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”

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  1. grimace @ #291 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 7:50 pm

    Both peakers are proposed. 2 years to build & commission one, given there is no confirmed location yet, is getting into fantasy. Those sorts of time frames are a written invitation to the fuckup fairy, inviting it to come and wreak havock.

    I’m not sure the stage 1 is “proposed” – it appears to be only awaiting a feasibility study into the Newcastle site – otherwise it will be built elsewhere. The later stages may indeed be just “proposed” – as are the renewables projects – but they would certainly not even be proposed if they didn’t make economic sense, which is the point – AGL are not stupid, and are also not (as far as I am aware) much given to charity.

    The upgrade is for Bayswater, not for Liddel. I hope the taxpayer is not somehow on the hook for that, or the risks associated with it.

    There is an upgrade for Bayswater and also a battery for Liddell. I am guessing the battery is to improve reliability, since it would seem to have no other purpose in a coal-fired generation site.

  2. zoidlord @ #292 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 7:51 pm

    @Player One

    Your the strawman on this, you exclude batteries as part of the renewable mix, because of the expensiveness of it.

    Of course AGL Going go say this business 101.

    But the fact remains your egotistical approach is that you think Gas should play a bigger role than Renewables.

    That is why you focus on Gas and Batteries.

    Not the entire project.

    And that is what you have been doing from the start, promoting Gas over all other technologies, regardless of price or affordability of private companies to switch from fossil fuels to renewables.

    Nope. Not getting anything meaningful from this either.

  3. I am a loyal LNP support who will do anything to help to get JA relect for the seat of Bennelong and make sure we will have an LNP Government in Canberra and Malcom Turnbull stays as our PM and see that dirty corrupt shorten never as the keys to the lodge

  4. mikehilliard @ #267 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 7:06 pm

    Don’t think I’ve heard Gillard mentioned once on the ABC (over numerous reports) as the instigator of the RC into child abuse.

    I hope you watched 7.30. She got well deserved glowing praise.
    I take a harsh view about some aspects of her career, but getting that RC under way was a monumental achievement and will be remembered for a long time.

  5. Wayne @ #305 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 4:14 pm

    I am a loyal LNP support who will do anything to help to get JA relect for the seat of Bennelong and make sure we will have an LNP Government in Canberra and Malcom Turnbull stays as our PM and see that dirty corrupt shorten never as the keys to the lodge

    Wasting your time here!

    I hope you are already a citizen as you would have serious problems passing the Potato’s literacy test.

    Maybe spend your time obtaining a proper education, you never know you may develop the ability to see through your hero’s bullsh!t!!!! 🙂

  6. AJM

    “Many church leaders actually called for such a commission”

    I think this statement is very very misleading and frankly wrong. Other than Aspinal, perhaps RC Mark Coleridge (Canberra) and Geoff Robinson (was Sydney RC Archbishop) I cannot name any. However I can name at least 20 Bishops who fought against it and still do, and many of these are up to their eyeballs in it.

    And having attended many sessions of the NSW Cuneen Commission and His Honour Justice McLellan’s I can name a few (bishops and senior clerics) who perjured themselves and are hopefully members of the group of 200 prosecutions that have been recommended.

  7. bemused says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 8:17 pm
    mikehilliard @ #267 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 7:06 pm

    Don’t think I’ve heard Gillard mentioned once on the ABC (over numerous reports) as the instigator of the RC into child abuse.
    I hope you watched 7.30. She got well deserved glowing praise.
    I take a harsh view about some aspects of her career, but getting that RC under way was a monumental achievement and will be remembered for a long time.

    Thanks Bemused but I missed it. Also I admire your support for JG on this. Good to hear the ABC came good & will catch up on iview.

  8. Wayne@8.40pm

    I am a loyal LNP support who will do anything to help to get JA relect for the seat of Bennelong and make sure we will have an LNP Government in Canberra and Malcom Turnbull stays as our PM and see that dirty corrupt shorten never as the keys to the lodge

    Hi Wayne, welcome to PollBludger. We are a community interested in psephology, and are always very happy to hear from people with a wide range of political perspectives.

  9. Wayne, are you or have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party or any associated Fifth Columnist party, such as the Liberal Party in Australia?

  10. Player One says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 6:18 pm
    don @ #240 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 5:57 pm

    If you look at the graph from your link, you will see that AGL is proposing:

    953 MW of wind and solar

    150 MW of gas peaker.

    You were saying?


    If you read the text from my link, you will see that AGL is proposing:

    Newcastle Gas Peaker – 250 MW
    NSW Gas Peaker – 500 MW

    Jesus H. Christ.

    I gave you stage 1. You are conflating stage 2 with stage 1, and only putting in the stuff that helps your argument, such as it is. As per normal.

    Not a problem, I will spell it out for you, and since you can’t read, I’ll type slowly:

    Stage 2, 2020, with the 500 MW gas peaker you mention:

    That gas peaker for 2020 of 500 MW you have proposed is matched by 500 MW of renewables. Got that? Why did you leave that out? I know, and everyone else knows, I will leave that as a ‘duh!’ exercise for people who realise what you are on about. Distortion of the truth, it is your stock in trade. Why, I have no idea. What is your underlying bias? I cannot work it out. It makes no sense.

    Stage 3, 2021 or earlier:

    No more gas. Got that? Did you read that? Did you understand that?

    BUT:

    250 MW of batteries
    250 MW of renewables.

    And no more gas. No more gas. No more gas. No more gas.

    Got that?

    Hope so.


  11. Wayne says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 8:14 pm
    I am a loyal LNP support who will do anything to help to get JA relect for the seat of Bennelong and make sure we will have an LNP Government in Canberra and Malcom Turnbull stays as our PM and see that dirty corrupt shorten never as the keys to the lodge

    Wayne, a course in remedial English for those who missed the boat in Grade one is indicated.

    BTW, are you part of JA’s team on the hustings tomorrow and Saturday? They need all the help they can get. Maybe you could make the tea and sandwiches.

  12. I for one really despair at the level of pro LNP commentary here. You’d think they’d put up a policy argument rather than just drive by trolling.

  13. The election demonstrated that for many college-educated, suburban conservatives, there is a limit to their tolerance for regression, fallaciousness, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia and anti-scientific, ahistoric, truth-hostile positioning.

    It demonstrated that the South is not necessarily solid. The Resistance has its own Southern Strategy.

    And most important, it proved that people who believe in the fundamental values of this country, in its ability to change, in the necessity of making the imperfect more perfect, are not the minority, but rather an inflamed majority.

    It proved that Trump was a fringe candidate who tapped into an American ugliness and rode it to a fluke victory with the help of a foreign adversary.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/opinion/alabama-senate-election-resistance.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

    There are a couple of things with this. 1. the election was fractured around the city-country divide, with wealthy suburbanites voting Democrat rather than Republican presumably because of Moore’s crude ignorance and those sexual predator allegations. 2. Trump also won the election because of the US electoral system, in particular the electoral college.

  14. MH,

    Not having a policy to bless themselves with hasn’t been much of a problem for them for 50 years or more. Why would they bother starting now?

  15. mikehilliard says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 9:00 pm
    I for one really despair at the level of pro LNP commentary here. You’d think they’d put up a policy argument rather than just drive by trolling.

    Not good, is it?

    Sad, because we need good policies from both sides. This is a democracy, and we should be able to make informed choices between two (or more) parties who have thought deeply about what Australia needs most, and who have made a good case for their point of view.

    So far, not so much. We’ve got the cockerel weathervane Tony Abbot, and the chook Malcolm Turnbull, who is blowing with the wind. (BW, that is for you!)

    And then there is Labor, who have their act together. Right now, Bill Shorten can sit back and sip a beer and watch the footie while the LNP destroy themselves. You don’t need Labor to do a thing, except keep out of their way. The worst opposition that poor Malcolm has is Tony Abbott and the rest of his back bench. And maybe quite a few of their front bench. Exactly where are those leaks coming from?

    As Napoleon is reputed to have said, ‘Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake’

  16. Wayne is not Rex.

    And I have no idea why everyone is so keen to talk about or engage with a commenter who is such an obvious troll it isn’t funny. Scroll by and ignore.

  17. mikehilliard @ #317 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 8:41 pm

    bemused says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 8:17 pm
    mikehilliard @ #267 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 7:06 pm

    Don’t think I’ve heard Gillard mentioned once on the ABC (over numerous reports) as the instigator of the RC into child abuse.
    I hope you watched 7.30. She got well deserved glowing praise.
    I take a harsh view about some aspects of her career, but getting that RC under way was a monumental achievement and will be remembered for a long time.

    Thanks Bemused but I missed it. Also I admire your support for JG on this. Good to hear the ABC came good & will catch up on iview.

    I have always been prepared to give her credit where due and to defend her over that nonsense about her old boyfriend. And At Home With Julia was just appalling. But she also had plenty of negatives and was just a poor political leader in terms of gaining public support.

  18. Steve777 says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 9:07 pm
    Jesus H. Christ.

    Didn’t know He had a middle name. Hugh? Harold? Herbert? Henry? Hugo?

    Of course Jesus Christ has a middle name.

    It is Harold. Jesus Harold Christ.

    Surely you remember Sunday School?

    Our father, which art in Heaven, Harold be thy name?

  19. Wayne
    Perhaps you could comment on the Murray-Darling River system, pumped hydro, refugees or fracking.
    I’m sure we can find some common ground!

  20. I’m wondering whether Wayne is, in fact, Turnbull’s grandson’s computer avatar. His written ‘verbiage’ is about a six or seven year old’s. And his adoration of the PM has a juvenile flavour.

  21. ‘fess,
    What I find gobsmacking about Trump is the speed with which he rewrites history to suit himself.

    Since the Doug Jones victory, Trump has said he ‘actually’ supported Luther Strange. Kind of true, but revisionist to the extent that,AFTER he supported Strange he supported Moore and gave a full-throated endorsement of him at a rally a couple of days before the election.

    Trump also claims that, if he had been running in Alabama, he would have won. Which is in direct contrast to the fact that many people voted against the Trumpist politics that he is the godfather of.

    However, the way Trump looks at it, the electorate has the memory of a goldfish and he feeds it a moving feast of flakes of political garbage to distract it constantly, before they have time to realise that he is feeding them shit.

  22. don @ #338 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 9:13 pm

    Steve777 says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 9:07 pm
    Jesus H. Christ.

    Didn’t know He had a middle name. Hugh? Harold? Herbert? Henry? Hugo?

    Of course Jesus Christ has a middle name.

    It is Harold. Jesus Harold Christ.

    Surely you remember Sunday School?

    Our father, which art in Heaven, Harold be thy name?

    That’s his dad, not the boy.
    And what about the spook, did it have a name?

  23. don @ #322 Thursday, December 14th, 2017 – 8:54 pm

    I gave you stage 1. You are conflating stage 2 with stage 1, and only putting in the stuff that helps your argument, such as it is.

    I clearly indicated what I was talking about. I even quoted from the document to make it perfectly clear. Apparently you didn’t understand the point I was making. So (like zoidlord) you insist on adding in irrelevancies to confuse the issue so that others might think you have some kind of argument. But most of your post is simply irrelevant to the original point, so I do not feel it necessary to respond to it – except for this …

    And no more gas. No more gas. No more gas. No more gas.

    Sorry, but AGL is clearly proposing to build 750 MW of new gas capacity between now and 2022, since it is currently uneconomic to replace a coal-fired power plant using renewables alone. You can rage about this all you like. You can argue that it is wrong-headed, short-sighted, a waste of money and/or unnecessary. But you cannot seriously argue that it is not a fact.

  24. phylactella says:
    Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 9:15 pm
    Steve777 @331
    Wikipedia works again!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_H._Christ

    Thanks for that link phylactella, apart from Harold, I very much like this version:

    Facetious etymology

    In a joke made by biology students, the H is said to stand for ‘Haploid’; the implication being that since by the doctrine of the Virgin birth Jesus had no biological father, his genome would have been inherited entirely from his mother, the Virgin Mary.

  25. Wayne “I am a loyal LNP support[er] who will do anything to help to get JA relect[ed] for the seat of Bennelong and make sure we will have an LNP Government in Canberra and [that] Malcom Turnbull stays as our PM and see that dirty corrupt shorten never as the keys to the lodge”

    Great. It’s good to know what you believe in Wayne. I disagree with what you say but will defend to… well, mild inconvenience anyway – your right to say it.

    Why not defend your principles, your values. I am not naive enough to believe that Labor or Bill Shorten are without sin, but I do not believe that Bill Shorten is corrupt. Is there corruption at the Federal level? Possibly, let’s get a Federal ICAC up asap, give it teeth and let’s see what it finds out. I think that your side will have something to fear. Isthere corruption in unions? Possibly, but they can’t be corrupt in a vacuum. Meanwhile, as one might say, I have big concerns about the whole Adani business, the Energy and Climate policy fiasco, the NBN chaos. What was that about favouring Foreign interests over Australia’s?

    Why doesn’t the Coalition tell us what they want to do for Australia? Why don’t they try to convince us? Instead they bang on about third order issues, amplified by their media allies. Boats, Batts or lately, accusing Sam Dastyari of … something, although there seems to be no evidence he’s done anything illegal. All the while attacking the vulnerable and favouring mates.

    The 2014 Budget, the IPA website are the best guide to what the Coalition want to do. Why not defend it?

  26. C@t:

    Trump copped widespread ridicule for his comments stating he didn’t endorse Moore, and the replayed video footage was on high rotation.

    I see Republicans are pushing ahead with their tax plan and not allowing Jones to take his seat first before bringing on the vote, as Harry Reid insisted on when Scott Brown won in Massachusetts and Obamacare was up for vote. Typical Republican hypocrisy: do as I say not as I do!

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