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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  4. Something about bottles sitting on the wall…

    PHON is in record breaking mode pissing off and/or selecting ineligible candidates.

    ‘One Nation senator Fraser Anning has given notice he will sit as an independent in parliament and not as one of Pauline Hanson’s colleagues.

    Senator Anning, who was third-placed on the One Nation ticket in Queensland at the 2016 election, replaced Malcolm Roberts who was found to have been disqualified due to his British citizenship.

    He wrote in his letter to Senate President Stephen Parry on Monday he was unable to comply with the conditions One Nation had attempted to impose on him and would instead sit as an independent to promote the interest of rural and regional Queenslanders.’

  6. Fairfax newspapers are a sorry sight these days. I read free copies of SMH and Canberra Times today while having lunch. Several (most?) articles were common to both papers and they were characterised by large font, lots of white space and very few advertisements.

    It’s hard to tell but Fairfax’s radio stations of the redneck variety seem to carry more advertising than their newspapers. That is really nothing to boast about.

    It’s sad to say but Murdoch’s Oz (heavily subsidised) is better value per gram of newsprint than the Fairfax papers. The DT sits somewhere between the SMH and the Oz and obviously relies on enough suckers buying the paper to keep it going.

  7. “Supposedly the most perfect conical shape of all volcanoes.”.

    Don’t tell that to the Japanese, who bestow that honour on Fuji-san.

  12. citizen @ #2110 Monday, January 15th, 2018 – 7:21 pm

    Pots & kettles – or is it birds of a feather?

    Donald Trump’s head of Homeland Security has suggested that anyone who brands the US President a racist based on his immigration views must also say the same for Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/if-donald-trump-is-racist-so-is-australia-and-malcolm-turnbull-us-homeland-security-chief-20180115-h0ie55.html

    I’m OK with that.

  13. “Donald Trump’s head of Homeland Security has suggested that anyone who brands the US President a racist based on his immigration views must also say the same for Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.”

    It is clearly entirely true they are both very fond of very racist policies and earning votes by pandering to to and encouraging racial hate and division. They are both despicable scum history will judge very harshly.

  16. Barney in Go Dau @ #2114 Monday, January 15th, 2018 – 7:37 pm

    bemused @ #2111 Monday, January 15th, 2018 – 3:23 pm

    citizen @ #2107 Monday, January 15th, 2018 – 7:13 pm

    “Supposedly the most perfect conical shape of all volcanoes.”.

    Don’t tell that to the Japanese, who bestow that honour on Fuji-san.

    Just repeating what I was told in Phil.
    I would bet similar claims are made in a number of countries.

    You decide!
    ” rel=”nofollow”>

    Mayon has steeper sides so comparison is difficult.
    Both pretty awesome.

  26. Goodness, can this really be a Tory saying this?? None of our LNP mates would be heard uttering things like this…

    Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative chairman of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee, said: “This really shakes public confidence in the ability of the private sector to deliver public services and infrastructure.”

    He said there needed to be a change of “mindset” at companies that do a lot of work for the taxpayer.

    “You’ve got to treat yourself much more as a branch of the public service, not as a private company just there to enrich the shareholders and the directors,” he said.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42687032

  28. Poroti

    40mm in my backyard gauge since 9am.

    I have lived here in Perth’s inner south for 31 years and this is the fifth or six major summer rain event of tropical origin.

    Record fall was 115mm last February. There was another many many years ago in the 80mm range. Might give that a nudge I reckon.

  30. I see that the 50 Shades of Red have decided to ignore little niggles like the systematic white-anting of our democratic institutions, the wholesale assault on our social infrastructure, the white-anting of public health, transport and education, falling real wages, and the death of the Great Barrier Reef.

    Why are you describing the ALP as “fifty shades of red”? The nomenclature is odd. I am glad that you want the ALP to reverse the damage it helped inflict in those policy areas. However, voting 1 for the ALP is misguided if those issues are important to you.

  33. #weatheronPB: Perth has had over 40 mm of rain since 9:00. It had 7 mm overnight and is forecast to get 20-35 mm tomorrow: http://www.bom.gov.au/wa/forecasts/perth.shtml

    Perth has a Mediterranean climate, with hot dry Summers and cool, fairly wet Winters. However, the pattern seems to be changing. While the SW of WA has been losing its Winter rains, it seems to be getting more Summer rain events, as if the climate zones are shifting South.

    Meanwhile, in Sydney, it basically rains whenever it feels like it and doesn’t rain when it doesn’t want to.

    EDIT: Poroti @8:34PM: spectacular.

  35. It’s clear who Trumpie is going to bill for his ten-fold increase in nuclear war capabilities.

    The Mexicans.

    He’s going to add it to the invoice for the Wall.

  36. Acerbic Conehead

    Keep in mind Trump’s 10x increase was calculated using the Aussie Ambassador’s you beaut pat. pending calculator Joe had lent him

  42. GG:

    That Essential result implies NXT changed its name federally. I thought SA Best was just the NXT Sth Australian iteration.

  46. Confessions

    It was made by a former Poll Bludger, George Bludger. He did amazing graphics but unfortunately he and William had a falling out. Not sure why but it became pretty willing . He is still active if you look him up.

  47. sprocket

    Ouch!

    Usually with steel failure you get deformation before failure. That looks like the anchors where into a concrete floor above and the overloading simply had them let go with no warning.

    Will be interesting to see if it was shit engineering, or shit construction.

    Of course there’s nothing to say it wasn’t both.

  48. WeWantPaul @ #2113 Monday, January 15th, 2018 – 6:36 pm

    “Donald Trump’s head of Homeland Security has suggested that anyone who brands the US President a racist based on his immigration views must also say the same for Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.”

    Using Australia as the exemplar in your “I’m not a racist” argument is…odd and self-defeating.

    But it’ll play well in the States, where literally nobody has any knowledge of just how extremely racist Australia has been in the past or in many ways remains today.

  50. At the risk of again having that gentle soul Steven denounce me as a bully — that level of ugliness and stupidity is indeed not allowed here. Poroti should be ashamed of himself as well.

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