BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Labor

No change in voting intention, but Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating is at its strongest in nearly two years.

The post-budget poll flurry prompted much confusion, amid divergent headline figures from Newspoll and Ipsos (more on that from me in a paywalled Crikey article), but it has made no difference to the two-party preferred reading from BludgerTrack. What has changed is the seat projection, which is entirely down to the Queensland-only Galaxy poll, which has boosted the Coalition by 2.9% and three seats in that state. Labor also loses one of its two gains from a quirky result in Victoria last week.

The other notable movement this week is the upswing in Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings, as recorded by both Newspoll and Ipsos. Turnbull’s net approval reading on BludgerTrack is up 6.0% to minus 13.9%, returning him to around where he was at the time of the last election. Bill Shorten is more or less unchanged, and Turnbull’s improvement on preferred prime minister is a relatively modest 2.9%, putting his margin over Shorten at 11.5%. Full results from the link below:

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.

872 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Labor”

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  1. Barney in Go Dau @ #749 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 6:22 pm

    This is something I’m noticing more and more.

    The homepage headline doesn’t match the story headline or the story.

    Watch the moment a tunnel borer smashes into a train station

    Story headline

    Perth Airport tunnel borers break through to planned train station site

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-21/perth-airport-tunnel-borers-break-through-to-train-station-site/9783394

    Bemused posts again!

  2. jenauthor @ #726 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 5:36 pm

    Bemused I was talking about the incompetence of the people in charge and their decision-making … and the decision-making of the govt in awarding those idiots the contracts etc.

    Work done for Telstra, like #NBN, has become based on sub-contractors who are not competent (pink batts issue anyone?).

    We had one of their contractors come by not long ago, jump in the Telstra pit where the fibre cable was situated, broke the fibre cable (I ran outside the instant everything went down and asked ‘what did you do?’ Guy said ‘us? Nothing – will look and fix before end of day’ — they then took off and didn’t return— two days later a different team came at iinet’s request and told us the cable had been severed — they replaced and all was good a minute later).

    And that is not my ONLY hassle with Telstra and their contractors over the years.

    So who did that sub-contractor work for, Telstra, or NBN?
    Telstra technical staff are usually competent.

  3. Greensborough Growler @ #734 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 5:53 pm

    Voice Endeavour @ #733 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 5:48 pm

    “Specifically, the analysis shows that once in every three years, approximately 200,000 households in NSW may experience power outages lasting five hours.”

    I love how scary they are trying to make that sound.

    If Liddell closes;
    and if AGL doesn’t build any of the things they plan;
    and if no-one else builds anything else in the next 4 years;
    and no-one bothers to run a demand response program, similar to the one AEMO ran last year;
    and if all the lost power is on households (who make up a small portion of energy use), then we still meet the reliability standard.

    1/3rd of years 1/10th of households will lose power for 1/1752nd of the year. That is an average failure rate of 0.0019%, which means residential would meet the reliability standard (and they are assuming commercial + industrial are receiving 0% outage rate here so the average outage rate would be around 0.001%).

    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/federal/government-switches-approach-after-agl-rules-out-sale-of-liddell-coal-plant-20180521-p4zgm4.html

    We had power outages for 10-12 hours when the supplier was maintenancing the local power lines two or three time last year.

    Sounds like a scheduled outage that you should have been warned of in advance so you could plan for it. Such outages for maintenance reduce unplanned outages which have a much worse impact.

  4. Cameron @ #724 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 5:34 pm

    DTT,

    There are quite a few errors in your post regarding the Special Counsel’s investigation.

    1. There is no evidence that Flynn has retracted his guilty plea. There is wishful thinking among Trump supporters and pro-Trump media as described here: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/21/flynn-urged-by-supporters-to-withdraw-guilty-plea-as-judges-actions-raise-eyebrows.html, but alas no actual evidence. What is your source for this claim?

    Well since I gather his only offence is lying to an FBI agent it is not exactly grand larceny. He would cop a fine at most. Only in the most fascist of police states would lying to an agent cop more than a fine or very short term sentence- for example it is or should be a much lesser crime than perjury which rarely cops a long sentence.

    So I guess I can withdraw the comment about not pleading guilty but add to it that if that is ALL that Mueller has on him the case is absurd.

    2. The 13 Russian nationals indicted by Mueller were not “low level kids in basements”. They in fact all worked for or controlled Concord Holdings, which “is controlled by Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, who U.S. officials have said has extensive ties to Russia’s military and political establishment.” Prigozhin, also personally charged by Mueller, has been dubbed “Putin’s cook” by Russian media because his catering business has organized banquets for Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior political figures. He has been hit with sanctions by the U.S. government.” So these 13 Russians worked for Concord. In other words they and Concord work for the Kremlin and Putin.

    Wow – that’ll learn’em. Yes as i said low level flunkies working in Russia. Maybe their boss will get some sanctions but so has everyone else in Russia and probably Germany to soon.

    Also in the indictments of course is the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed troll organization.

    The Internet Research Agency is based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has been at work since at least 2013 churning out memes, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, and Twitter accounts; pretending to be activist groups; and even organizing grassroots events in an attempt to sway with political campaigns and conversations around the world.

    The indictment is packed with new information about the Internet Research Agency, which allegedly has employed hundreds of people since it started operating from its main office in St. Petersburg. It alleges that the organization began targeting the 2016 presidential election in 2014.

    Now rubbish Cameron. The stuff in the Reseach agency was posted in 015. It is very, very old news.

    In any case spy agencies that are known are a lot less dangerous than those unknown. The obvious question is why was the FBI so incompetent to allow a known spy agency to conduct this sort of operation.

    Given that the USA is meddling in Venezuela at this very moment it is a bit pot calling kettle black. But hey one rule for the great and powerful another for the poor and weak eh what!

    3. Pivotal moments in Mueller’s Trump investigation: 5 guilty pleas, 17 indictments and more.

    Of course Flynn, Gates, Papadopolous and Van der Zwaan have plead guilty. Gates, the former Trump campaign assistant to Paul Manafort has flipped. Flynn and Papa are cooperating with Mueller.

    “Manafort is facing a raft of bank fraud, tax fraud and money-laundering charges that could land him in prison for the rest of his life, if he is convicted.” (This is huge leverage for Mueller against Trump.)

    Yes but the Manafort stuff may fall over. Judge Ellis to report soon. Sorry it is not that the Manafort case will fall – he is guilty but it may be removed from Mueller so not able to use it in plea bargaining.

    The Flynn stuff is trivial. Papadopolos is a low level attention seeker and FFS relies on our Dolly for support.

    “NBC News reported in March that Mueller’s team has enough evidence and is considering charges accusing Russians, including Russian intelligence officials, of violating U.S. of statutes on conspiracy, election law and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

    Such an indictment would lay out the Russian scheme to hack the Democrats and leak embarrassing emails, much as his previous indictment of Russians exposed an alleged conspiracy to manipulate American social media.

    Big deal. They are not going to present to a US court are they

    That move would be important for two reasons. One, it would establish the crime at the heart of the matter, and make it easier to establish that Trump obstructed justice, if in fact there is evidence to prove that. Two, it would make it easier to charge any American who helped the Russians as a co-conspirator, even if they didn’t participate in the actual hacking and leaking.

    Too bloody complex and Machiavellian. Trump will remove Mueller before it can happen possibly opening the way for impeachment but probably not.

    Then there’s Cohen.

    “Mueller is almost certainly sitting on some explosive secrets.

    The leak of a one report from the U.S. Treasury detailing payments to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen exposed what looked like influence peddling and payments from a firm linked to a Russian oligarch.

    That single Treasury document pales in comparison to the trove of financial records Mueller’s team is believed to have obtained on Donald Trump, including his tax returns, banking records and phone records, legal expert say.”

    maybe but if he has it why has it taken so long. As discussed Mueller will get the boot before he can make this old stuff public. If there is Russian stuff he can report, but I reckon he will be sacked before he can publish the tax stuff.

    You also conveniently ignore the DoJ investigations and possible indictments of the FBI, putting Rosenstein in jeopardy

    4. The FBI did not deliberately plant a spy in the Trump campaign.

    Perhaps not but it will be what the public believes that matters. The fact that it is the same guy the Bush senior sent to spy on Carter will not look good in the eyes of the public.

    Vox – not the most reliable of cources

  5. stt

    ‘Well since I gather his only offence is lying to an FBI agent it is not exactly grand larceny. ‘

    Not the point, at all, at all.

    It is very easy to prove lying to the FBI. It is much more difficult to prove just about anything else. So the FBI parlays the lies into something much more valuable.

    The convention is that the perps who flip do a deal. They plead guilty to fibbing to the FBI. This gets them off things like grand larceny.

    In exchange for testimony that might help jail the Big Fish.

  6. Boerwar @ #760 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 6:58 pm

    stt

    ‘Well since I gather his only offence is lying to an FBI agent it is not exactly grand larceny. ‘

    Not the point, at all, at all.

    It is very easy to prove lying to the FBI. It is much more difficult to prove just about anything else. So the FBI parlays the lies into something much more valuable.

    The convention is that the perps who flip do a deal. They plead guilty to fibbing to the FBI. This gets them off things like grand larceny.

    In exchange for testimony that might help jail the Big Fish.

    Lying to the FBi is not a good survival strategy.

    Trump has already rolled on the Stormy Daniels stuff. I expect there will be more.

  7. GG

    Yes but in the scheme of things it is not a major crime. Particularly at this time when the FBI may be in for a dose of castor oil too,

  8. GG

    Those bastards are so used to lying that the distinction between telling the the truth and lying does not exist for them.

    The combination of their abuse of words, and of their arrogance, plays straight into the hands of the FBI.

  9. Qanda tonight features that rare and endangered species: A Liberal woman MP!

    ABC Q&AVerified account@QandA
    7h7 hours ago
    Tonight watch #QandA with @SenatorHume @JulieCollinsMP @PeterSinger @RandaAFattah Greg Sheridan at 9.35pm AEST on @abctv @abcnews & @abciview

  10. daretotread. @ #763 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 7:12 pm

    GG

    Yes but in the scheme of things it is not a major crime. Particularly at this time when the FBI may be in for a dose of castor oil too,

    Only if you think a 30 year sentence is not a major inconvenience to your life style.

    Mueller is rolling them all up the line, one at a time until he gets his result.

    Trump’s tweets tell you he is petrified!

  11. BW

    Yes the intention to cause them to “sing” (Judge Ellis’s term) is obvious. However i think the willingness of Flynn and Manafort to “sing” is shaky. Not sure about the others.

    The point is that proving there was knowing collusion with Russia or even nambiguous receipt of russian money looks difficult.

    That is probably why Mueller has shifted to look at israle, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. When it comes to Jared I reckon they will find a gold mine.

  12. Trump’s tweets tell you he is petrified!

    Trump’s tweets have escalated in hysteria since Cohen’s office was raided.

  13. jenauthor @ #761 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 7:06 pm

    Don’t know who they worked for Bemused.

    At the political level NBN is an unmitigated disaster since Mal took over.
    I think even their chosen CEO, Bill Morrow, has now recanted a lot of the words he uttered on behalf of the Govt. and is leaving.

    As for the rest at NBN, I think they generally do what they are told to do and do their best. As the saying goes, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

    Those doing the actual work are contractors, sub-contractors, and sub-sub-contractors and some employees at any of these levels. When you accept the lowest bid, you are not going to get a first class job.

  14. What amazes me is how Trump’s self-serving Tweets have taken on the gravity of serious comment, simply because he holds the position of POTUS. And, boy, doesn’t he milk it for all it’s worth!?!

  15. Greensborough Growler @ #766 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 7:17 pm

    daretotread. @ #763 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 7:12 pm

    GG

    Yes but in the scheme of things it is not a major crime. Particularly at this time when the FBI may be in for a dose of castor oil too,

    Only if you think a 30 year sentence is not a major inconvenience to your life style.

    Mueller is rolling them all up the line, one at a time until he gets his result.

    Trump’s tweets tell you he is petrified!

    GG

    Who are we talking abut.

    Manafort is certainly going to do some serious time. However the issue is whether he will be able to plea bargain with Mueller. We should know this week, but from his comments Judge Ellis does not look inclined to allow it.

    Flynn has only been charges with lying to an FBI officer. Now this cannot possibly carry a long sentence (perhaps Peter Dutton would love such a penalty) but in all seriousness this would put the US into full on police state mode. So I imagine even if found guilty Flynn would cop a fine or a couple of weeks jail.

  16. Did not know of this back in the day. A bit of interfering in US election by the CIA resurfaces.

    The FBI Informant Who Monitored the Trump Campaign, Stefan Halper, Oversaw a CIA Spying Operation in the 1980 Presidential Election

    AN EXTREMELY STRANGE EPISODE that has engulfed official Washington over the last two weeks came to a truly bizarre conclusion on Friday night. And it revolves around a long-time, highly sketchy CIA operative, Stefan Halper.

    Four decades ago, Halper was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election, in which the Reagan campaign – using CIA officials managed by Halper, reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush – got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter’s foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering.

    https://theintercept.com/2018/05/19/the-fbi-informant-who-monitored-the-trump-campaign-stefan-halper-oversaw-a-cia-spying-operation-in-the-1980-presidential-election/

  17. Barney, if you’re around. You asked this morning how much force it would take to hurl a 1m boulder 800m. Assuming lots of things I came up with approx 200kN for a second, which is approx 20 Tonnes Weight for a second, or if you can imagine a system of levers and pulleys about 800 people lifting approx 25kg for a second or so. Two caveats: single digit accuracy, calculations and logic not checked.
    🙂

  18. daretotread. @ #775 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 7:21 pm

    Greensborough Growler @ #766 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 7:17 pm

    daretotread. @ #763 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 7:12 pm

    GG

    Yes but in the scheme of things it is not a major crime. Particularly at this time when the FBI may be in for a dose of castor oil too,

    Only if you think a 30 year sentence is not a major inconvenience to your life style.

    Mueller is rolling them all up the line, one at a time until he gets his result.

    Trump’s tweets tell you he is petrified!

    GG

    Who are we talking abut.

    Manafort is certainly going to do some serious time. However the issue is whether he will be able to plea bargain with Mueller. We should know this week, but from his comments Judge Ellis does not look inclined to allow it.

    Flynn has only been charges with lying to an FBI officer. Now this cannot possibly carry a long sentence (perhaps Peter Dutton would love such a penalty) but in all seriousness this would put the US into full on police state mode. So I imagine even if found guilty Flynn would cop a fine or a couple of weeks jail.

    My guess is that Trump junior is about to be skewered!

  19. The special counsel hopes to finish by Sept. 1 the investigation into whether President Trump obstructed the Russia inquiry, according to the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who said on Sunday that waiting any longer would risk improperly influencing voters in November’s midterm elections.

    Mr. Giuliani said that the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, shared its timeline about two weeks ago amid negotiations over whether Mr. Trump will be questioned by investigators, adding that Mr. Mueller’s office said that the date was contingent on Mr. Trump’s sitting for an interview. A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/20/us/politics/mueller-trump-obstruction-september-giuliani.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

    1. Does anyone really think Mueller is going to be bullied into a timeframe that suits Trump?

    2. Love how when the boot is on the other foot, suddenly you can’t have an investigation that might taint an election result. No such concern was ever expressed re Comey’s announcement weeks out from the presidential election in 2016 that the FBI was re-opening the Clinton email nothing burger.

  20. GG

    Yes I agree about trump Junior.

    However I think Trump will intervene BEFORE to get him off the hook.

    He will demand that Mueller wrap up the inquiry. He will order sessions to retake charge of the case sack Rosenstein and then Mueller. If sessions will not he will fire sessions (by tweet obviously).

    Not sure who takes charge of DoJ is Sessions goes but whoever it is will be a Trump person.

    Now the issue will be what will be the electoral impact of going after Donny Jnr. Now as I have postedmany times in unrelated areas, I think that there may be blow back and it might engender sympathy for Trump.

    No one likes it when people gun for families of prominent people. I just think people do not care enough about the offences to get all bothered by it. Partisan democrats will of course but not so much the general public ie voters.

  21. Well that answers my 1. below.

    Jonathan LandayVerified account@JonathanLanday
    A source familiar with the probe called the Sept. 1 deadline (asserted by Giuliani) “entirely made-up” and “another apparent effort to pressure the special counsel to hasten the end of his work.”

  22. OMG! Now the US military is trying to assist school shootings 😆

    “Military Helicopter Drops Ammo over School

    A military helicopter accidentally dropped a box full of ammunition over a Texas elementary school Thursday mid-afternoon, leaving a gaping hole in the roof, according to officials.

    Local police retrieved the ammunition and will return it to Fort Bliss Military Police, KTSM reported, citing an official from the base.”
    https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/05/18/military-helicopter-drops-ammo-over-school-busts-hole-roof.html

  23. This article presupposes that AGL gives a stuff about what Turnbull & co think:

    AGL weighs political discomfort
    ANDREW WHITE
    By rejecting an offer for Liddell, AGL must calculate it’s worth more than the political pain it’s enduring, from the PM down. (Oz headline)

  24. Late Riser @ #779 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 4:26 pm

    Barney, if you’re around. You asked this morning how much force it would take to hurl a 1m boulder 800m. Assuming lots of things I came up with approx 200kN for a second, which is approx 20 Tonnes Weight for a second, or if you can imagine a system of levers and pulleys about 800 people lifting approx 25kg for a second or so. Two caveats: single digit accuracy, calculations and logic not checked.
    🙂

    Cheers,

    I had a little play and came up with an initial velocity of about 90 m/s, max height of 405m and a flight time of 18s, assuming an initial 45° trajectory. 🙂

  25. Did anyone check whether the school had an ‘X’ painted on the roof before the military dropped the ammo?

  26. Presumably this is a significant development in Victoria:

    In another major setback for the Victorian Greens, the influential Electrical Trades Union will pull its financial support for the Federal MP for Melbourne and formally rejoin the Labor Party.

    The ETU’s Victorian branch walked out on Labor in 2010 over the then Rudd government’s refusal to dismantle the industry watchdog the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).

    ETU Victorian secretary Troy Gray told The Age that the Bill Shorten-led Labor Opposition’s pledge to abolish the watchdog had been enough to swing his union back to the party and as well as a push to change industrial laws.

    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/federal/etu-victoria-branch-returns-to-the-labor-party-fold-20180521-p4zglc.html

  27. Jenauthor @5:46PM “I’d love to see Pyne as Lib LOTO … can you imagine? Whiney Pyney would keep them out of office for a quarter century”

    Even if Christopher Pyne were to be chosen as leader, this won’t happen. The Liberals regard being in Opposition as a violation of the laws of nature. History has shown that they do not tolerate failure, even before it happens. They’ll change leaders annually until they find someone who looks likely to win.

  28. Barney in Go Dau @ #789 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 7:57 pm

    Late Riser @ #779 Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 4:26 pm

    Barney, if you’re around. You asked this morning how much force it would take to hurl a 1m boulder 800m. Assuming lots of things I came up with approx 200kN for a second, which is approx 20 Tonnes Weight for a second, or if you can imagine a system of levers and pulleys about 800 people lifting approx 25kg for a second or so. Two caveats: single digit accuracy, calculations and logic not checked.
    🙂

    Cheers,

    I had a little play and came up with an initial velocity of about 90 m/s, max height of 405m and a flight time of 18s, assuming an initial 45° trajectory. 🙂

    My assumption was steeper, 64 degrees, so as to reduce roll on landing. Flight time also 18s.

  29. In another major setback for the Victorian Greens, the influential Electrical Trades Union will pull its financial support for the Federal MP for Melbourne and formally rejoin the Labor Party.

    Looks to me like the union wants to back a winning horse, rather than be locked into supporting a go-nowhere party which can’t actually do anything except protest.

  30. So where the F is Abbott coming from with his claim the Govt should force AGL to sell the power station to them so they can sell it to AGL?? Did we all of a sudden go communist?? 🙂

    Seems that they want to deprive a company of an asset, and then onsell to their mates.

  31. David Brooks of the NY Times says that if Trump elects to fire Mueller he thinks the Republicans will go along with it. He refers to the work of Foxnews.

    Pretty remarkable that a dubious “celebrity “ with no experience in government, can take over the Grand Old Party. He must have something going for him.

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