BludgerTrack: 52.4-47.6 to Labor

Little change this week on the federal polling aggregate. Also featured: preselection news, minor polling snippets, and the latest changes to the configuration of the Senate.

There were two polls this week, one a little better for the Coalition than usual (52-48 from ReachTEL), one a little worse (54-46 from Essential Research). These add up to not much change on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, albeit that the Coalition are up one on the seat aggregates for Victoria and Western Australia. No new numbers this week for the leadership ratings.

Latest developments on the ever-changing face of the Senate:

• South Australian Senator Lucy Gichuhi has subtly improved the government’s position in the Senate by joining the Liberal Party. Gichuhi was the second candidate on the Family First ticket at the 2016 election, which unexpectedly earned her a place in the Senate in April last year in place of Bob Day. The High Court had ruled that Day had been ineligible to run at the election by virtue of a pecuniary interest in an agreement with the Commonwealth, and that the votes should be recounted as if Day were absent from the ballot paper. However, this coincided with Family First’s absorption within Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives start-up, which Gichuhi was not willing to join. She has since sat as an independent, albeit one that has usually voted with the government. Her move to the Liberals neatly brings the South Australian Senate contingent into line with the party configuration that emerged from the election, a situation that was disturbed when Cory Bernardi quit the Liberal Party.

• Kristina Keneally will take Sam Dastyari’s place in the Senate after winning the decisive endorsement of the NSW Right without opposition, seeing off suggestions that she might face a challenge from Transport Workers Union state secretary Tony Sheldon or United Voice official Tara Moriarty. A report in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests Sheldon might have been able to take the position if he had pressed the issue, with the support of the Australian Workers Union, Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association and Transport Workers Union, but favoured seeking a position at the next election as it would give him a full six-year term.

Miscellaneous miscellany:

• Barrie Cassidy makes a case for a federal election being held later this year.

• The Australian reports that Michael Danby’s potential successors in Melbourne Ports include Josh Burns, a senior adviser to Daniel Andrews, and Mary Delahunty, a Glen Eira councillor and former mayor (not the former state MP). However, it is not yet clear that Danby will retire, or be forced out if he chooses to stay, with a Labor source quoted in an earlier report from The Australian saying Danby had 80% support in local branches. Linfox executive Ari Suss and Labor historian Nick Dyrenfurth, who were mentioned earlier, have apparently ruled themselves out.

• Lyle Shelton, who gained a high profile as managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby during the same-sex marriage referendum, has resigned his position ahead of a run for federal parliament, which will apparently be with the Australian Conservatives in Queensland — presumably as its lead Senate candidate.

• According to Sheradyn Holderhead of The Advertiser, Robert Simms, who held a Senate seat from September 2015 to July 2016, would “likely have the numbers” to take top spot on the Greens’ South Australian Senate ticket if he challenged Sarah Hanson-Young.

• The ABC reports a small sample YouGov Galaxy poll of 350 respondents suggested Nick Xenophon Team member Rebekha Sharkie would retain her seat of Mayo at a by-election if disqualified on grounds of dual British citizenship. The poll had Sharkie with a 59-41 two-party lead over the Liberals, from primary votes of 37% for Sharkie, 33% for the Liberals and 18% for Labor.

• Fairfax reports a ReachTEL poll of 3312 respondents for the Stop Adani Alliance found 65.1% opposed to Adani’s coal mine proposal in Queensland, up from 51.9% in March 2017. It also found 73.5% support for ending the expansion of coal mining and accelerating solar power construction and storage.

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.

632 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.4-47.6 to Labor”

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  1. bemused @ #444 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 2:44 pm

    grimace @ #436 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 5:37 pm

    bemused @ #312 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 11:59 am

    Reading that ABC article it seems that all the installations will be on Housing Trust homes – public housing where Greens would never live.

    The total installations will be 25,100 homes producing 250MW of power. i.e. approx 10Kw per home, much larger than most existing solar installations.

    So therefore it could provide free power to the households with plenty of surplus going to the grid. I suspect these households would be toward the lower end of domestic power usage. So a power bill reduction of 30% is a bit stingy in these circumstances and it probably could go much lower.

    I have direct personal involvement in a similar feasibility study for another government department (not SA).

    The available roofspace for the average public house would support nowhere near 10kW of rationally placed panels.

    As public housing tends to be concentrated, a project like this requires you to work with the grid operator to ensure that the local distribution network can support the sheer number of solar installations on the distribution substation.

    A 5kW PV system, on average, supports daytime use plus enough surplus to fully charge a Powerwall 2, inclusive of allowance for round trip efficiency and transformer losses.

    I was just going by the numbers in the ABC report 250MW across 25,100 homes.
    That works out at close to 10KW per roof if my sums are right.
    Of course it would not surprise me in the least if the reporter got it wrong.

    Without going back to check the article, I think the 250MW refers to the mentioned 50,000 installations.

    Edit: I re-read the article and it is rather poorly written. The 250MW of production probably refers to 50,000 systems, not 25,000.

  4. Oakeshott Country @ #428 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 5:27 pm

    Unpleasant but fun fact warning
    RHWombat your photo of Newcastle beach reminds me that several decades ago I lost my virginity in one of the buildings on the headland. Though I think that particular building has been knocked down and replaced by medium density housing

    RNH?

  5. Shorten to cap private health fund premiums
    While the commonwealth has power over insurance and health benefits, as far as I know they have no power over prices and wages.

  9. grimace @ #451 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 5:58 pm

    bemused @ #444 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 2:44 pm

    grimace @ #436 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 5:37 pm

    bemused @ #312 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 11:59 am

    Reading that ABC article it seems that all the installations will be on Housing Trust homes – public housing where Greens would never live.

    The total installations will be 25,100 homes producing 250MW of power. i.e. approx 10Kw per home, much larger than most existing solar installations.

    So therefore it could provide free power to the households with plenty of surplus going to the grid. I suspect these households would be toward the lower end of domestic power usage. So a power bill reduction of 30% is a bit stingy in these circumstances and it probably could go much lower.

    I have direct personal involvement in a similar feasibility study for another government department (not SA).

    The available roofspace for the average public house would support nowhere near 10kW of rationally placed panels.

    As public housing tends to be concentrated, a project like this requires you to work with the grid operator to ensure that the local distribution network can support the sheer number of solar installations on the distribution substation.

    A 5kW PV system, on average, supports daytime use plus enough surplus to fully charge a Powerwall 2, inclusive of allowance for round trip efficiency and transformer losses.

    I was just going by the numbers in the ABC report 250MW across 25,100 homes.
    That works out at close to 10KW per roof if my sums are right.
    Of course it would not surprise me in the least if the reporter got it wrong.

    Without going back to check the article, I think the 250MW refers to the mentioned 50,000 installations.

    Edit: I re-read the article and it is rather poorly written. The 250MW of production probably refers to 50,000 systems, not 25,000.

    They might mean 50,000 but it seems clear they say 1,100 plus another 24,000.

  11. Uhlmann did a fair report tonight. He was much improved when he first moved to ch9 but I had been getting a bit worried about him recently.

  13. grimace @ #414 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 4:58 pm

    At 50,000 houses the numbers work very easily and the savings mentioned in the article stack up, and I say that having with the benefit of having done the numbers based on actual quotes from solar and battery manufacturers, who on that volume will deal with you direct. The three big cost issues were metering of the system (which has to be NMI approved), management of the data in the system and disposal of the battery at the end of its economic life.

    I’d be interested to see your figures. I can see you would get quite substantial discounts by buying the components in bulk, but not enough to make this system “pay for itself” as claimed. A few fairly simple calculations indicate the return on initial investment is quite low – and also quite risky. For instance, I had to assume a “perfect” system in every case, and also that all electricity generated could be sold at full retail price … and neither of these is true, of course.

    This means someone is subsidising it. Which of course would probably end up being the taxpayers not participating in the scheme.

    But the real kicker of course is that you would get a much better outcome by simply taking exactly the same components and building a couple of utility-scale solar farms. There, you could guarantee optimum system performance. And you’d save absolutely heaps on installation, maintenance & management costs.

    The more I think about it, the more this looks like an election stunt to me.

  16. booleanbach @ #420 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 5:18 pm

    Does Australia monitor toxic gases around its major ports?
    http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/air-pollution-uk-shipping-levels-record-environment-fumes-damage-nitrogen-dioxide-sulphur-a8189691.html

    Sydney harbour has had problems in the past, if i recall, with emissions from the large cruise liners.
    But how about Botany Bay with all the container shipping?

    Can’t speak to your question, but this point is too often overlooked:

    “There are other aspects of ship pollution that have consequences not only for the human health of the UK population but also the global environment,” he said.

    “But they are admittedly secondary when compared with the very serious health issues and *the scandalous way UK policy prioritises the interests of a global industry and subsidises it by making the tax payer cover the health cost for it*.”

  18. Apparently the health fund premiums will be limited to a few % rise for a few years. I think the commonwealth does have the ability to negotiate this.

  19. citizen @ #449 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 5:52 pm

    Question says:
    Sunday, February 4, 2018 at 5:30 pm
    Just saw Greg Jennet speculating about under who’s watch the cabinet documents debacle occured?

    I’m obviously confusing Jennett with somebody else but I thought he left ABC to work as a media person for Turnbull’s government. Can someone set me straight please?

    That would be Mark Simkin.

  21. rhwombat @ #423 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 5:22 pm

    I absolutely agree, but would argue that the other edge of the semicircle has its own deep attractions: the sandstone curtain.

    To stand on the edge at Mt Solitary at dusk, with the black cockatoos calling over the Megalong. To emerge from the cave swim at the end of Claustral Canyon and warm up as you ascend the dappled gullys. To look north from Mt Banks and realise that only a handful of humans may have traversed that terrain in the last thousand years. The other blue edge of the Sydney basin isn’t tame, but it is beautiful, and will outlive us.

    Jen Peedom’s latest film, Mountain, captures some aspect of it. See it if you can.

    Seconded, and wish I had the past to revisit and more courage to get into the Canyons. And, as for Mountain, I so agree; it is a must. We saw it live with the ACO, and the CD soundtrack is brilliant.

    For others, teaser:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOBB_VOFQHI

  22. The commonwealth’s power is fairly weak and open to challenge. From the web site:

    Under section 66-10 of the Private Health Insurance Act 2007, private health insurers must apply to the Minister for Health for approval of premium changes. The Minister must approve the proposed changes unless satisfied that a change would be contrary to the public interest

  24. Since health insurance (and the whole private health industry according to the Libs) relies on the rebate, I would think government has plenty of leverage on premiums.

    I would like the whole thing overhauled but will save that for when I’m not fighting with a tablet.

  25. Oakeshott Country @ #472 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 6:19 pm

    The commonwealth’s power is fairly weak and open to challenge. From the web site:

    Under section 66-10 of the Private Health Insurance Act 2007, private health insurers must apply to the Minister for Health for approval of premium changes. The Minister must approve the proposed changes unless satisfied that a change would be contrary to the public interest

    So based on this, is it fair to say the cap of 2% is by no means guaranteed ?

  26. I guess Shorten could always argue public interest in capping premium increases however he is being a touch misleading comparing premium increases to wages increases.

  27. Has Jennet been offered a political job? That might explain the weird speculation I saw (earlier post). Perhaps he will find out what happened to Simpkin.

  28. “the more I think about it, the more this looks like an election stunt to me.”

    Nah P1. Its more like good policy, with some risk attached, that if its successful will set things up for pretty good outcomes in the future. If it works, it will help to mainstream distributed generation / storage. It will be a large scale, working system from which data on the actual real world pros and cons can be gathered. Will there be “issues”……almost certainly. But we can learn how to work through them and deal.

    This is the kind of thing that Govts SHOULD do. Taxpayer funds spent on the public good.

    Yup, there are companies that will make a profit out of it. Fine. git R done, accept the risk (which may not be that big anyway) and see where it goes. If it works out it will put the STFU on a load of the obnoxious wackers out there who reckon renewable electrons are somehow worse than coal fired electrons. 🙂

  29. Oakeshott Country @ #472 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 6:19 pm

    The commonwealth’s power is fairly weak and open to challenge. From the web site:

    Under section 66-10 of the Private Health Insurance Act 2007, private health insurers must apply to the Minister for Health for approval of premium changes. The Minister must approve the proposed changes unless satisfied that a change would be contrary to the public interest

    well, if a 24 hr train strike in Sydney was deemed contrary to the public interest, and disapproved, quick smart licketty split …

  30. Bw – The computer centre used by spooky people in the basement of UK Ministry of Defence in Whitehall was always referred to as ‘The Yellow Submarine’.

    About 100m further along under the building is Henry VIII’s wine cellar dating back to about 1510. The main building is built on the site of the “Palace of Westminster” that burnt down sometime back when..

  31. Oakeshott Country @ #456 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 6:03 pm

    RNH? – old nurses home
    How cliched is that?
    What has happened to RNH?

    Cliched? It was a long established tradition.
    The RNH site was sold off for Skinner boxes (including a Novotel owned by a Sydney cosmetic “surgeon”), and the new part of the John Hunter, supposedly built with some of the proceeds, (yeah, right…) is now referred to as the Royal Newcastle Centre.
    Was it true that they used to open the windows in the operating theatres when the breeze was right?

  32. Davidwh,
    Premium rises have been outstripping wages since forever. There might be reasons, but it’s not misleading.

    According to Shorten profits have also been growing.

  33. Depends on how you define public interest. In the case of private health insurance the most important issue would be the capacity of insurers to provide health services as and when they are required.

  36. Question wage growth is only a part of the reasons. The number and cost of services provided would be by far the highest costs being incurred by health insurers.

  37. Taylormade

    Took some opening, but container was full of Husqvarna ride on lawn mowers. Happy days – I still have mine and so do the rest of the family.

    😀

  39. Just checked information from the Prudential Regulation Authority which shows that in 2016 premiums increased by 5% and benefits paid out increased by 5.4%. Not that I want to pay higher premiums but I do need to have the insurer able to meet their obligations as needed particularly as we now are needing the services after many years of paying premiums.

  40. Question just comparing insurance premiums increases to wages increases is misleading. It’s just politics in a likely election year.

  41. davidwh,

    Any statistics on the profit made by the insurers in 2016?

    I am sure the insurers would not be operating at a loss.

    Cheers.

  43. Turnbull was doing Private Health Insurance Scare this AM.
    It turns out that Shorten has a Plan to destroy Private Health Insurance.
    It seems to me that if the Coalition can freeze the doctor’s thingie then they are in a bit of a pickle when it comes to arguing that the freeze should not be extended to the Pirate Health Insurance sector.
    Hunt has been exposed by this.
    A couple of months ago he was bragging about how he had held the premium increases to the lowest level for yonks.
    What he meant was that the hoi polloi were not supposed to think about how he was responsible for premium increases of double the rate of inflation.

  44. Posted a bit too early.

    Meant to add Shorten intends to cap the premium increases for two years only while the Productivity Commission reviews the sector, a review many consumer groups have supported in press statements today.

    Cheers.

  45. dwh
    You should be ashamed of yourself playing with cherries like that.
    The spivs took home net what, $7 billion? $8 billion?
    And between the lot of them they did not do a single suture, prescribe a single pill or bandage a single wound.
    Creamers.

  49. One would hope there are not too many US style far right “evangelicals” like Shelton here in Australia.

    Bernardi recruit channels Trump
    Former Australian Christian Lobby head Lyle Shelton declares Canberra ‘broken’ as he takes up senior job with Cory Bernardi. (Oz headline)

  50. davidwh @ #486 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 6:37 pm

    Question wage growth is only a part of the reasons. The number and cost of services provided would be by far the highest costs being incurred by health insurers.

    Personally, I think Prometheus’ fate was too good for “health” insurers hyenas. The number and cost of services (read surgical procedures) are only a “problem” if you want to profit from someone’s illness and have the moral compass of Berlusconi2.0 Trump.

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