and has a lot to share when it comes to Labor politics, values and campaigns.

    We passed several hours, bludging in 3-D. I really recommend it 🙂

  28. daretotread @ #500 Sunday, October 8th, 2017 – 7:11 pm

    However like quite a few conmen and populists he has the knack of seeing the wood from the trees or perhaps like the child who sees the emperor has no clothes, his brain, uncluttered by facts and learning is able to see reality without the preconception filters which most of us have built in. He is a sharp businessman because he has this facility. because he is essentially unprincipled he is able to negotiate where a person with more honour/belief system is less flexible.

    Sorry. You lost me at this point.

  30. Rex….even the fabled Curtin at the height of his wartime strength fell short of the levels you claim for Andrews…your hyperbowl is oer-filled.

  34. Steelydan @ #524 Sunday, October 8th, 2017 – 8:14 pm

    C@tmomma

    This morning you mentioned you were heading out, did you watch Daniel Andrews being interviewed on Insiders? He made some very good points on why his Government will adopt the security measures put forward at COAG. I understand we will disagree on about pretty much everything but you have been coping it a bit and Andrews summed up how a leader must look at this issue.

    I am not going to get into a debate about the new security measures simply telling someone about an interview.

    Thanks, Steelydan. Sometimes you have to weather the group think storm that comes at you when you feel in your bones that something is as your political opponents say it is. It’s never a fulfilling position to take because you know you will cop the full force of the blowback. However, that’s the beauty of the mind, it throws curveballs at you to consider when you least expect them and the little voice inside your head says, hold up, do you really think you should go along with the prevailing opinion? I just love it when my mind springs into action like that.

    It’s also why Daniel Andrews is such a good leader. He is prepared to swim against the prevailing tide too, if it makes sense to him to do so. A great leader is ethical and principled but weighs all sides in the balance.

  41. RD,

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/north/northcote-primary-school-promised-316m-for-urgent-repairs/news-story/7926f19072d53d13dbced44ab5ec5cd6

    Premier Daniel Andrews and Labor candidate for Northcote Clare Burns today announced the school would receive $3.16 million in funds for repair works including $250,000 for a masterplan.

    And it came less than a week after Education Minister James Merlino told school council president Ian Taylor the school would need to wait and that there were other schools that needed the money more.

    Students, staff and parents have complained the school has been let down by years of neglect and suffers from collapsing ceilings, cracked walls and restricted access to large parts of play areas.

    :::
    Northcote Primary School was set to be a major issue during the Northcote by-election campaign.

    No doubt savvy voters in Northcote can see through this blatant ‘vote-buying’ exercise by Andrew’s Labor.

  42. Pegasus, while you’re here, which isn’t all that often these days, what’s your insider’s assessment of the Greg Barber resignation as Greens leader in the Victorian Parliament?

  43. While I can seem a bit fixed in my ideas sometimes, I am always aware that I might be wrong. I’ve been wrong lots of times before.

  44. Zoomster

    That is genuinely a good news story re your hospital and it is they way it should be sone. of course at the time it seems over the top etc but if you do not conduct drills for the most unlikely scenarios it will be time when you should have.

    Flu during flood. Wow! that is fill on – but still good.

    I wonder if NSW is as well prepared.

    My two years working in a NSW hospital does NOT five me confidence I must admit, White ants ate the receptionist desk while she worked. She could hear them and reported it but nothing was done. Water came through the light fixtures when it rained. Power cut off or some such left a freezer with body parts non functioning and when finally opened we all had to wear masks for two days because of the odour.

    People in scrubs frequented the cafe (public) and t was not clear if they had just finished scrubbing trolleys or were about to go into a theatre. the floors were so dirty the public commented on them.

  45. Talking about the gas give aways by our politicians, reminds us of how very bad our political class is and how unaccountable they have managed to make the system to their benefit.

    Of course while protecting their snouts in the trough and removing accountability for their bad decisions the politicians in their utter hypocricy have removed any protections, certainty and security for their fellow Australians.

    The Rum Corps was a model of rectitude compared with the current mob. Australian voters are bloody mugs.

    In my lifetime every Labor government seems worse than the previous one.

  47. Player
    I will try to explain what I mean about Trump. he tends to say the obvious ie just what everyone is thinking but has the arrogance to say it and ALSO the lack of complexity such that he can see what it is.

    It is the whole point of the emperor has no clothes story.

    The various dignitaries each saw the emperor was naked but were convinced that it was because they were too stupid that they could not detect the fine garments on the emperor, because they believed the hype of the “tailors.” The did not want to look foolish in front of their peers so did not admit they could not see the emperor was naked.

    It took a small child who did not know he was supposed to see clothes to state the obvious.

    Trump is a little like that.

    He says “manufacturing is in decline and China is sending the US too much stuff. this is pretty obvious but not many of the beltway operatives will call it that way because it is not “polite” or they may seem old fashioned, or be accused of being insular, or unfashionable, etc etc.

    The same with avoiding war with Russia or not funding NATO etc. MOST populists have this “skill”. Trump has it is bucketloads which is of course why he won.

  48. Oh, Pegasus, really!?! It’s politics! You and your Green with envy mates should be cheering that, by dint of an alignment of the political stars, Northcote Primary School will get the much needed funds for repairs.

    But no, The Greens HAVE to use it to have a chip at Labor. How utterly predictable.

  49. Pegasus @ #541 Sunday, October 8th, 2017 – 8:53 pm

    RD,

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/north/northcote-primary-school-promised-316m-for-urgent-repairs/news-story/7926f19072d53d13dbced44ab5ec5cd6

    Premier Daniel Andrews and Labor candidate for Northcote Clare Burns today announced the school would receive $3.16 million in funds for repair works including $250,000 for a masterplan.

    And it came less than a week after Education Minister James Merlino told school council president Ian Taylor the school would need to wait and that there were other schools that needed the money more.

    Students, staff and parents have complained the school has been let down by years of neglect and suffers from collapsing ceilings, cracked walls and restricted access to large parts of play areas.

    :::
    Northcote Primary School was set to be a major issue during the Northcote by-election campaign.

    No doubt savvy voters in Northcote can see through this blatant ‘vote-buying’ exercise by Andrew’s Labor.

    Wonderful news for the parents and students at Northcote Primary.

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