BludgerTrack: 53.2-46.8 to Labor

One new poll result this week leaves the BludgerTrack poll aggregate all but unchanged.

The only new federal poll this week, from Essential Research, hasn’t made the least bit of difference to the voting intention numbers on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate. However, Labor is up two seats, one in Victoria and one in Western Australia, exacerbating Labor’s hard-to-credit lead in the latter state. One possibly interesting point to emerge from the state breakdowns, which you can explore through the link below, is a spike to the Greens in Victoria – could be a Batman by-election effect, could be noise. Essential also produced its monthly leadership ratings, and they too have made little difference to the relevant trend measures.

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.

2,248 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.2-46.8 to Labor”

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  2. With the Green rank & file voters (NOT the party political hierarchy) I think many would see the ideology behind the franking credit refund clampdown. Greens are nothing if not ideological … and are generally gung ho about policies regardless if they hurt people because it is all for what they see as the public good.

    While Di Natale came out objecting to the policy, I reckon many greens would say ‘fair enough’ to it.

  3. “Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has played down the prospect of Labor’s drubbing in the South Australian election”
    “Labor’s drubbing”!!?? They had a swing towards them.
    If this was a referendum on renewable energy, which it wasn’t, then more voters were in favour of it this election than when Turnbull became leader.

  4. Zoidlord says:

    Peg back to bashing.

    One person’s ‘bashing’ is another persons ‘constructive criticism’ 🙂

  7. jenauthor @ #1702 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 2:05 pm

    With the Green rank & file voters (NOT the party political hierarchy) I think many would see the ideology behind the franking credit refund clampdown. Greens are nothing if not ideological … and are generally hung ho about policies regardless if they hurt people because it is all for what they see as the public good.

    While Di Natale came out objecting to the policy, I reckon many greens would say ‘fair enough’ to it.

    It was an blatant attempt to court normally Liberal voters who didn’t have a candidate to vote for in this by elections.

  9. Rob Manwaring on SA election makes the point:

    https://theconversation.com/after-16-years-electoral-dynamics-finally-caught-up-with-labor-in-south-australia-93553

    Finally, the Australian political system is undergoing change, but the institutional factors continue to suppress minor party challengers. The lower house, with its majoritarian electoral system, requires a strong performance by the next best-placed challenger. Three-into-two does not easily go.

    PR now!

  10. @GG

    If he’s over politics then he should quit.

    Would be great Australians to not have more right wingers or LNP leaning.

  13. Pegasus @ #1681 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 1:49 pm

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/andrews-plays-down-prospect-of-vic-election-backlash-20180318-p4z4xp.html

    Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has played down the prospect of Labor’s drubbing in the South Australian election, and earlier this month in Tasmania, playing out in the Victorian state election later this year.

    Didn’t I tell you that Pegasus would NOT be deterred from Labor Boo!?!

  14. Pegasus

    I agree with you here.

    There would be lotsless bad blood between parties if we had PR voting.

    I am hoping this will be something Labor changes. Such systems have done Scandinavia Germany etc well.

    Far more equal societies than here. Parties more accountable to the people.

  15. Yup. But seems to me that has been a tactic that the ALP has developed and applied over the last few years.

    And this is exactly why I have grown to respect Bill Shorten as a political colossus over the past 4.5 years.

    The complete misunderstanding of him and his proven strengths by his knockers, especially the media is just hilarious. The reunification of Labor and policy leadership and courage in opposition were never inevitable. All the smarties were predicting near death for Labor. This is not simply thanks to the seemingly limitless depths of stupidity in the Coalition. Those dopes are always dopes, but with the media always laundering their shit we still have to endure them in government far far more often than their performance warrants. No, the Coalition’s failures aren’t just thanks to themselves. Labor has brilliantly played them in order to expose and exacerbate their incompetence and then led them into traps they cannot get out of.

    Bill Shorten is unquestionably at the centre of everything Labor has gotten right since 2013. I think it’s fair to say that in terms of policy courage and honestly identifying politically powerful losers from opposition he has exceeded Hewson. For this alone he deserves enormous praise. Politics took exactly the wrong lesson from 93. Fightback cost the Libs not because it was too honest and allowed a scare campaign. It lost them 93 because it was a regressive dud of a program that the majority worked out was just the same old reverse Robin Hood steal from the poor to give to the rich crap. We can see how right that assessment was with the results of Howard eventually implementing most of it on the sly.

    If we can have a politics where rather than small target, Abbottesq destructive negativity and waiting for a government to fall, future oppositions follow Shorten’s lead and try to win government on policy vision our entire nation will be so much the better. And if the future opposition leaders don’t follow him it will only raise Bill’s stature further.

    A sadly large number of people still fall for the media bullshit about Shorten, just as they did the bullshit surrounding ‘moderate, competent’ Trumble. But I’ve little doubt that Shorten has set himself up to win over a huge number of these people in government. He is giving himself a massive platform to build from and a huge amount of space to maneuvre in order to deal with contingencies. There is absolutely no need for the usual Lib fraud of the ‘oh it’s so much worse that we were told so all the promises are out the window’ that destroys trust. He has given himself the fiscal space to operate and respond to events without having to do any more than deliver only the ‘nasties’ laid out and scare campaigned against years before he actually won the election. And he has also set up for the promised goodies to be deliverable.

    As Howard showed being able to deliver nice surprises is always a good way to have the electorate feel comfortable reelecting you. Unlike Howard, Shorten won’t be getting there on a pack of lies and relying on being hit up the arse by a rainbow in order to hand out the largesse. The ALP has constructed the foundation of a successful future government and no one can doubt that the leader of the Party made it possible.

  17. Pegasus @ #1709 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 2:09 pm

    Rob Manwaring on SA election makes the point:

    https://theconversation.com/after-16-years-electoral-dynamics-finally-caught-up-with-labor-in-south-australia-93553

    Finally, the Australian political system is undergoing change, but the institutional factors continue to suppress minor party challengers. The lower house, with its majoritarian electoral system, requires a strong performance by the next best-placed challenger. Three-into-two does not easily go.

    PR now!

    Because The Greens want to support more majority Liberal governments like in Tasmania, with it’s Hare Clark system.

    Obviously, The Greens and their fan club have not yet figured out that there are two sides to the PR coin.

  18. “One person’s ‘bashing’ is another persons ‘constructive criticism’”

    More impartial and rational readers understand that simply linking to an article with no accompanying opinion is neither. It’s called drawing attention to how the MSM is reporting events.

    Diogenes,

    Yes “drubbing” was rather hyperbolic and misleading.

    But then PB is full of both and should be comfortable with such.

  19. MB

    Further to my last post, it’s actually the case with quite a few of Labor’s tax proposals that they are likely to reap less than projected due to their effect of driving investments out of the affected areas and into other more tax-effective areas.

    ______________________________

    Unlike, say, changes to Negative Gearing and Capital Gains tax regimes, this is a simple plugging of a hole in the general revenue through which money already collected by the tax office was leaking in increasing volumes.

    No doubt, other opportunities will continue to sought out and the elephant in the room – the tax free status of super funds in payment phase (subject to generous limits on the size of the fund) – will still remain.

    But this money is simply a payment that can be banked – as much as reducing family tax payments by an equivalent amount would be a payment that could be banked.

  22. I’d be interested if anyone has turnout stats re Batman and whethter it’s higher or lower than other by elections.

    The swing to Labor seems consistent with what the National polls are showing.

    Z published that article re the likely outcome in Batman. It’s gobsmackingly accurate.

    A lot of Greens leaning posters need a reality check. Their fantasies seem to have been overcome by the truth that was hiding in plain view.

  26. bemused: “Replacing Danby will be a delicate operation as he has a strong vote in the Jewish community and it would be foolish to throw that away unnecessarily. But I would suggest in playing the role of ‘member for Tel Aviv’, he probably alienates as many voters as he attracts.”

    I think Labor has more or less lost the Jewish community, with whom they once used to have a strong connection, as a result of a combination of the party’s courting of the various Muslim communities and the growing strength of the Labor Left, which has long been pretty strongly anti-Israel.

    The Jewish community still doesn’t entirely trust the Coalition, which is not surprising given the patchy history of relations between the Australian upper crust and Jewish people (traditionally warm within the Masonic lodges, but far less so at the Melbourne Club) and the lingering League of Rights-style anti-semitism among the older members of the National Party constituency. But, I reckon that, in the long run, the pro-Israel element of the Australian Jewish community (which appears to me to be a large majority) really has nowhere else much to go other than the Liberal Party, where they now have a strong internal advocate in the person of Josh Frydenberg.

    I would assume that this shift of allegiances is going to make Melbourne Ports tricky for Labor in the future. The Greens have been making strong headway and I reckon that Danby’s departure and likely replacement by a more left-oriented candidate from outside the Jewish community will see the remainder of his personal following switch to the Libs. But I don’t think Labor can turn the clock back on its ties to the Muslim communities and its gradual move away from the pro-Israel stance of Hawke and, more recently, Gillard.

  28. MB

    We hear the investors will flee line all the time from the neo liberal lot.

    Scandinavia proves that wrong.

    High taxes happy people. Good industries. No problem.

    France also doesn’t seem to suffer too much.

    We have to stop this neo liberal bs about investors fleeing every time sensible tax measures are raised.
    We do not want to be the US.

  31. Zoidlord @ #1710 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 2:10 pm

    @GG

    If he’s over politics then he should quit.

    Would be great Australians to not have more right wingers or LNP leaning.

    He’s quit the Senate already and has rejected an offer from the guy that replaced him to go back.

    So, having lost in this election, he’s had quitting imposed upon him.

    In the interview he said he was actively trying to have the X Party renamed to something else.

    Sounds to me like he’s tidying the paperwork following the death of his political career.

  33. RD,

    The abuse rarely concerns me.

    The level of abuse reflects the level of cognitive dissonance and the paucity of rebuttal by the abusers.

    When the abusers coalesce into a pack it demonstrates their cowardice.

  35. TPOF: “No doubt, other opportunities will continue to sought out and the elephant in the room – the tax free status of super funds in payment phase (subject to generous limits on the size of the fund) – will still remain.”

    The elephant in the room is the entirely tax-free status of defined benefit pensions. At least there is a cap on the size of accumulated superannuation holdings that are tax free in the payment phase.

    What I think we are going to see at some point is governments upping the taxation of accumulated super. There will be injustices in this as, unlike for defined benefit super, quite a lot of the money in accumulated super holdings was contributed post-tax, so there is likely to be an element of double taxation here.

    Nobody in Canberra right now wants to go near the idea of taxing defined benefit pensions, even though these can produce incomes of hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum. I am sure that this is on the grounds of good policy and has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that many of our current and former politicians and senior public servants are members of defined benefit funds.

  36. is anyone willing to estimate how much effect = votes % = seats cost to SA by shorten’s stupid announcement of the dividends tax matter a few days ago. the pub test suggests many think it represents wider changes in super and tax – and even that bowen suggested it did – whether of not the perception is correct it is the perception and shorten did create confusion that could be widespread and arguably affected one or more SA seats.

  38. I used to support the presence of the Greens as putting policies out into the public arena that were politically difficult or impossible for the major parties to do, but needed to be out there and discussed. They could do it because they were seen as a policy, rather than a political party by those who were interested in what it stood for.

    It seems to me that it has now morphed into just another political party in its fantasy of become the major left-of-centre party replacing the ALP. This was shown by the way it campaigned in Batman. It has been, especially the leader, far more interested in taking points off Labor by seeking to wedge it on issues like Adani and the dividend imputation policy announced by Labor, than pursuing important well-thought out policy that needed to be aired but couldn’t be in the febrile political atmosphere of major party politics these days.

    The Coalition and Labor are the major parties in a westminster system. Both change, for good and bad, organically as new members from across the spectrum join and agitate for what they believe should be government policy. For all the handwringing about Labor being too centralist, it is broad enough to have many members from further left than the post-Rhiannon Greens, as well as many more to the right of them. As long as Labor continues to accommodate them all, there is no future for the Greens to replace it as the major party of the centre-left. If the Greens do not get back to doing real service for the country and promoting policies instead of wedging Labor to gain some sort of short-term political gain, they will go the way of every other third party that has fancied itself to be something else and not realised there is no room for them.

    Ditto for Xenophon, whose main selling point was as a disruptor of the major party system. As soon as he sought to become a new major party, he lost his worth even in the eyes of his supporters. His advertising stunts announced himself as a disruptor. They did not fit the new gravamen expected of a serious potential premier, who had to appeal to a wide range of conflicting interests and be seen as seriously capable.

  41. geoffrey @ #1753 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 2:29 pm

    is anyone willing to estimate how much effect = votes % = seats cost to SA by shorten’s stupid announcement of the dividends tax matter a few days ago. the pub test suggests many think it represents wider changes in super and tax – and even that bowen suggested it did – whether of not the perception is correct it is the perception and shorten did create confusion that could be widespread and arguably affected one or more SA seats.

    I will. Somewhere between zero and nil. To the extent that Federal issues impacted on this election, they were all about energy, not some federal taxation matter that had absolutely zip to do with state taxes and administration.

  42. geoffrey @ #1735 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 1:29 pm

    is anyone willing to estimate how much effect = votes % = seats cost to SA by shorten’s stupid announcement of the dividends tax matter a few days ago. the pub test suggests many think it represents wider changes in super and tax – and even that bowen suggested it did – whether of not the perception is correct it is the perception and shorten did create confusion that could be widespread and arguably affected one or more SA seats.

    yep
    0%

  45. guytaur: “We hear the investors will flee line all the time from the neo liberal lot.”

    Yes, but I wasn’t saying they were going to flee the country, simply that they were going to move their money into other forms of investment: most likely housing.

  46. TPOF @ #1738 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 2:29 pm

    I used to support the presence of the Greens as putting policies out into the public arena that were politically difficult or impossible for the major parties to do, but needed to be out there and discussed. They could do it because they were seen as a policy, rather than a political party by those who were interested in what it stood for.

    It seems to me that it has now morphed into just another political party in its fantasy of become the major left-of-centre party replacing the ALP. This was shown by the way it campaigned in Batman. It has been, especially the leader, far more interested in taking points off Labor by seeking to wedge it on issues like Adani and the dividend imputation policy announced by Labor, than pursuing important well-thought out policy that needed to be aired but couldn’t be in the febrile political atmosphere of major party politics these days.

    The Coalition and Labor are the major parties in a westminster system. Both change, for good and bad, organically as new members from across the spectrum join and agitate for what they believe should be government policy. For all the handwringing about Labor being too centralist, it is broad enough to have many members from further left than the post-Rhiannon Greens, as well as many more to the right of them. As long as Labor continues to accommodate them all, there is no future for the Greens to replace it as the major party of the centre-left. If the Greens do not get back to doing real service for the country and promoting policies instead of wedging Labor to gain some sort of short-term political gain, they will go the way of every other third party that has fancied itself to be something else and not realised there is no room for them.

    Ditto for Xenophon, whose main selling point was as a disruptor of the major party system. As soon as he sought to become a new major party, he lost his worth even in the eyes of his supporters. His advertising stunts announced himself as a disruptor. They did not fit the new gravamen expected of a serious potential premier, who had to appeal to a wide range of conflicting interests and be seen as seriously capable.

    Seriously good post!

  47. I seem to remember that one of the probable origins of the “C” Bomb was a Latin word meaning “beautiful goddess”.

  49. Multiparty governance is what is needed to better reflect the democratic representation of the almost one in three voters who do not vote for either major political party.

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