BludgerTrack returns for 2018 with methodological tinkering to address two issues. The first is an effort to account for a different preference environment with the rise of the One Nation; the second puts the various pollsters on a level playing field in calculating the leadership rating treds.
After polling a national primary vote of 1.3% from the fifteen lower house seats they contested, One Nation’s polling has been approaching double figures for at least the past year. This limits the utility of allocating preferences as they flowed at the previous election, which is the most reliable method when the minor party environment experiences little change from one election to the next. The Coalition received barely more than half of One Nation’s preferences in 2016, but they did quite a bit better than that at last year’s state elections, receiving around 65% in Queensland and 60% in Western Australia — presumably because many of their new supporters have defected from the Coalition.
The alternative to previous election preference flows is respondent allocation, which the experience of the state elections suggests is leaning too far in the other direction. The approach now taken by BludgerTrack is to split the difference, which would have worked well if it had been applied in 2016. This is done by combining trend measures of previous election and respondent-allocated flows, with Ipsos and ReachTEL providing the data for the latter.
The chart below shows how these trends pan out in the latest run of the aggregation. Both pollsters had the Coalition maintaining its mid-thirties share from the election until around the middle of last year, when it rose to the low forties. With the major parties now accounting for barely three-quarters of the total vote, a change on this scale would, by itself, result in more than a full point of difference to the two-party total.
The impact of the new method on the BludgerTrack two-party trend reading is illustrated below, with the chart on the left showing how things would look if previous election preferences were still applied. The upshot is that BludgerTrack should be at least half a point less favourable for Labor than it was before, at least for as long as the recent pattern of respondent-allocated preference polling holds.
The second change relates to the leadership ratings measures, which until now made no effort to distinguish between the very substantial peculiarities of different pollsters. This meant its results were saying as much about the pollster that had reported most recently as they did about changes in the standing of the two leaders.
Unlike voting intention, leadership ratings cannot be measured against a real world benchmark. So the approach taken here is to treat Newspoll as the centre of gravity, and adjust the other pollsters by benchmarking them against a trend measure of Newspoll. These results are illustrated in the table below, which effectively shows how different a typical result from each pollster will be from a typical Newspoll.
| Essential | Ipsos | YouGov | Morgan | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turnbull | Satisified | +3.9% | +12.0% | +11.0% | -0.9% |
| Dissatisfied | -9.1% | -9.7% | -7.6% | -2.4% | |
| Net | +13.0% | +21.7% | +18.6% | +1.5% | |
| Shorten | Satisified | +0.9% | +4.8% | +10.0% | -3.8% |
| Dissatisfied | -9.3% | -1.9% | -8.1% | -0.4% | |
| Net | +10.2% | +6.7% | +18.1% | -3.4% | |
| Preferred | Turnbull | -3.4% | +5.5% | -7.5% | +5.7% |
| Shorten | -3.5% | +0.8% | -4.0% | +0.3% | |
| N | 30 | 15 | 5 | 2 |
This shows that both leaders, but Malcolm Turnbull especially, do much worse on Newspoll’s approval and disapproval ratings than they do from Essential, Ipsos and YouGov. Since these differences are now being corrected for, BludgerTrack will tend to record weaker net satisfaction results for both leaders, but especially for Turnbull.
This brings us to the latest BludgerTrack numbers, which as always are displayed in all their glory on the sidebar. Since the Essential poll is the only new data point of the last few weeks, a certain amount of caution is advised. While the Essential numbers were slightly better than the Coalition’s form late last year, more than half the 1.2% shift recorded in favour of the Coalition is down to the new preference method. It hasn’t made much difference to the seat projection, on which the Coalition gain one apiece in Queensland and South Australia, but lose one in Western Australia.
The impact of the new leadership ratings method on Malcolm Turnbull’s net satisfaction is muted by a set of Essential numbers which were, by the pollsters long-term standards, relatively good for him. However, Bill Shorten had a weak result from Essential, and is accordingly well down.
Confessions
Thats because I am not an Indigenous person. I have listened to the Indigenous people who have spoken up about change the date. I have in past years posted opinion that I think we should Change the Date. On the very basis I just outlined there.
The Greens have raised the issue and because some partisan Labor people don’t like the Greens having airtime its all “confected outrage”.
No natural flow of reaction to debate that is getting more attention.
So no its not “confected outrage”.
My only outrage comes from when views are dismissed as not important because you disagree with them.
See the posts from Indigenous X.
They are not my posts. They are not Greens posts. They are genuine views of some Indigenous people.
Their outrage is not my or even the Greens “confected outrage”. Those of course on that site that have argued for changing the date.
Change of subject – went down this morning to take my dog to the Vet and collect my mail, and passed an old man accompanied (offlead) by two chihuahuas. “They’re very well-behaved,” I smiled. And then I notice the rosella riding on his shoulder.
Yes, I understand why Confessions and some others would describe linking to expressed differing viewpoints about change the date as “confected outrage”.
Pegasus @ #97 Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018 – 11:14 am
*waves* 😉
Kayjay
Herb is better off without the cat. I get left the cats, with a plea to look after them.
I did.
And the vet bills as they got older were horrendous.
I will now nonchalantly swagger off, as we unattached males do, and mow my lawn, a task I believe you will identify with.
Actually limp off. Got a touch of gout for first time in many years. Not sure why.
Pegasus,
Just because we won’t dance to The Greens’ tune doesn’t mean you have the right to criticise what we say here.
Anyway, by having the whinge you just did merely exposes that The Greens are as complicit with censorship as any RWNJ is.
We should ONLY discuss that which The Greens wish to be discussed on PB? Get your hand off it!
Lizzie
How cool! Meanwhile, the tree that the Rosellas frequent every other day at my house, was chopped down yesterday!!
We are currently rebuilding a new retaining wall and fence that abuts our small park next door. So all the plant life along the fence line had to go.
Sigh….
We have temporary fencing at present with shade cloth along some of it, but it gives me no privacy whatsoever. The whole neighbourhood can see us. It is very disconcerting to say the least. Gonna be like this for a few weeks.
Gulp!!
Not to mention what it is doing to the finances. Just materials alone is edging towards $10,000!! Another gulp!!!!!
Victoria
Sympathy. Privacy is so important. 🙂
Confessions
To be clear. Yesterday I did not post much on the Australia Day Debate.
Do not be fooled and think social media and the media are not discussing it.
The fact that the Sydney Morning Herald has had an editorial calling for changing the date is not “confected outrage”.
I will stop responding when people stop demeaning Indigenous views just because they don’t agree with them.
In fact dismissing the support the Greens are giving those voices as “confected outrage” is in fact a bad thing in itself.
The issue exists no matter what political advantage the Greens may be taking of that issue.
Just like Labor does with doing climate change policy. Just because a political party starts campaigning on an issue does not make the issue itself invalid. Or the support of that party for the issue invalid.
Pegasus @ #97 Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018 – 7:14 am
Where’s the intolerance?
The argument here seems to come down to the practical, those wanting real change in the standard of Indigenous lives, versus the superficial, those wanting to waste time and effort to change a date that will have no real impact on Indigenous lives if successful!
Lizzie
Agreed. Everytime I walk outside I feel so exposed. Mind you the neighbourhood are very nice and down to earth people. But still I feel weird!
Cat,
What a low threshold you have for “whinging”.
Contrast my calm and measured statement of fact with your typical OTT and snide responses, 99% of which I ignore.
Barney in Go Dau,
I have read your comments re change the date, as I have read everyone else’s. Your comments have been civil and respectful.
We will have to agree to disagree about what you think the “argument” is about.
BIGD
Precisely!
Barney in Go Dau @ #111 Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018 – 10:26 am
Why can’t you do both together?
And also that seems to ignore the question of who’s agitating to have the date changed. If it’s something that the Indigenous community has come forward and said that it wants, then it’s condescending in the extreme to dismiss the change as “superficial” and having “no real impact”. Not recognizing or respecting the agency of others is what caused the problem in the first place.
Greg Jericho’s piece is interesting. My guess is that Greg lives in Canberra so he thinks that the unemployment stats actually mean something. It’s all about cost-of-living Greg and that is going through the roof.
lizzie @ #98 Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018 – 11:15 am
I find this very sad. The environmental issue of the century – nay, the millennia – and yet some people supposedly keen on the environment can’t be bothered learning enough about it to even follow the debate.
Let’s all just turn up our airconditioners another notch 🙁
lizzie @ #40 Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018 – 11:19 am
Great story. Thank you. ♡
rossmcg @ #43 Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018 – 11:22 am
I am, as a response to your post, about to continue watering my pot plants. I am not sure that I can develop the appropriate swagger to go along with it, but try I will ( a little Yoda insert there ❗ )
My mowing program has been curtailed by the lack of rain for months. Thoughts and prayers required please. 🙏
Pegasus @ #113 Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018 – 11:29 am
So this was the one you didn’t? 😉
And Green pot about OTT and snide responses!
Btw, I didn’t know that our responses had to be politically correct, prim and proper and pass The Greens sniff test!
So, how about this one?
This is what I think The Greens’ #ChangetheDate campaign reminds me of:
Lots of sound and fury, signalling a big nothingburger.
The Australian is trying to claim that NZ’s offer to accept refugees is ‘restarting the people smugglers’.
So their plan is:
1. Get a boat to Australia.
2. Get captured, imprisoned and tortured for an unknown amount of time.
3. Maybe get transfered to NZ.
I’ve got an alternative plan for them:
1. Get a boat to NZ.
Confessions
Another issue I think is important.
pokiecon: Will the Brits follow the lead of NSW and Victoria and introduce a minimum bet rule to stop unscrupulous bookies closing accounts or refusing bets from successful punters? theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan…
https://twitter.com/pokiecon/status/955597805434781696
I have said I admire Labor for taking this up in Tasmania.
On this Labor have done exactly as the Greens have done. The difference? The LNP have not come out in the national media deriding the position.
I do expect it at some stage as the Tasmanian election heats up.
I don’t make many posts about it because mostly its just been Stephen Mayne on my time line making valid points about the sponsorship and chiding politicians over the issue.
When the pokies debate regains some national prominence I will be posting those I see that I agree with.
What the Greens have done with Change the Date is give voice to an issue. Agree or not its not “confected outrage”
Anton11
Cost of living is going through the roof. Who knows if the Reserve Bank and the banking sector will continue to maintain a manageable level of interest rates. Because from what I have gleaned, even a small rise in rates will bring extreme pressure on many. Most people are mortgaged and maxed out on credit cards.
The trend is to pay for holidays on the credit card as well as lease vehicles rather than borrow money to buy them. Any change to interest rates, could send the house of cards crashing down.
Turnbull and Cash doing presser now.
That quite harsh, P1.
I’m working on customer trials of batteries systems, and we have a very engaged, motivated and educated cohort of participants. Even so, the level of understanding of how the power system works and is governed is very low.
Moreover, our efforts to improve their understanding (recalling this is a very engaged, motivated and educated group) get tripped up on simple misunderstandings. It’s not a matter of “not being bothered,” power systems are complex beasts.
Plus, you’ve revealed yourself to be ignorant of some of the more salient features of the system in the recent past.
Voice Endeavour @ #121 Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018 – 7:37 am
I’m pretty sure there have been boats that have claimed their destination was NZ not Australia that have been turned back. 🙂
SkyNewsAust: .@TurnbullMalcolm: We are pressing on with our enterprise tax program because we know it will result in more investments and more jobs. bit.ly/2n1czwp pic.twitter.com/ywfKqDZPWg
https://twitter.com/skynewsaust/status/955601203106164736
People always find reasons to chop trees down.
My once leafy suburb is being denuded as the nouveaux riches build their monstrosities.
For every great tree felled, at least ten should be planted.
Where are the Greens on that?
victoria:
My issue with Boerwar is not so much what he says (though I certainly don’t really agree with him on the Greens), but the frequency with which he feels the need to repeat the same points again and again and again, day after day, with only minor variations*, the constant assumptions of bad faith on the part of Greens supporters here, and the way he will turn any post by anyone who has expressed sympathies for the Greens into the past – no matter what they’ve just written – into an excuse to start the Labor/Greens wars up again. The latter especially strikes me as particularly obnoxious when the other poster is trying to have a conversation on something that isn’t even slightly related to Greens – possibly in a genuine attempt to keep things friendly and avoid boring everyone with another Greens argument.
It’s a shame, as Boerwar can be a very erudite, articulate, and thought-provoking contributor when he’s not in his copy-and-paste, ALL CAPS, Abbott-esque slogan mode.
*And, yes, I am well aware he is far from the only contributor here with form for endlessly repeating the same stuff over and over again until we all just want to blow our brains out, and that there are a couple of Greens supporters here who are just as bad in this regard.
ANTONBRUCKNER11
I wondered who created the heading. 🙁
Asha Leu
Yep. Most of us are repetitive on this blog. I will put up my hand for that! Lol!!
a r,
And also that seems to ignore the question of who’s agitating to have the date changed. If it’s something that the Indigenous community has come forward and said that it wants, then it’s condescending in the extreme to dismiss the change as “superficial” and having “no real impact”. Not recognizing or respecting the agency of others is what caused the problem in the first place.
It is also a tad condescending, if I might say so, to lump ‘the Indigenous Community’ into the one basket as having one homogenised view about Changing the Date of Australia Day from January the 26th. To some it is important, and it has ever been thus in Australia, for as long as I can remember. Yet to others, and that includes recognised leaders of the Indigenous Australian community, it is not, and other more concrete and visceral issues are uppermost in their minds for attention by the broader community.
Then there is another group, like my friend, who is grateful for the opportunities that Australian society has given her family and which she has embraced with both arms.
So who is their natural spokesperson? Who do you think should be speaking for them? Who is this ‘Indigenous Community’ who has spoken up?
The Toorak Toff
Well in my case. In order to rebuild a wall, the greenery had to go. Of course, in Autumn, we will be replanting all the greenery again.
Of course, I cant speak for those who are building monstrosities in your locale!
I don’t think this is confected outrage.
http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/national-news/we-leave-house-invasion-day-gay-aboriginal/165576
c@t
Yep. And indigineous communities don’t even share homogenised views between themselves. It is definitely condescending
LU
Thank you for your response to P1. We all have different skills, and energy/electricity is not one of mine. Doesn’t mean I don’t care for the environment.
In the background I can hear Turnbull rabbitting and stammering as usual. “Blame Labor”.
Of course Turnbull is pressing on with the tax agenda. Now that he has allowed the banks time to clean up their act before a Royal commission starts. No doubt we will hear about a few people being dudded by bank practices. All the big money laundering stuff will be be overlooked.
Turnbull can reward hus constituents with tax cuts too.
What a swell guy
lizzie
Turnbull has used the classical neo liberal argument about taxes.
He accuses Mr Shorten of wanting to flood people with tax so Labor can decide what the spend the money on.
Of course what Labor is doing is not giving tax cuts to corporations and doing what people want. Looking for ways to pay for services people actually want.
Victoria, apologies if I offended you. Your item set me to thinking of the loss of a some magnificent red gums nearby in recent times – hundreds of years wiped put in a few hours with horrendous loss of habitat for birds and small animals. Ugh.
Karma
https://newmatilda.com/2018/01/23/vile-brit-racist-sells-house-to-fund-legal-loss-guess-whose-trying-to-buy-it/
I wish Turnbull wouldn’t use the words “humanitarian and generous” over refugees. It is so cynical.
mrbenjaminlaw: Occasionally I argue that Australian racism is more codified and institutionalised than blatant. But no, I stand corrected, it’s pretty blatant. twitter.com/Scottludlam/st…
Scottludlam: hello piers ackerman fuck you. pic.twitter.com/i7lnrX0lJA
The Toorak Toff
Not at all. All good
Peg,
I thought this piece written by Megan Davis in 2016 and a slightly more recent interview were quite interesting.
http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/news/2016/07/seeking-settlement
http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/news/2017/03/interview-dr-megan-davis-constitutional-recognition-politicians-model-faces-lukewarm
NO worries, Lizzie.
None of us can be experts on everything, although some of us try!
C@t:
Who here is lumping all Indigenous people into the same box? All I’m seeing is people (on both sides) expressing their own opinions on changing the date, and sharing articles where indigenous people express their own opinions on changing the date. Yep, people who support changing the date tend to be quoting sources that line up with their point of view. People tend to do that in general. How many articles have you shared which support changing the date?
Given that you have previously accused me of lumping all Indigenous people into the same box, “disempowering Indigenous Australians with different opinions to me”, and being a “rabid #ChangeThe Date Green”, despite the fact that, at the time, I had posted roughly two posts related to changing the date (I had returned after several weeks’ absence from Poll Bludger just that day), hadn’t even really articulated my own opinion on changing the date (I still haven’t, to be honest), have literally not used a hashtag in roughly four years (the same time I stopped using Twitter, the only place anyone should ever be using a hashtag), and haven’t shared or quoted a single article which had anything whatsoever to do with Australia Day, you can understand if I take your claims about other posters with a grain of salt.
There are quite a few posters here who either disagree with changing the date or disagree with how Di Natale and the Greens’ are campaigning on changing the date, and have been completely reasonable and respectful in how they’ve articulated those views. You are not one of them.
Salim Mehajer arrested after investigation into Lidcombe car crash
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/salim-mehajer-arrested-after-investigation-into-lidcombe-car-crash-20180122-h0mmau.html
Bakunin
I understand the feelings expressed in the article. However there has been a myth grown that Australians don’t vote for things in referendums.
The Marriage Equality postal survey proved that like the 1967 referendum give them an issue that improves equality and fairness they will vote for it in droves.
The right lost the culture war with that survey. All the same people on the right that say don’t change the date. Don’t have a Treaty. Don’t have a voice in parliament for our First people are the same ones.
The right is right back into their myth making backed by the media. However the Postal Survey busted the myth and political operatives should take note.
The right has lost the culture war. All we have to do is avoid having a Trump become Prime Minister.
Given the two party preferred I don’t think Australia has to worry about that.
We had our Obama administration with the Gillard Government.
Mr Shorten PM will be the second go round.
Its a flawed analogy of course. Direct comparison is fraught. But in the general sense I think its true.
bakunin,
Cheers. Thanks for linking to this thought-provoking article. Scanned now, book-marked to re-read when I have more time.