ReachTEL: 53-47 to Liberal in Bennelong

The latest Bennelong by-election poll suggests John Alexander is set to hold on in the face of a solid swing to Labor.

The Sydney Morning Herald today has results from a ReachTEL poll for the Bennelong by-election, which credits John Alexander with a lead of 53-47 on respondent-allocated preferences – a swing to Labor of nearly 7%. The primary votes, after allocating a forced response follow-up from the (unusually small) 2.4% who initially professed themselves undecided, are 41.3% for John Alexander (down 9.1% on the election), 36.3% for Kristina Keneally (up 7.8%), 7.5% for the Greens (down 1.6%) and 14.9% for the rest. The poll was conducted on Tuesday from a sample of 819. This is the second ReachTEL poll of the campaign, the first being conducted a month ago and showing Alexander leading 54-46. The other two published polls, a Galaxy poll at the start of the campaign and Newspoll this week, both had it at 50-50. Multiple reports suggest party polling has been nearer to ReachTEL’s findings.

For all the background you could want, my Bennelong by-election guide is now updated and much expanded.

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.

1,222 comments on “ReachTEL: 53-47 to Liberal in Bennelong”

Comments Page 4 of 25
1 … 3 4 5 … 25

  2. lizzie @ #139 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 8:28 am

    Matt Haggis‏ @matthaggis666 · 2h2 hours ago

    Replying to @AndrewBurrell7 @primroseriordan

    Michaelia Cash ditches Senate Estimates questioning on the Friday to fly to Perth, stating she was “too busy”. Now De Garis is found working in Perth (Aust Hotels Assoc). Coincidence?

    …
    GeorgeHarley‏ @GeorgeIsa1 · 31m31 minutes ago

    Replying to @AndrewBurrell7

    And the Australian Hotels Association are one of the biggest benificiaries of the WA Sen Cash’s slave labour PATH programme. What a happy coincidence.

    Interesting that he has finally turned up somewhere, but I fail to see the significance as to where.

    That a Cash staffer gets a job with the AHA is not surprising and seems like a good fit!

    Whether Cash had any influence in him obtaining the position is neither here nor there in regards to the AWU raids.

  4. This article by David Marr on the CA royal commission is excellent. I was particularly chuffed with this so accurate paragraph.
    “The double act of (Gail) Furness and (Peter) McClellan was beautiful to watch. She would hack her way through the undergrowth and take an axe to the tree she was after. But if it stubbornly refused to fall, McClellan would give it a nudge, such a gentle little nudge, and bring it crashing down.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/13/grappling-with-rome-david-marrs-lessons-from-the-royal-commission
    But, like Marr, I feel there is still much to be done but much that will be put the way of that happening.

  5. The temperature’s nudged just over 40 in Sydney Olympic Park, which would reflect conditions in Bennelong right now. It’s been up to 42 in Penrith, with cool breezes keeping it below 30 near the beaches and the Harbour.

  6. Those penalty rate cuts are biting

    Myer has suffered a horror start to the all-important Christmas trading period, revealing that sales in the first two weeks of December were down 5 per cent on last year.
    In a second-quarter trading update released on Thursday, the department store said November trade had also been worse than expected, despite heavy investment in marketing and measures to increase foot traffic.

    https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/companies/myer-reveals-horror-start-to-christmas-sales-20171214-p4yxoz.html

  8. The weakest run-up to the Christmas sales period in four years and the absence of a"killer gift" to get shoppers moving mean Australia's major retailers will have a less than festive season this year,analysts predict.

    Store foot traffic is down about 1 per cent compared to last year so far this season, according to research by Citi, which fingered weak household income growth and consumers having to spend more on essentials like mortgagesand utility bills for the shopping slump.

    http://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/australia-s-biggest-stores-are-in-for-jingle-hell-this-christmas-20171213-p4yxno.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nc&eid=socialn%3Atwi-13omn1677-edtrl-other%3Annn-17%2F02%2F2014-edtrs_socialshare-all-nnn-nnn-vars-o%26sa%3DD%26usg%3DALhdy28zsr6qiq

  9. ABC24 News a few minutes past.

    The Right Honourable Mr. Malcolm Bligh Turnbull gave an excellent summation of the issues of concern in the Benelong by election.

    Bill Shorten bad, badder, baddest, BADDEST. If Kristina Keneally successful the Australian plug hole would disintegrate and Australia would immediately sink beneath the waves.

    Oh ❗ and

    John Alexander good, really really good, excellent PERFECT.

  11. Guytaur

    Here in WA The West Australian has been talking up the economy all week.

    Today’s effort is all about jobs in the mining industry.

    They are probably looking at their Christmas ad bookings and trying to generate some good vibes for retailers.

    Doubt it will work.

  12. guytaur says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 12:29 pm
    Decades of brainwashing that in a red state (especially the religious) you will vote GOP will do that to you.

    We saw the same locally with New England.

    You’re not wrong. As yet another straw in the wind, in football, the only code ever mentioned here is Rugby Union, referred to as Rugby, because everyone knows what you mean. RL is either looked down upon, or seen as non-existent by the majority. And what the hell is AFL?

    It is a different world up here.

  13. BiGD
    Michaelia Cash ditches Senate Estimates questioning on the Friday to fly to Perth, stating she was “too busy”. Now De Garis is found working in Perth (Aust Hotels Assoc). Coincidence?
    And the Australian Hotels Association are one of the biggest benificiaries of the WA Sen Cash’s slave labour PATH programme. What a happy coincidence.
    Interesting that he has finally turned up somewhere, but I fail to see the significance as to where.
    That a Cash staffer gets a job with the AHA is not surprising and seems like a good fit!
    Whether Cash had any influence in him obtaining the position is neither here nor there in regards to the AWU raids.

    It may be significant Barney.

    AWA WA division had its training package approved by ROC in May 17.
    ROC is also investigating AHA Qld division.

    Nothing wrong I suppose with former employees moving to organisations which they may have given approval to and/or been involved in investigating a related branch.

    But Cash should clarify at the very least.

  15. a r says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 1:03 pm
    adrian @ #147 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 11:47 am

    If we’re talking Bennelong Liberal voters vs. New England Nationals voters, I’d agree there’s not a significant qualitative difference.

    Say what? Tell me you are not serious. Totally different mindset. Up here the land is everything, and graziers look down on farmers. Don’t ever get them confused, believe me, you’ll be put right as to the pecking order. As for land, you need lots of it, preferably measured in square kilometres (or square miles, for most of them, though they would struggle to define either a mile or an acre)

    Not a lot of farmers and graziers in Bennelong, I would imagine.

  16. SMH article on Canberra have highest levels of drugs in sewerage tested was interesting in that testing levels appears to coincide with parliamentary sitting days.

  17. Don

    This is why I referred to brainwashing. Such a tragic loss. Father realises too late.
    Goes public to fight the brainwashing hate he has endured.
    VaughnHillyard: Father, who says he’s a local peanut farmer in Wicksburg, outside Roy Moore rally talks about losing his gay daughter at age of 23 to suicide. “I was anti-gay myself. I said bad things to my daughter, which I regret.” pic.twitter.com/J0oOU0EJI2
    https://twitter.com/vaughnhillyard/status/940366306016223232

  18. JA is a farmer, has land somewhere doesn’t he?

    turnbull has also been laying lots of manure in Benelong lately, has to be trying to grow something

  19. BK @ #153 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 9:07 am

    This article by David Marr on the CA royal commission is excellent. I was particularly chuffed with this so accurate paragraph.
    “The double act of (Gail) Furness and (Peter) McClellan was beautiful to watch. She would hack her way through the undergrowth and take an axe to the tree she was after. But if it stubbornly refused to fall, McClellan would give it a nudge, such a gentle little nudge, and bring it crashing down.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/13/grappling-with-rome-david-marrs-lessons-from-the-royal-commission
    But, like Marr, I feel there is still much to be done but much that will be put the way of that happening.

    Cheers BK, excellent piece.

    I think Government response is going to be the critical feature here.

    I believe it’s not something we can sit back, waiting for the religions to get their houses in order.

    In cases of criminal activity there can be no tolerance of non-compliance with the civil law by religions.

    Freedom of Religion at first principles means that a religion has a right to exist and its adherents have a right to practice their religion without restrictions to access their places of worship or persecution for doing so.

    It allows them to run their institutions by their beliefs, but it doesn’t allow them to harbour criminals nor facilitate criminal activities through doing so.

    Religions by their nature are conservative institutions, so internal change is slow.

    As a result I think we need to more clearly define where and how religions sit within our Society.

  20. guytaur says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 2:00 pm
    Don

    This is why I referred to brainwashing. Such a tragic loss. Father realises too late.
    Goes public to fight the brainwashing hate he has endured.

    To be fair, I know of very little anti-gay sentiment up here. The concept is treated as non-existent by most, it is not on the radar, never discussed. However, NE voted 52.5% yes in the survey on M.E.

  21. Amazing!.
    62,000 Jobs created in November, Job statistics stays @ 5.4%.
    Logically 62,000 would have to be lost to stay @ 5.4%.
    So, 31.000 Full time jobs lost, 62.000 PART TIME CREATED, seems logical!.

  23. don

    Sorry did not mean to impugn the Survey result from New England. I was using as an example of how hard it can be to shift opionon after decades of people saying you are odd if you don’t vote for one party.

    For that father it was his daughters suicide due to her being gay. In New Englande it could become farmers losing income as the coal push continues and climate change takes its toll

  24. Seselja is a total embarrassment to the ACT:

    “Liberals’ Keneally website ‘reasonable’: Seselja – The Australian
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/…keneally-website-reasonable…/0f77a9a7969508492d5c74b...
    3 hours ago – Liberal frontbencher Zed Seselja says there is nothing unreasonable about a Liberal Party website, kristinakeneally.com, aimed at smearing Labor’s candidate in the Bennelong by-election over her record as NSW premier. Ms Keneally yesterday dubbed Malcolm Turnbull a “fool” over the website, and …”

    (Google summary of Oz article)

  25. ‘1934pc says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    Amazing!.
    62,000 Jobs created in November, Job statistics stays @ 5.4%.
    Logically 62,000 would have to be lost to stay @ 5.4%.
    So, 31.000 Full time jobs lost, 62.000 PART TIME CREATED, seems logical!.’

    We need any changes to the participation rate to make sense of the job numbers.

  26. Some more good news

    lanesainty: The Indonesian Constitutional Court has rejected a push to criminalise sex outside of marriage & gay sex in the criminal code – per Rin Hindryati who is there covering for @BuzzFeed

  28. Barney

    AGL says the same thing about coal.
    AGL says batteries are coming, but coal is uninvestable

    AGL says no private investor would invest in new coal plant, but says battery storage is coming and will be major game changer as costs fall – which may not be far away.

    Several days after formally rejecting federal government requests that it invest hundreds of millions of dollars to keep the ageing and increasingly decrepit Liddell coal generator open, AGL held an “investor day” where it said no private money would support a new coal generator.

    http://reneweconomy.com.au/agl-says-batteries-coming-coal-uninvestable-94489/

  29. @ Boerwar – yeah, that is important, and also some more numbers as well.

    Rounding could explain up to 15k of it.

    Population increase of 1.5% per annum would explain 31.25k of it.

  31. Job statistics are based on surveys, like opinion polls. They have margins of error, like opinion polls. They jump around. They are seasonally adjusted to take account of expected changes, but that is not an exact science. It’ pretty meaningless to say that tens of thousands of jobs we’re ‘created’ or ‘lost’ from one survey to the next. It’s the trend that matters.

  34. Very Helpful Ninja Pirate Monkey‏
    @jonkudelka
    Sure Malcolm started off as a hostage to the nutters but I get the feeling Stockholm Syndrome’s setting in.

    The Cathy Wilcox‏
    @cathywilcox1
    Absolutely! It’s he who didn’t realise how much he had changed.

    Very Helpful Ninja Pirate Monkey‏
    @jonkudelka
    Replying to @cathywilcox1
    He’s certainly consolidated his grip on Australia’s Most Disappointing Person.

  35. He’s certainly consolidated his grip on Australia’s Most Disappointing Person.

    That’s got to be right for a lot of people. Turnbull’ Government is pretty much indistinguishable from what a continuing Abbott Government would have been like, apart from matters of style. I never expected much of Turnbull. I knew he was fully on board with the hard right / IPA program but I thought he might have been a bit more socially liberal.

  36. It seems we are seeing an increasing divergence between what the RW are pushing and what business, the community and moderate politicians are doing. For example,

    – marriage equality is achieved despite the concerted efforts of the RWNJs

    – AGL has firmly rejected Turnbull’s demands that they invest in extending the life of Liddell as a coal burning generator

    – NAB is phasing out finance for coal plants

    – The child abuse RC has fearlessly performed its task despite widespread RW indifference and some hostility

    – The Australian voters have indicated over a long period through opinion polling, that they want to be rid of the Turnbull government.

  37. don @ #161 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 1:52 pm

    guytaur says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 12:29 pm
    Decades of brainwashing that in a red state (especially the religious) you will vote GOP will do that to you.

    We saw the same locally with New England.

    You’re not wrong. As yet another straw in the wind, in football, the only code ever mentioned here is Rugby Union, referred to as Rugby, because everyone knows what you mean. RL is either looked down upon, or seen as non-existent by the majority. And what the hell is AFL?

    It is a different world up here.

    Well thanks for that. At least they get one thing right!

  39. What bothers me about Turnbull is the outright lying about the situation with renewable energy in South Australia, still using last years state blackout to paint an image of the state government being too gung-ho without giving any consideration to backup. He did it again on qanda this week. I wish he’d get called out on it more.

  40. Boerwar @ #174 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 2:21 pm

    ‘1934pc says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    Amazing!.
    62,000 Jobs created in November, Job statistics stays @ 5.4%.
    Logically 62,000 would have to be lost to stay @ 5.4%.
    So, 31.000 Full time jobs lost, 62.000 PART TIME CREATED, seems logical!.’

    We need any changes to the participation rate to make sense of the job numbers.

    And workforce growth from other factors such as new entrants and migration.

  42. Excellent shit-stirring by the House of Reps staff:

    Australian House of Representatives‏ @AboutTheHouse
    1h1 hour ago Australian House of Representatives Retweeted Rick C
    Apologies for this oversight. The Old Republic did indeed last for a very long time before becoming the Empire.
    Live long and prosper.

    Rick C Retweeted Australian House of Representatives
    IT LASTED A THOUSAND YEARS
    I get what you’re saying but get your facts straight, just sayin’

    Australian House of Representatives‏
    @AboutTheHouse
    #funfact: The Republic in #StarWars doesn’t feature a House of Representatives and is immediately overthrown by the Sith. #makesyouthink

  45. kristinakeneally.com is registered through godaddy – if you want to email a domain related complaint abuse@godaddy.com

    The site itself is hosted in the US on the IP 205.186.175.88 by MediaTemple https://mediatemple.net/ you can tweet complaints to @mediatemplehelp

    They don’t seem to be employing any reverse proxies, CDN or protection. I’m surprised it hasn’t been forced offline yet.

  46. When is Mitch Marsh going to be brought on to bowl some medium pace leg theory?

    Marsh has only bowled 22 overs since his return from injury. Maybe they are managing his workload?

  47. citizen says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 8:55 am

    Quite some time ago I worked with a girl who talked about her Young Liberal activities. Then it was all about the socialising and parties. I wonder when they morphed into a far right pressure group.

    Of course our Foreign Minister seems to keeping the socialising and parties tradition alive.

    No, that is what the girlies are expected to do, the boyos are the ones with the ‘ideas’ and ‘strategies’….

    donchaknow……. 😉

  49. guytaur says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    don

    Sorry did not mean to impugn the Survey result from New England. I was using as an example of how hard it can be to shift opionon after decades of people saying you are odd if you don’t vote for one party.

    Not a problem, all I was doing was saying that this place is seriously weird, with many attitudes that are hard to understand or reconcile.

    There are people up this way who do not have a computer, do not want one, and do not have a mobile phone, yet they have expensive cars and 4WDs and every mod con in the house.

    Thus they bank in person at the local bank and write cheques and letters by hand, no email, and thus do not type either.

    Most do have a credit or debit card, as far as I can tell, so they have that going for them at least.

  50. Donating equally to both sides is clearly not about helping one side win. It’s an implied threat: “if you don’t treat us well we’ll give you less and they’ll be ahead.” When both major parties have the same policy on an issue, it effectively removes that issue from democratic scrutiny. This is the aim of many political donations from businesses who stand to lose from policy changes that would be popular with the electorate. Only areas of difference between contenders end up being discussion points during elections, the rest is passed over in silence.

    Such a big deal is made out of the few policy differences between major parties that during campaigns they can appear to be poles apart. However, as I have discussed previously, the main contenders in developed democracies are actually very closely aligned with respect to political ideology and policy – particularly economic policy.

    During their last term in office, the minority federal Labor government in Australia were more or less forced by independent MP Andrew Wilkie to attempt to implement restrictions on poker machine gambling. Prior to the discussion of reforms beginning, gaming industry lobby groups were giving similar amounts of money to both major parties but slightly favouring Labor. As soon as Labor started talking seriously about reform, the donations began to dramatically favour the opposition Liberals. The leader of the Liberal party, Tony Abbott, came out strongly against the reforms and they were eventually abandoned.

    …
    This is a complex and dirty game dominated by political donations, vested interests, personal ambition, class and power. Voters are a part of the game but representing their interests may not be a politician’s top priority. Politicians will only act on behalf of voters if no wealthy or powerful group objects – or if the party in question is boxed into a corner by a hung parliament or a combination of marginal electorates and strong community action.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/11/political-donations-corrupt-democracy-in-ways-you-might-not-realise

Comments Page 4 of 25
1 … 3 4 5 … 25

Leave a Reply

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