New year news (week two)

A bunch of state polling, particularly from Victoria, and two items of preselection news.

Another random assortment of polling and preselection news to tide us over until the federal polling season resumes:

• Essential Research has broken the poll drought to the extent of releasing state voting intention results, compiled from the polling it conducted between October and December. The results find Labor ahead in all five states, with Tasmania not covered. This includes a breakthrough 51-49 lead in New South Wales, after they were slightly behind in each quarterly poll going back to April-June 2016; a 51-49 lead in Victoria, after they led either 52-48 or 53-47 going back to October-December 2015; a 52-48 lead in Queensland, from primary vote results well in line with the state election held during the period; and a new peak of 57-43 in Western Australia. In South Australia, Labor is credited with a lead of 51-49, from primary vote numbers which are, typically for Essential Research, less good for Nick Xenophon’s SA Best than Newspoll/Galaxy: Labor 34%, Liberal 31%, SA Best 22%.

• The Age has ReachTEL polls of two Victorian state seats conducted on Friday, prompted by the current hot button issue in the state’s politics, namely “crime and anti-social behaviour”. The poll targeted two Labor-held seats at the opposite ends of outer Melbourne, one safe (Tarneit in the west, margin 14.6%), the other marginal (Cranbourne in the south-east, margin 2.3%). After excluding the higher-than-usual undecided (14.5% in Cranbourne, 15.5% in Tarneit), the primary votes in Cranbourne are Labor 40% (down from 43.4% at the last election), Liberal 40% (down from 41.3%) and Greens 7% (up from 4.2%); in Tarneit, Labor 43% (down from 46.8%), Liberal 36% (up from 26.4%), Greens 10% (up from 9.0%). Substantial majorities in both electorates consider youth crime a worsening problem, believe “the main issues with youth crime concern gangs of African origin”, and rate that they are, indeed, less likely to go out at night than they were twelve months ago. The bad news for the Liberals is that very strong majorities in both seats (74.6-25.4 in Tarneit, 66.5-33.5) feel Daniel Andrews would be more effective than Matthew Guy at dealing with the issue.

• Rachel Baxendale of The Australian reports on the latest flare-up in an ongoing feud between Ian Goodenough, member for the safe Liberal seat of Moore in Perth’s northern suburbs, and party player Simon Ehrenfeld, whose preselection for the corresponding state seat of Hillarys before the last state election was overturned by the party’s state council. The report includes intimations that Goodenough may have a fight of his own in the preselection for the next election, with those ubiquitous “party sources” rating him a “waste of a safe seat“, particularly in light of Christian Porter’s dangerous position in Pearce.

• Not long after Andrew Bartlett replaced Larissa Waters as a Queensland Greens Senator following the latter’s Section 44-related disqualification, the two are set to go head-to-head for preselection at the next election. Sonia Kohlbacher of AAP reports that Ben Pennings, “anti-Adani advocate and former party employee”, has also nominated, although he’s presumably a long shot. The ballot of party members will begin on February 16, with the result to be announced on March 26.

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.

2,222 comments on “New year news (week two)”

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  2. lizzie @ #1145 Saturday, January 13th, 2018 – 7:09 am

    Yesterday (?) I read that Shorten wants to upgrade the NBN in regions before cities. This seems to be similar to their original decision to go regional first.

    Wouldn’t it be more economical/effective to upgrade large centres/cities first this time around? They’d get more PR much quicker and they’re going to need it as the costs mount.

    I see this as part of a broader policy around regional development and decentralisation.

  6. C@tmomma @ #1146 Saturday, January 13th, 2018 – 7:10 am

    Now days, I think nothing of someone veering towards me from the other side of the road.

    Yeah, I once had an elderly gentleman mistake the run-off to turn lane for a merge into traffic lane and so he came straight at me! Just as well he had is wife in the car who made him stop asap!

    I’ve had a couple of hairy moments when changing countries and hence changing the side you drive on.

    My fault!!! 🙂

  7. lizzie

    Giving the ‘bush’ the upgrade first would be ‘rewarding’ the blighters that vote for the @$$%#@!s who wrecked the NBN in the first place ! Stuff ’em .Let them go to the rear of the queue and enjoy the Fraudband they voted for .

  8. “Can one of the NSW PBs please inform me why the NSW Liberal government is planning to close the Epping to Chatswood railway line. Also, what are they going to replace it with? Sounds like a retrograde step to me without knowing all the ins and outs of it.”

    From memory, the tunnels and the stations on this line can’t accommodate the new metro style trains (required as part of the overall train transport plan) and need to be expanded or modified.

    Trains will be replaced by buses on this line for about 6-9 months after which the line will re-open

    Cheers

  9. lizzie

    Also long term doing the regions first is a vote winner for Labor. The LNP is losing votes in the regions because Fraudband is so crap.

    The LNP put the country voters last.

  10. I take an interest in NEM watch and the data dashboard for WA’s wholesale electricity market, and the price of electricity has been negative since 01:30 this morning. It’s currently -$30.20.

  11. On improving the NBN starting in the regions:

    If some rejigging was to be tried it would, I guess, be easier to try and test in a regional town where it’s not so built up and less intensive other buried infrastructure and there’s space to work around it ???

  12. I often have thought that Labor should make itself more attractive in the regions by campaigning on the Liberals’ strong preference for (international) big business over every small business including farming. Simple reason doesn’t work well. You have to tackle the union haters in small business, provide tax structures that make it easier on small farms and the shopkeepers (the ones that are not taken over by Colesworths). Pre-selecting local identities would also help.

  14. CT

    To get good PR do Tasmania first. Hobart is not a big city. So doing all Tasmania first always made sense.

    Its just forget other regions import workers to boost locals and get Tassie done the working FTTP network PR would all be done.

    Then on the mainland you can do regional first.

    Think Tesla Battery in South Australia to see PR point.

  16. I note that Turnbull is trying to get into bed with Abe on closer military ties with Japan.

    Turnbull should make zero moves to have any closer military ties with Japan until Japan removes locomotive C5631 from the Yasukuni Shrine.

    Zip. Zero. De nada. Nothing.

  19. Cat

    Slight quibble. Its not a Labor policy. Its a Labor Project. Nation Building.

    Just like the Snowy was an infrastructure project.

    It should be talked about this way. The NBN is vital to the well being of Australia’s economic future.

  20. Amy_Siskind: Today in America, our media gets to decide if the lead story is 1) the person leading the US calling counties where peoples’ skin isn’t white, shitholes, OR 2) bribing a prostitute he slept with as his wife was recovering from giving birth to be quiet a month before the election.

  22. CTar1 @ #1161 Saturday, January 13th, 2018 – 11:21 am

    On improving the NBN starting in the regions:

    If some rejigging was to be tried it would, I guess, be easier to try and test in a regional town where it’s not so built up and less intensive other buried infrastructure and there’s space to work around it ???

    One thing that has surprised me is the claimed cost for each FTTP connection, around $2600.
    It just seems to be taken as a given and incapable of being significantly reduced.
    If I was running NBN Co I would order some intensive research into innovative ways of reducing that cost. The NZers seem to have succeeded in slashing that cost.

    Also, my current cable internet & phone is an aerial cable from the other side of the street. NBN seems to be assuming under-grounding everything so in effect it is not a like for like connection but a significant upgrade. I have lived with the aerial connection a long time and could continue to do so. I kind of get the feeling a lot of effort has gone into inflating costs by gold-plating.

  23. Steve SchmidtVerified account@SteveSchmidtSES
    9h9 hours ago
    The debasement of the office of the President of the United States of America is a tragedy. Trump has stained our national honor with his overt and unabashed racism. The people defending him on TV look like fools

  24. As Australia’s interest lies with China, Australia should not have closer military ties with Japan if they can’t sort out their differences with China.

  25. CT

    Most of the hard work with Tasmania has already been done.

    The regional example first with the cape area on the North West coast done.

    To make a national impact politically you have to do the whole state or Canberra.
    Tasmania has the advantage Labor already made this decision.
    Doing Burnie and Devonport was not far off before Turnbull stopped it.
    Hobart the largest city population wise is not a bigger job than regional cities or Canberra.

    The PR coup. You have done a whole state.

  26. Taylormade, congrats on double shark bait. My OH is going for half a shark bait today. Festive feel in Lorne although I wonder what it is like down the street now as after registration we retired to house and it poured! Hopefully clears up for the swim(s).

  27. CTar1 @ #1149 Saturday, January 13th, 2018 – 11:12 am

    Itza

    The good old fashioned road services of NRMA getting into charging stations surprised me.

    I hope they make a success of it.

    On –

    The Superchargers are fast enough that if you’re driving from LA to San Francisco, and you start a trip at 9 AM, by the time you get to, say, noon, you want to stop, and you want to stretch your legs, hit the restroom, grab a bite to eat, grab a coffee, and be on your way, and by that time, the car is charged and ready to go …

    They don’t suggest a time range. Do you have any idea on it?

    I think it’s moving quickly Ctar1. Here’s a user’s answer to that question, and we are talking about on road SUPERchargers, not the home overnight (9hr) charge.

    Charging a Tesla from empty to full takes over an hour. That’s an exceedingly rare use case. We typically charge to 90% at home (Holding the battery at 100% for long periods is one of the causes of reduced battery life.) On long trips, we keep the charge state in the sweet spot between 20 and 80% which typically takes about 20 minutes of supercharging. This gives enough energy to get to the next supercharger (the car tells you when it has enough charge to proceed). The batteries charge much faster when they are at a low voltage, so waiting for a 100% charge is usually a waste of time

    You read that the cost of *free*. There is inbuilt credits to the lux Teslas, the S and X, but afaik the Tesla 3 is charge at own expense. As a guide:

    The cost depends on where you live and the capacity of the EV’s batteries. For example, the average price for electricity per kilowatt hour (kWh) in Australia is about $0.25 and it takes around 18 kWh to travel 100km in an average EV. So, it will cost approximately $4.50 in electricity charges to travel 100km2. (I copy that without any idea of veracity, but as a guide.)

    What’s staggering is the scale of what’s being built. There’s a 40 booth charger between LA and San Fran, and a 50 charger station in China. And associated plans for solar panels, drive in restaurants, dancing bears ..

    NRMA are looking for commercial backing, as I understand it.

    I’ve got a $1500 deposit, fully refundable, on a Tesla 3. Don’t know what it will come in at by the time it gets here. I’m hoping it will be my last car. Current drive has 400K on the clock, an old merc, a tank, but I’m looking forward to no moving parts, virtually zero maintenance costs (pace new batteries) and as fully automated as I can get. In fact, I’d delight in fully automated and ditto for the rest of the road, and the sooner the better, so they can text and everything else they do anyway at the mo, and stay in their lanes. I did read that in the not too distant future insurance for driver operated vehicles will be prohibitive.

  29. On the ABC News station there was a short bit of discussion about ‘celebrities’ in politics. The discussion was anchored around a Trump -v- Oprah Winfrey election.

    Someone threw in a mention of sports people being successful candidates in Australia (and that an occasional one turned out to be somewhat worthwhile).

    I couldn’t help but think during this that Turnbull is a celebrity politician when you look back at his history pre’ formal politics as being heavily involved in popular campaigns.

    When you get down to it the only thing as a political policy he really has stuck to is to give tax breaks to large business enterprises and the already well-off.

  30. imaXXXXXandivote @ #1159 Saturday, January 13th, 2018 – 11:17 am

    “Can one of the NSW PBs please inform me why the NSW Liberal government is planning to close the Epping to Chatswood railway line. Also, what are they going to replace it with? Sounds like a retrograde step to me without knowing all the ins and outs of it.”

    From memory, the tunnels and the stations on this line can’t accommodate the new metro style trains (required as part of the overall train transport plan) and need to be expanded or modified.

    Cheers

    Cud Chewer is the fount of all wisdom on these matters.

  31. Itza

    but as a guide

    Yes, absolutely and I hope the question came across that way. I knew you’d been doing some research and wondered what you were getting out of it.

    As you say it’s not only the batteries that are getting better but also the chargers. If this can be conquered way better than battery swaps.

    If you go ahead with the Tesla I hope your luck is good.

  32. CT

    Celebratory candidates have one thing in common. This applies to independents as well. You are voting for an individual. Thus you get all the advantages and disadvantages of this.

    A great individual that keeps his promises. Great. A bad one the doesn’t you are sold down the river.

    Parties have the advantage of having to make collective decisions on policy.

    Its why Clive Palmer crashed and burned. He tried to be an individual in charge of a party. Doesn’t work. You are either an individual or a Party. You cannot be both.

    The Greens have suffered a bit as they have lost the Bob Brown Party effect.

    Long term being a party was the right decision for them. Just as many have realised If you want to make a real difference in politics being a maverick independent is a fringe position and always will be no matter how good you are.

  33. bemused says:
    Saturday, January 13, 2018 at 11:46 am

    Also, my current cable internet & phone is an aerial cable from the other side of the street. NBN seems to be assuming under-grounding everything so in effect it is not a like for like connection but a significant upgrade. I have lived with the aerial connection a long time and could continue to do so.

    Our previous house had FTTP installed while we were there. The pre-installation blurb from nbn co stated that if our current connection (ie. phone line) was overhead, so would be the FTTP – it was and it was. Similarly, if the connection was underground, so would be the FTTP.

    I think there might have been a little bit of (Liberal-inspired?) hysteria and hyperbole when gardens were dug up.

    I would be very interested to see real numbers of how many NBN connections were over, and how many were under.

  34. Itza

    I have a coming up for 16th birthday Merc (E500) with less than 150,000 klms on it. In very good condition, still rates 5 Stars in the recently reviewed ANCAP ratings.

    Not that thirsty if you let it do things in its own time and that is still at a ‘brisk’ rate.

    I think I’ll be keeping it for now.

  35. Fred

    I totally agree with you, but I cannot see much chance of getting anyone to agree. Both Labor and LNP are in the alliance with the US and Japan against China and it can only end badly for us.

    The WHOLE NK thing is really about containing China and Russia and therefore I expect the US to take military action.

    Sadly China and Russia will respond because they cannot allow the US to have a military presence right of their borders so a hot conflict becomes ever more likely.

    Now possibly SK and even Japan will realise that their economic interest lies in the OBOR project ie land transport through to the markets in Europe and land transport of oil and gas from Russia and also the ME via Pakistan. But it is not in the US strategic interest to let that happen so expect disruption

  37. CTar1 @ #1185 Saturday, January 13th, 2018 – 12:20 pm

    Itza

    I have a coming up for 16th birthday Merc (E500) with less than 150,000 klms on it. In very good condition, still rates 5 Stars in the recently reviewed ANCAP ratings.

    Not that thirsty if you let it do things in its own time and that is still at a ‘brisk’ rate.

    I think I’ll be keeping it for now.

    Well, < 150,000 sounds good to me. E240 wagon here. A dream on the highway, but starting to cost.

  38. DTT @ 11:12 “Labor needs good PR on its NBN and quickly.”

    Labor needs good PR on everything and quickly. We can see the outlines if the Government’s re-election strategy now: lie, smear, dogwhistle. These will be actively supported by some media and meekly repeated by others, including the ABC.

  39. Itza

    A dream on the highway

    Yep. Mine has the smart self levelling suspension with the lean into corners stuff.

    It’s a joy to drive on a ‘run’ that I do 5 or 6 times a year – Canberra to Kiama with a chunk of the Hume Highway, the regional Illawarra Highway and the very steep Robertson to Kiama section.

  42. The Epping to Chatswood rail link in Sydney was opened in 2008 as an integral part of Sydney’s heavy rail system. It services a major industrial (i.e. employment) region, Macquarie University and the huge Macquarie shopping centre and greatly increases the capacity of Sydney’s Northern line. It was also meant to be the first stage of a link from Chatswood to Parramatta. This project was abandoned by the incoming “Liberal” state Government.

    The line will be closed for ‘at least’ 7 months (so let’s say a year) from later this year in order to be retrofitted into Sydney’s new Metro system, now under construction.

    http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/one-of-sydneys-newest-rail-lines-will-close-for-at-least-seven-months-just-a-few-years-after-it-opened/news-story/00a0c72cd72887774055d3439b8dd37d

    This from a Government planning to spend billions tearing down perfectly good sporting venues and rebuilding them.

    It’s all the fault of Labor / Shorten / Unions / Obeid / African Gangs of course.

  43. PeeBee

    I know not much specific about the maintenance record on virtually all cars.

    I did lots of research before buying mine about 5 years ago on the specific model and version. I knew what to look for as faults and expected maintenance in the specific car.

    Mine good although it had a major maintenance point coming up but I knew that so wasn’t surprised except for some costs associated with ignition parts – dual spark plugs for each cylinder with one spark condenser unit for each cylinder!

    I could not afford a new one, that’s for sure but a decent 2nd hand one is not that expensive. The price certainly drops quickly after they are bought new.

    Research and luck both paid off for me.

  44. imaXXXXXandivote says:
    Saturday, January 13, 2018 at 11:17 am
    “Can one of the NSW PBs please inform me why the NSW Liberal government is planning to close the Epping to Chatswood railway line. Also, what are they going to replace it with? Sounds like a retrograde step to me without knowing all the ins and outs of it.”

    From memory, the tunnels and the stations on this line can’t accommodate the new metro style trains (required as part of the overall train transport plan) and need to be expanded or modified.

    Trains will be replaced by buses on this line for about 6-9 months after which the line will re-open

    Actually the tunnels for the new metro line are smaller than the tunnels for existing double deck trains. Rumour has it that the intention was to prevent the new metro line being a conventional railway using unionised drivers and guards. The metro will be driverless and with a private operator.

    The Epping to Chatswood railway will be closed so it can be converted to driverless operation. The same thing will happen later on the railway to Bankstown.

    What the NSW government tries to downplay is the loss of regular trains on these lines and the inconvenience to passengers when the lines are converted.

  45. Billie @ #1133 Saturday, January 13th, 2018 – 7:33 am

    Guytaur I wasn’t aware that different electric vehicles use different charging protocols

    However a big hurdle is, how long does it take to recharge a car. It takes about 5 minutes to refuel a petrol car now – that’s no excuse for not adopting electric cars – just a hurdle to be overcome

    The idea with an EV is that it is charged when it’s not being used – in your garage, at a carpark etc.

  47. Bk

    Your expert even works in the nazis in his go on!

    Comparing cars – and out and out sports car with a robustly built 4 door car designed to cart people around in comfort and fit in plenty of luggage as bonus.

    He’s out there!

  48. (Wild generalisation alert.)

    I don’t think today’s mercs have the standard of finish or inbuilt kraut technological reliability, or design features / style for that matter, as the old ones, says the owner driver of a 1998 merc. Same for the drivers. Spivs and dealers.

    In Germany, the cab driver told us:

    spivs drove Audis
    oldies drove Mercs
    execs drove BMWs

    and Mercedes was trying to move on the spiv market.

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