BludgerTrack: 53.2-46.8 to Labor

Very slight movement back to the Coalition on the latest poll aggregate this week, with a not-quite-so-bad Newspoll providing the only new numbers.

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate is drifting back towards the Coalition as other pollsters fail to replicate their particularly bad result from ReachTEL a fortnight ago. There is no change on the seat projection, though this is due to the correction of an error that short-changed Labor two seats in Queensland last week. The is balanced by Coalition gains of one seat apiece in New South Wales and Victoria. Newspoll’s latest numbers have taken a big chunk out of Malcolm Turnbull’s readings on the leadership trends, while Bill Shorten holds even on net approval. Enjoy all the results in detail by clicking on the image below.

Note that there’s a post below this one on Newspoll’s latest state voting intention result from Victoria.

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.

2,643 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.2-46.8 to Labor”

Comments Page 46 of 53
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  1. guytaur
    “”You can’t blame the Greens for holding fast to their on shore policies.””
    That would not STOP the boats!!!!!.

    You can’t handle the TRUTH!.

  2. poroti @ #2240 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 11:26 am

    bemused

    My view on the “concern” for drowning at sea is forever colored by the people who were among the earliest adopters being the likes of 2GB and assorted shout back stations. It is a marvelous wheeze, they could wrap their previous bigotry and stirring up racial tension with pure “humanitarian concern”.

    Well you can count me out of that basket. As anyone who has read PB for years and years knows, I was among one of the first to deplore the relentless loss of asylum seeker life at sea.
    My concern is genuine and long-standing and unwavering, no matter what sort of insults or snide remarks I receive from others who seek to doubt my genuine concern.

    I also supported the Malaysian Solution, especially for the Rohingya regugees from Myanmar, due to their historical fear of the sea.

    So, may I just say again, any attempt to lump ALL the people who express concern for the loss of life of asylum seekers at sea into a basket containing 2GB and other political opportunists grabbing hold of the issue as a convenient facade, is simply reprehensible.

  3. zoomster @ #2247 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 11:39 am

    …I’m interested in the idea that the whole issue gets turned over to the UNHCR. ALL refugees, no matter where they arrive or how, automatically are sent to the nearest UNHCR camp for processing.

    The UNHCR then decides who goes where.

    Very rational thinking, zoomster.

    Put it up as a policy for National Conference!

  4. zoomster @ #2245 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 11:37 am

    I object to the idea that people drowning to get to Australia is in anyway acceptable. Being complacent about deaths at sea is not a virtuous position.

    So concerns about ‘deaths at sea’ are exploited politically. That does not mean that such concerns are not genuine; it means that those exploiting them aren’t.

    The refugee problem isn’t one with easy solutions, and almost any solution proferred is imperfect. If it were easy to solve, after all, it would be done by now.

    It is merely a cover for the real motivation of the right not wanting ‘these people’ to come.

    Don’t lend support to it.

    Of course I don’t want people drowning at sea. But I do not support using such concerns to conceal base motives.

    While ever people go to sea, there will be drownings. While ever people go to the beach, there will be drownings etc.

  5. Zoomster

    I disagree. I think it was too much verification required by security services. That caused the bottle neck.

    However all I wanted to say lets not help the LNP with its demonisation. They don’t need it.

  6. 1934

    You can’t handle the truth. The blame for the failure of the Malaysian Solution was due to two reasons.

    A decision by the High Court and the LNP.

    Thats the truth.

  9. C@tmomma @ #2252 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 11:43 am

    poroti @ #2240 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 11:26 am

    bemused

    My view on the “concern” for drowning at sea is forever colored by the people who were among the earliest adopters being the likes of 2GB and assorted shout back stations. It is a marvelous wheeze, they could wrap their previous bigotry and stirring up racial tension with pure “humanitarian concern”.

    Well you can count me out of that basket. As anyone who has read PB for years and years knows, I was among one of the first to deplore the relentless loss of asylum seeker life at sea.
    My concern is genuine and long-standing and unwavering, no matter what sort of insults or snide remarks I receive from others who seek to doubt my genuine concern.

    I also supported the Malaysian Solution, especially for the Rohingya regugees from Myanmar, due to their historical fear of the sea.

    So, may I just say again, any attempt to lump ALL the people who express concern for the loss of life of asylum seekers at sea into a basket containing 2GB and other political opportunists grabbing hold of the issue as a convenient facade, is simply reprehensible.

    You are responding to a comment addressed to me, not a comment by me as it appears.

  15. Sohar

    Good article. Two of the facts would be contested:

    1. The number of Begalis who starved to death. The article estimates the very high end. It is worth contemplating that after nearly three centuries of British colonial rule, no-one thought to count the dead.
    2. Whether Churchill used the ‘breed like rabbits’ line. On the balance of probabilities, not.

    Some nuance is missing. For example, the usual role of Indian merchant hoarders in exacerbating famines in order to fatten profits, including in the Bengali famine, is somewhat of a counterpoint to Churchill’s behaviour. Neither excuses the other.

    One opinion in the article that would be strongly contested is whether mere words were all that Churchill had to offer during World War Two.

    As a follow up concern, I find it particularly strange just how many Australians still genuflect to the Churchill myth.

  16. In my opinion, it is the injustice of ‘indefinite’ detention that is the major problem and the cruel petty humiliations that are inflicted daily on these asylum seekers.
    Plus being forced back to their countries while their refugee status is still being investigated, despite evidence of torture, etc. of the ones already returned.
    One doesn’t need to be a Green/Labor/whatever supporter to find this abhorrent and unacceptable on both moral and humane grounds.

  17. guytaur @ #2246 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 11:37 am

    1934pc

    You can’t blame the Greens for holding fast to their on shore policies.

    The only reason camps in Australia became a problem is the security delaying the process so that camps filled up with people.

    Thats it. Cut down the security assessment time and it will go back to the Hawke Keating period of processing.

    No problem there.

    Thats your what if.

    Reality is we have to go with Mr Shorten’s solution.
    We are where we are.
    I don’t see any other choice and I oppose offshore detention but I see that the LNP politics has brought us to this and we need to do this to stop it.

    I just think Labor needs to change the subject because it will not win on the boats issue until it is in power and can change things.

    People hate unprincipled weak leadership. They’re so sick of it.

  18. Quasar @ #2266 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 12:21 pm

    In my opinion, it is the injustice of ‘indefinite’ detention that is the major problem and the cruel petty humiliations that are inflicted daily on these asylum seekers.
    Plus being forced back to their countries while their refugee status is still being investigated, despite evidence of torture, etc. of the ones already returned.
    One doesn’t need to be a Green/Labor/whatever supporter to find this abhorrent and unacceptable on both moral and humane grounds.

    So how will it be stopped?
    The defeat of the LNP Govt.
    Which party is capable of this?
    Only Labor.
    Are the Greentards assisting this?
    No way.

  21. Sohar @ #2262 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 10:59 am

    The Washington Post isn’t buying the Pommy propaganda on Churchill.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/03/10/in-winston-churchill-hollywood-rewards-a-mass-murderer/?utm_term=.4e0579dfefbf

    Good one Sohar

    I must admit that probably the biggest political shift of my life has been to quite recently learn to despise the British. Raised as radical with an anti American bias the Brits were given a leave pass and as a fan of British drama I could not ever have believed in their being evil war criminals. No pro Irish sentiment in my upbringing for the 95% of you here on PB with Irish roots, who find my comment puzzling. After all John Mills war movies were good as were all those coming from the Ealing studios. Honorable etc as opposed to boorish bombastic yanks. A diet of schoolgirl books and Enid Blyton helped this noble image along. Even Harry Potter helps this myth.

    I did hear of Churchill using gas, but I must admit I am shocked by the extreme racism he portrayed as written in that article. In retrospect it seems that Churchill was a cross between Mark Latham and Donald Trump.

    The other thing that has recently shocked my sensibilities is to read up about Anthax Island. Apparently the plan was to spray anthrax bacilli over many German cities rendering them uninhabitable for many many yeas, possibly permanently. Such an act would have been a war crime with unimaginably terrible consequences, not just for Germany but for the world at large. The fact that the British military could contemplate such a weapon has deeply shocked me.

    This was all in the time of Churchill.

  22. Boerwar

    , I find it particularly strange just how many Australians still genuflect to the Churchill legend.

    John Winston Howard would be a starter 🙂

  23. There is a huge gap in the analysis of refugees and drowning at sea and indeterminate abuse of human beings and human rights in a form of concentration camps.

    While I accept fully our obligation to help save from drowning and offer refugee, it is false analysis to ‘blame’ Australia for the drownings at sea. That failure is a global failure and it is at the same time a result of the decision of the people getting into the boats. Now I know this sounds cold, and they do it because they underestimate the danger and come from situations with no hope. But as cold as it seems the responsibility of Australia is to rescue and use what influence we (used to) have to improve the whole global situation.

    The drownings at sea were then manipulated by the right, who really are quite happy with offshore deaths and the left who need the votes and don’t need to consider practical political solutions that are acceptable to the full range of Australians, including those white anglo Australians who by and large have a big think chunk of racist in their hearts that isn’t going away anytime soon. So because any acceptable local Australian political solution that also offered some limited support to ‘Australias’ refugees threatened to take away one of their biggest vote attractors the left rejected any possible solution with a ‘look over their’ as cold an cynical as the worst of the racist white. To pure and evangelical to ever have the self-awareness to realise this is going on but going on never the less.

    The global refugee crisis including drownings at sea in oceans further out than the exclusive economic zone is a real crisis that, like climate change, should be the subject of a global focused effort.

    So while on the one hand you have an global problem that seems almost insoluble and the far left and the far right find it convenient to concentrate on the that for cold domestic political purposes, what is going on, in Manus and Nauru is not just a part of an almost insoluble global problem whose deaths we all get to exploit for political points and votes, it is a specific Australian response the outcome of that problem.

    It is a specific response to an outcome where there were existing norms and expectations in place. Australia had domestic and global obligations. Yes all international agreements and all legislation is the result of negotiation and compromise, you can always pick holes in anything, and if not in the framework you’ll be able to pick holes in the execution.

    In short we a failing any existing standard and in fact we are failing very badly. It should be a matter of massive shame.

    Even if these camps were part of an interim solution (and they were always well on the constrained Australian racist ‘political’ side of any political solution at best, but in a democracy you have to deal with the majority, you can’t just ignore them) the way the camps are funded, what facilities are available, what education, what media scrutiny, what level of healthcare, all these things could have the camps better, less torturous. In fact simple humane things like actively trying to find first world destinations for the refugees would help, where we have gone the other way, in a very Trumpesque response only ‘shithole’ countries can be considered for these innocent human beings in need.

    Since ‘children’ overboard we’ve gone a long long long way in the wrong racist direction and the left right and centre, each one of us has the blood of innocent people on our hands. If there are any universal concepts of justice in this life or the next (for those who hold to that) then we all deserve the justice of torturers and murderers.

    Whether you are left, right or centre and not prone to denial, try and think how you’d explain that to your children.

  24. daretotread.

    Check out “Late Victorian Holocausts” . Winnie’s attitude was pretty much SOP for Brit “imperialists’ .

  25. dtt

    It was interesting to read American attitudes to Churchill – they saw him as deliberately prolonging the war in the interests of keeping the Empire together, and report that his attitude was basically to leave the Liberation of Europe to the Russians. Apparently getting him to commit to D Day was a major effort – he was all for more delay.

  26. poroti
    True. It is not a surprise that it is in general what might loosely be called the Right that tends to be the true devotees of this particular racist mass murderer.

  31. Those intending to watch “4 Corners” tonight on Big Australia (and I would certainly encourage everyone to do so) should first of all prepare themselves by reading the following two articles:

    1. The Union of Concerned Scientists recently re-issued an updated version of their famous ‘Warning to Humanity’ (first issued 25 years ago) about the parlous state of the planet – it does not make for happy reading:
    http://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/sw/files/Warning_article_with_supp_11-13-17.pdf

    To prevent widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss, humanity must practice a more environmentally sustainable alternative to business as usual…. Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out.

    2. The Murray-Darling river system – a vital water source for the whole of Eastern Australia – is in a shocking state: https://www.theage.com.au/environment/sustainability/cry-me-a-river-mismanagement-and-corruption-have-left-the-darling-dry-20180226-p4z1uc.html

    This is not just about one river, though that would be enough. It’s about the whole Murray-Darling Basin, the ecology, people and creatures who depend upon the Basin, the communities and cities downstream, the fisheries which spawn in the Darling and populate the rivers downstream. Above all it is about the state of our nation. … When corruption reaches these sorts of levels, the functioning of our democracy is at risk.

    I don’t know what the 4 corners episode tonight is going to conclude, but if it declares that a “Big Australia” is not only feasible but something we should be pursuing, then we should not only ask ourselves “how?” but also “why?” – because it is clearly not going to benefit anyone except for a very tiny, very wealthy and very influential group of individuals.

  32. On the subject of Baaaarnaby, his accuser from WA appeared on Landline on the ABC TV yesterday in a story about tapping underground water in the Pilbara.
    The Baaaarnaby issue was of course not mentioned but it certainly emphasised to me her prominence in the WA rural community and she will not be easily dismissed.

  34. zoomster @ #2275 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 11:35 am

    dtt

    It was interesting to read American attitudes to Churchill – they saw him as deliberately prolonging the war in the interests of keeping the Empire together, and report that his attitude was basically to leave the Liberation of Europe to the Russians. Apparently getting him to commit to D Day was a major effort – he was all for more delay.

    Zoomster

    How odd.

    I guess by the end of the war Churchill saw the USA as a bigger risk that Russia – although I am surprised. Maybe (possibly rationally) Churchill reasoned that if Russia took over most of Europe they would be unable to control it and Russia would then be weakened while at the same time USA would not get a foot hold.

    Considering the actual outcome of WWII, whereby Britain was reduced to a second level minor power in leading strings to the USA, Churchill may have been right strategically FOR BRITAIN -not Europe.

    But hey people I am just musing so please do not start WWII over this post.

  36. Late Victorian Holocausts

    Interesting. I have a new book to read.

    There is also the Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) that the IMF and WB enforced in the 80’s on many an impoverished country. There are lots of broad stats on the negative effects on, especially, African countries. At the micro level, I have read studies that drill down and link increased HIV rates to adopting SAPs school fee’s. Because, you know, in places with the lowest literacy rates the answer really has to be to start making school expensive.

  37. ” report that his attitude was basically to leave the Liberation of Europe to the Russians.”

    Well there is a bit of revisionism? From my readings on it, there was a wide acknowledgement at the time that what the Russians could take they would hold. To the extent that some Germans surrendering in the north to the Brits were fed and not quite completely separated from their equipment straight away in case they were needed to fight Russians.

    That there is a lot of valid stuff that indicates Churchill was a prick and frankly not one of the worlds great strategic thinkers of the time is true, but i reckon there is probably a lot of bullshit out there as well.

  40. p1

    I believe that humanity can survive quite handily without most of the world’s biodiversity.

    The bulk of the world’s food commodities come from close to zero biodiversity farming and, while there are areas of uncertainty and contestability, there are no hard and fast reasons why this trend should not increase.

    Indeed the big bet is that this trend of zero biodiversity farming will increase because, with global warming, it will have to increase.

  41. I can understand why Churchill had difficulty coming to grips with decisions relating the central WW2 issue for the UK: the relative decline of the British Empire. In a sense, he had to grapple with making choices between bad choices. There is plenty of room to make judgements about Churchill’s leadership in that context: including those relating to the role of the UK war policy and war fighting in influencing the future of continental europe.

    What there is absolutely no room for is having some sort of discussion about whether Churchill was Britain’s biggest-ever mass murderer, whether he was a war criminal many times over and whether he was deeply involved in ethnic cleansing, and whether all of the above were informed with a deep-seated racism. For these aspects of Churchill, the decisions are in.

  42. daretotread. @ #2285 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 10:03 am

    Where did you get that photo. Scary! (unless photoshopped)

    It came up on my Twitter feed and I thought it was funny.

    The croc could be the victim of an encounter with a shark, a bigger croc, or as you said, it could be photoshopped. I posted it as light relief to counter a couple of grim days here on PB.

    EDIT: Or you could read boerwar’s post below this one which provides a far more likely explanation.

  43. dtt

    That croc’s head looks like it has been severed by a poacher. The evidence for this is that the cut is straight and the bits that are not there are the prime bits of skin for the trade.

    Everything that might just possibly bite off a croc’s head in one bite has curved sets of teeth.

  44. “Apparently getting him to commit to D Day was a major effort – he was all for more delay.”

    Marshal (someone who seems to have been one of the great strategic thinkers of the time) apparently initially wanted overlord for mid 43. Churchill advocated for Husky (invasion of Italy) instead. There is debate on the merits of that, but looking at the American performance during Torch (not the best) there is a body of opinion that i agree with that the Allies were simply not up to Overlord at the time and if it had happened in 43 there is a strong likely hood Overlord would have failed. Even in 44 it was a very high risk operation, particularly in terms of follow up logistic support.

    One of the problems the Americans had, well into 44-45 was lack of combat experience of their troops and commanders. Their massive ability to do logistics and supply buffered them to some extent, but they had issues right up to the end of the war.

    The Brits had other issues as well. An Army that though in a lot of cases WAS combat experienced, but also combat fatigued, and equipment wise it was only right at the end of the war they caught up qualitatively. Particularly on terms of armor. By mid 45 they had a couple of the best, balanced capability tanks of the time (Comet, and Centurion ) coming into service, but not in anything like the numbers needed if they had needed to take on daS Ruskis.

    You can level a lot of valid criticism at Churchill, but delaying Overlord till 44 is a very dubious one.

  46. Boerwar @ #2290 Monday, March 12th, 2018 – 1:12 pm

    p1

    I believe that humanity can survive quite handily without most of the world’s biodiversity.

    The bulk of the world’s food commodities come from close to zero biodiversity farming and, while there are areas of uncertainty and contestability, there are no hard and fast reasons why this trend should not increase.

    Indeed the big bet is that this trend of zero biodiversity farming will increase because, with global warming, it will have to increase.

    I have read this over several times, and I am more aghast each time.

    First, I suggest you read the following:

    https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/issues/biodiversity-important.htm

    Then, for a practical example of what can happen when things go wrong, see:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

  47. “NBNCo’s defence seems to be that as long as we make connections quickly it isn’t important whether it’s a shit connection or not.’

    And it seems not to matter to them how much each of these shit connections cost either.

    Worst economic vandalism in the history of the country.

  48. “there are no hard and fast reasons why this trend should not increase.”

    One episode of serious disease in zero diversity food crops will be reason enough. 🙁

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