We are having one of the poll-free weeks that have occasionally bedevilled us since Essential Research moved from weekly to fortnightly, with Newspoll having one of its occasional three-week gaps so its next poll coincides with the resumption of parliament. So here’s some random bits of electoral news:
• A polling nugget I forgot to relate a fortnight ago: according to a report by Nick Butterly of The West Australian, a Labor internal poll recorded a neck-and-neck result in the Perth seat of Stirling, which Michael Keenan holds for the Liberals by a margin of 6.1%. After excluding the 10.8% undecided, the primary votes were Liberal 40.2% (49.5% in 2016), Labor 37.6% (32.2%), Greens 9.0% (11.7%) and One Nation 5.3%. The poll was conducted by Community Engagement from a large sample of 1735.
• Gareth Parker in the Sunday Times reports that Matt O’Sullivan, who ran unsuccessfully in the lower house seat of Burt at the 2016 election, has narrowly won preselection for the third position on the Liberals’ Western Australian Senate ticket, behind incumbents Linda Reynolds and Slade Brockman. O’Sullivan emerged with 56 votes to 54 for Trish Botha, co-founder with her husband of an evangelical church in Perth’s northern suburbs. The closeness of the result surprised party observers, especially given Christian conservative numbers man Nick Goiran backed O’Sullivan. As Gareth Parker noted in his weekly column, Botha appears to have attracted support from “non God-botherers” opposed to Goiran’s alliance with Mathias Cormann and Peter Collier, who may not have been aware of the messianic language employed by Botha’s church.
• Katy Gallagher has announced she will seek preselection to recover the Australian Capital Territory Senate seat from which she was disqualified last month over Section 44 complications, after speculation she might instead seek the territory’s newly created third lower house seat. However, it appears she will face opposition from the newly anointed successor to her Senate seat, David Smith, former local director of Professionals Australia.
• As for the lower house situation in the Australian Capital Territory, Andrew Leigh will remain in Fenner and Gai Brodtmann will go from Canberra to the nominally new seat of Bean, leaving a vacancy available in Canberra. Smith appears set to run if he loses the Senate preselection to Gallagher; Sally Whyte of Fairfax reports he will be opposed by Kel Watt, a lobbyist who has lately made a name for himself campaigning against the territory Labor government’s ban on greyhound racing. Other potential starters include John Falzon, chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society; Jacob Ingram, a staffer to Chief Minister Andrew Barr; and Jacob White, a staffer to Andrew Leigh.
• Occasional Poll Bludger contributor Adrian Beaumont has launched his own website of local and international election and polling news.
Free to air TV has only got about 10 yrs left in it. Good time to flog the ABC if someone would have it.
Not having every god damn thing owned by a private interest is a good reason to not to privatise ABC!!
Can we stop this privatisation madness ever?
Does the majority of Australians even support privatision these day, I doubt it?
Just thinking of how Telstra was sold, has cost us dearly, i’d hate to see what a private ABC would do, probably turn into another sky news for all we know.
Edwina StJohn @ #1842 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 8:19 pm
That’s rich, coming from you.
Nevertheless, as I explained to Boerwar, whilst I acknowledge that it was a despicable thought to have, it cannot be denied that Barnaby Joyce’s recent behaviour whereby he would exploit members of his family for his political gain, lend one’s thoughts down such a path.
If you can’t acknowledge that, then I can only assume that you don’t want to and simply want to use the issue to try and continue your jihad against me. As pathetic as it is.
Will someone tell confessions to stop her repeated stupidity about white South African farmers?
It didn’t happen and yet she keeps going on about it.
It’s embarrassing.
Once again for her benefit and anyone stupid enough to pay heed to her:
LR –
“Andrew_Earlwood. Huh? Not my party. Not about you.”
Okey dokes
Edwina StJohn @ #1898 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 9:26 pm
That is certainly not accurate in Melbourne.
Edwina
With out useless NBN free to air has a long long life. What you say may have been true if the fibre to premises had eventuated but as this world cup has shown the network cannot cope with a popular program being streamed.
AE
You keep blaming the Greens for Labor failings.
Labor was supported by the Greens in minority government.
The Greens did the most in their power to keep the LNP out of power because of issues like AS it was not just climate change.
This is reality. Just as Labor was not responsible for LNP policy neither were the Greens. They did keep Labor in power despite the campaigning by Labor for offshore detention because the Greens understood Labor was NOT for indefinite detention.
Again you keep trying to mythologise the Malaysian vote as the Greens being responsible for the LNP policy that followed when they gained government. This is no more so than when Labor was the government.
You don’t get to rewrite history.
48-52 no change
Edwina StJohn says:
Sunday, June 17, 2018 at 9:26 pm
Well less than 10% of the population watch the ABC in the metropolitan capitals – so no great loss really
And less than 2% decide the outcome of federal elections; and guess which station they watch.
The Australian tweets
PM TurnBull loses record 34th (THIRTY-FOURTH) 2PP #Newspoll in a row!
– ALP 52
– LNP 48
RETWEET TO DUMP THE LNP!!!
#auspol #Insiders #QandA https://twitter.com/johndory49/status/1008311622522114048/photo/1
Ghost who votes says Newspoll 52-48
Is that 33 or 34 in a row?
Well, there you go. Resident cuddly Coalition Koala, Belgian model, Matthias Cormann, has just blamed Bill Shorten on National Wrap for the Coalition’s recent conference decision to privatise the ABC! Apparently they didn’t just vote 2:1 on the weekend at the Liberal federal conference to privatise the ABC, it’s just Bill Shorten’s latest ‘Mediscare’ style campaign to hoodwink voters with!
You know it makes Coalition sense. 🙂
LNP 38 ALP 38 GRN 10 PHON 6
The best investigative journalism in the world is done by private news media like the NYT and WaPo. Hardly anyone watches the ABC and those that do only watch it to complain. Like lots of people here.
Well duh!. You should complain to the Prime Minister!
The Australian
Verified account @australian
4m4 minutes ago
Breaking #Newspoll: Two party preferred, ALP 52, Coalition 48
https://bit.ly/2JKCeYG
Sorry my timeline moved
Australian headline was this Breaking #Newspoll: Two party preferred, ALP 52, Coalition 48
https://bit.ly/2JKCeYG https://twitter.com/australian/status/1008311379785203712/photo/1
But of course the REAL story in The Australian will be the all-important “Preferred PM”
Therefore considerably higher in favour of the ALP based on the last election (you know, the Gold Standard, until it ceased to give the desired result)
No wonder Howard was trying to bolster the troops. Labor’s PV of 38 can totally be competitive in an election, and it’s likely he knew that.
Wish I could say that more often
Another idiotic statement:
“You keep blaming the Greens for Labor failings.”
No I do not. Labor is responsible for its actions, even when it was boxed into a corner by the Greens.
Likewise there is no leave pass for the Greens. Their vote on the Malaysian solution legislation proved decisive. Fact. It owns the consequences. Right or wrong. It’s really not that hard to understand and accept, surely?
Yep – “Turnbull’s support highest since election”. It’s actually funny now.
The elephant in the room – 34 losses in a row – is getting bigger and harder to ignore.
But it is funny when they try!
PHON 6
That is one hell of a personal following!
Diogenes @ #1937 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 7:36 pm
I subscribe to both the NYT and WaPo, AND I watch the ABC. There are several shows that it has in its arsenal that would never be broadcast on commercial FTA.
My beef with ABC is its news reportage.
Pref PM – MT 46 down 1, BS 31 up 1
So their headline must refer to “Approval”
They really are clutching at straws!
So, basically, Turnbull is all that is keeping the Coalition afloat and stopping them sinking like a stone.
No wonder the Monkey Pod can’t move against him, as much as they really, really want to.
Rex!!!
Diogenes
You can’t compare the starved of funds ABC with the ABC of the Kerry O Brien era with proper funds for investigative journalism.
The argument is that the New York times and Washington Post to name two give more resources to investigative journalism. They have a larger subscription base to afford this.
How much acid was dropped by the new owner-operators of Newspoll to keep the 2PP margin at 52-48 given those primaries?
“GhostWhoVotes@GhostWhoVotes
3m3 minutes ago
#Newspoll Federal Primary Votes: L/NP 38 (0) ALP 38 (0) GRN 10 (+1) ON 6 (-2) #auspol”
Rupert Rounding ™ on NewsPoll
Algorithm at Oz can only spit out these headlines
“Coalition closes gap”
“PM increases lead over Shorten”
“PM more popular” (than when he lost the previous Newspoll.
If all the above are untrue on the figures, go with
“Shorten remains very unpopular”
If you look at what gets the most ratings on ABC TV, it’s Death in Paradise, Vera, Midsomer Murders and Gruen (all of which I watch). Apart from Gruen, the others don’t constitute an argument for public broadcasting.
So the Coalition will win the election, according to JWH because Labor’s primary vote is too weak… you know, tied with them.
Remembering that in 2016, Labor got just over 34% primary and wasn’t far off winning… so, yeah.
And, obviously, congrats to Malcolm for another record!
Good evening all,
Greens up , ON down on primary vote. Must be very close to 53-47 even under the current Newspoll calculation method.
Cheers.
Diogenes
By that argument no channel should have news and current affairs at all.
Rocket Rocket @ #1928 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 9:41 pm
Desperate times require desperate moves.
So what’s that without the newspoll lib weighting (TM). 53? 54? to labor.
Is the creator of this graphic making an assumption by quoting the 2PP to one decimal place, or is Newspoll now reporting to one decimal place?
(Actually I think the graphic designer made a mistake but who knows?)
Guytaur
Sadly the media and public are less and less interested in good investigative journalism. The ABC does very little of it anymore.
C@tmomma – if Labor win the next election, the Liberal right will go ballistic and blame everything on Turnbull. If they manage to prevail and install hard right leaders, Labor may have a solid term in office.
Andrew_Earlwood,
Far more succinct post re 2PP.
How much acid!
PS. Really enjoy your posts.
Cheers.
Diogenes @ #1935 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 9:44 pm
The fact that the ABC is a crap public broadcaster doesn’t undermine the argument in favour of public broadcasting.
Hell, to think a program that rehashes dud Ads & corny jokes is the highlight of the ABC, PBS streaming would be more informative on any score.
Rocket Rocket @ #1943 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 9:47 pm
I am salivating at the prospect. 🙂
ANTONBRUCKNER11 @ #1940 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 9:46 pm
Yep. 🙂
Dio – I heard on the radio recently some of ABC “Blood on the Tracks” about the death of Mark Haines in Tamworth 30 years ago. Worth listening to – I think it was on TV also. Good investigative journalism (of very poor police effort at the time). Very sad listening to it unfold.
Player One @ #1966 Sunday, June 17th, 2018 – 7:48 pm
Yep, what P1 said.