BludgerTrack: 52.3-47.7 to Labor

Two new polls for the week cancel out the slight gain Labor made in last week’s reading of the BludgerTrack poll aggregate.

After recording a slight spike to Labor last week on the back of the Ipsos result, the latest results from Newspoll and Essential Research have brought the BludgerTrack two-party trend reading to about where it was before. This has happened without any changes in the seat projection, in any seat. Newspoll and Essential also both provided leadership ratings, which cause Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval result to improve a little, and Bill Shorten’s to worsen a little. This will be an off week for both the regularly reporting pollsters, but Sky News may step into the breach with a ReachTEL on Sunday morning. We’re also due for Newspoll’s quarterly poll state and demographic breakdowns. Full results from BludgerTrack by clicking on the following:

Preselection news:

• A preselection for the Queensland Liberal National Party Senate ticket has dumped incumbents Ian Macdonald and Barry O’Sullivan in favour of Paul Scarr, described by Jared Owens of The Australian as a “low-profile mining executive”, and Susan McDonald, managing director of a chain of butcher’s shops and member of a Queensland grazing dynasty. The third position goes to Gerard Rennick, a finance executive. Macdonald will have to make do with number four, which was last productive in the freak result of 2004 than delivered the Howard government a Senate majority during its final term. Also frozen out was Scott Emerson, the former minister in Campbell Newman’s government who lost the seat of Maiwar to the Greens in the state election last November.

• The first of two retirement announcements this week from federal Labor MPs in Victoria was that of Michael Danby, who has held Melbourne Ports since 1998. Danby insists the decision was wholly his own choice, which reflects suggestions his pro-Israel outlook may have been contributing to the pressure Labor has increasingly faced in the inner city electorate from the Greens. Three names that have long been mooted as potential successors for Labor preselectionn are Josh Burns, an adviser to Daniel Andrews and former staffer to Danby; Mary Delahunty, a Glen Eira councillor and former mayor (not to be confused with the former state member for Northcote); and Nick Dyrenfurth, executive director of the John Curtin Research Centre. The latter reportedly ruled himself out in February, but has been rated a potential starter in media reports following Danby’s announcement.

• The second was that of Jenny Macklin, who had held Jagajaga since 1996. According to Noel Towell of The Age, the vacancy could finally provide Labor with a solution to its dilemma of how to accommodate Jane Garrett, who refuses to defend her existing state seat of Brunswick from the ever-rising threat of the Greens, and was rebuffed in her bid for a berth in the state upper house. It was earlier suggested that Garrett might get the safe Labor federal seat that was predictably produced by the recently finalised redistribution, but Bill Shorten is now considering taking it instead, as it takes much of his existing seat of Maribyrnong. The redrawn Maribyrnong is perhaps not of interest to Garrett because, as Fairfax recently reported, it was “tipped to turn marginal in the coming years”, although I have my doubts about that personally.

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.

887 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.3-47.7 to Labor”

Comments Page 8 of 18
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  1. Probably something to do with the registration process.

    The electrical engineer my business has a relationships with, who in addition to their own PV retail business, subcontract design/install a large number of systems for other retailers said they don’t install many batteries and aernt aware of anyone else installing many.

    If you apply their (material) share of the design/installation market to how many batteries they install and adjust for WA’s share of national PV installs you get a number at the low end of the CEC/CER variance range.

  2. @Cat 5:15 pm

    On John Howard not increasing newstart.

    ~12 years ago everyone had less money. Thus their was not a need to increase newstart.

    ~12 years later things have changed. Why is it a surprise that people have changed their minds about newstart.

  3. https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/macklin-s-retirement-throws-garrett-a-jagajaga-lifeline-20180706-p4zq0a.html

    “Three parliamentary seats are now in play, including newly created safe ALP electorate Fraser, but an alliance of the traditionally dominant left and right factions want the party’s powerful National Executive to step in to choose the candidates.

    The group around Ms Garrett’s factional ally, Labor-right powerbroker Adem Somyurek, is fighting hard for the preselections to be decided by a poll of local party members.
    :::::
    Mr Somyurek is understood to control large blocks of votes in Labor branches in both the new Fraser electorate and in Jagajaga, enabling him to deliver the numbers to Ms Garrett if a ballot were held.

    But if Labor Leader Bill Shorten snaps up the new seat for himself, as widely expected, Ms Garrett would have to look elsewhere for the next chapter in her career.
    ::::
    Pressure will now build on party bosses to hold open preselection with those in favour arguing it would a be a “bad look” to deny rank-and-file members a vote in Jagajaga and Melbourne Ports, where preselections have not been held for more than 20 years.”

  4. Boerwar
    On revoking gun licences for everyone going through separation, divorce or custody battles, I think it would be challenging to say the least. I would think the level of coordination required between the different courts dealing with divorce and custody and State authorities issuing gun licences would need to be very high and the courts certainly are straining under the existing demands on them. Don’t know how anyone in authority would necessarily know people were simply separated.
    I read earlier to day that the bloke who shot his children, then himself, had an AVO against him over 10 years ago, but none current. According to the report, you can’t get a gun licence if there’s an AVO against the person in the last 10 years.

  5. Maybe the people who are giving up on gun control should speak to this woman:

    After the Port Arthur massacre, Rebecca Peters became one of the world’s foremost gun-control experts. Then she moved to Guatemala, where she devotes her life to the victims of gun crime.

    …After the address, Peters and Gálvez went outside the UN headquarters and posed beside Non-Violence, the bronze sculpture by late Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd of a revolver with a knotted barrel. Inspired by the fatal shooting of John Lennon in 1980, the artwork has become a global symbol of peace. “I love that sculpture,” Peters says. “It’s so simple and powerful. So much of the conversation about gun violence is about geopolitics and lofty ideals. But really, when it comes down to it, it’s about the gun. That’s what makes people die.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-america/rebecca-peters-i-m-not-afraid-of-horrific-grief-20180703-p4zp80.html

    She’s never going to give up on gun control.

  6. grimace @ #351 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 6:17 pm

    The electrical engineer my business has a relationships with, who in addition to their own PV retail business, subcontract design/install a large number of systems for other retailers said they don’t install many batteries and aernt aware of anyone else installing many.

    This bears out my own experience, when looking around my area and also talking to local installers. The only batteries they install are for off-grid systems. The CER numbers may be on the low side – possibly due to poor reporting – but the CEC numbers appear to be well “overcooked”.

  7. Confessions

    I think there is very valid criticism of NEG if it as I heard explained on RN a while back. To meet the targets companies have to do sweet fannie adams until the last few years before 2030 and coal is’ looked upon kindly’. Procrastination and kicking the can down the road far enough into the future all the political actors will be retired or dead and so will not answer for failed targets.

  8. Who’s giving up on gun control.

    The political reality is it will only happen when the two major political parties have the political will to do so federally and/or at the state level.

    Given the ascendancy of the SFF Party and the gun lobbies donating monies to the two major political parties, it will not happen any time soon.

  9. poroti:

    I’m keeping an open mind about the NEG for the time being. I figure if reactionaries like Abbott and Bernardi want it gone there must be something in it that is in the national interest.

  10. ‘Harry “Snapper” Organs says:
    Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 6:23 pm

    Boerwar
    On revoking gun licences for everyone going through separation, divorce or custody battles, I think it would be challenging to say the least. I would think the level of coordination required between the different courts dealing with divorce and custody and State authorities issuing gun licences would need to be very high and the courts certainly are straining under the existing demands on them. Don’t know how anyone in authority would necessarily know people were simply separated.
    I read earlier to day that the bloke who shot his children, then himself, had an AVO against him over 10 years ago, but none current. According to the report, you can’t get a gun licence if there’s an AVO against the person in the last 10 years.’

    I think we need a basic reset. On the matter of resources, the Dutch are closing dozens of prisons. They are doing it in two main ways. The first is that drugs are treated as a medical issue not a criminal issue. The second is large scale use of ankle banding instead of incarceration.

    While this means that a large amount of resources are redirected from the legal, policing, prison systems to the health system, it also frees up plenty of resources. We are talking enough resources for thousands of professionals from police, to doctors, pyschs and social workers. This stuff is people-resource intensive.

    My suggestion would be that these resources are focused on peak stress times for men, women and children: separation, divorce and custody times.

    Ideally systemic assessments would include propensity to violence, murder and self-harm. Protective responses could be flexible but should include the range from disarming to closely-supervised access arrangements. Ideally life rebuilding resources would be part of the packages.

    One of the values of this would be that more resources front-ended into murder prevention rather than back-ended into murder trials and jailing.

  11. The Greens are going to buy back all guns.
    Say 2,000,000 guns @ $300 per gun.
    There goes another $600,000,000!
    And anyone who disagrees with the Greens deserves a jolly good bout of condecension!

  12. BW
    The only way to reduce the harm that pistols do is to remove them from private ownership and use – as we do with automatic weapons of any sort. None of your points address this. Target shooters can use the same armory procedures as police, military and ‘security’ pistol use. Anyone who uses a pistol outside this use should be criminalised as in the UK and Japan.

    As with Port Arthur, now is the time to do this. It would win a referendum – if only because the bleating of Leyonhjelm and the NRA droogs would be so sweet to the majority of Australians who are not pathetic adolescent dickheads.

    Edwards is the apotheosis of Leyonhjelm’s world view.

  13. Confessions

    Listening to Josh (?) it seemed more like keeping everything business as usual and then a sudden burst at the end , I believe “hockey stick” was a term used when it cam to the shape of action taken. All in all it sounded like bullshit so as to do nothing now or for the best part of 10 years. I would have thought Abbott and the coal monsters would have loved it. Perhaps with Abbott it is more any excuse to try ‘wreck the joint’ rather than an ideological objection. ?

  14. p
    Thirty years after sensible people started getting seriously concerned about global warming the Coalition is still talking about using $5 billion in taxpayers funds to build coal-fired power stations and CO2 emissions are going UP under Abbott and Turnbull.
    That is all we really need to know.
    If you are serious about global warming, forget the Greens. They are wreckers.
    If you are serious about global warming, forget the Coalition. They are wreckers.
    Vote 1 Labor.

  15. ‘rhwombat says:
    Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 6:36 pm

    BW
    The only way to reduce the harm that pistols do is to remove them from private ownership and use – as we do with automatic weapons of any sort. None of your points address this. Target shooters can use the same armory procedures as police, military and ‘security’ pistol use. Anyone who uses a pistol outside this use should be criminalised as in the UK and Japan.’

    I would support that 100%.

  16. “I’m keeping an open mind about the NEG for the time being. I figure if reactionaries like Abbott and Bernardi want it gone there must be something in it that is in the national interest.”

    The NEG is pretty shit in the hands of a government hamstrung and uncommitted to GHG reductions, but could be improved in the future and is better than nothing. Labor could play the ultimate wedge by saying they’ll support it with some proposed minor amendments and a stated commitment to strengthen it and complementing with other measures when in government. Shorten can say ‘bi-partisan action on climate policy is overdue and is more important than politics…..’ knowing that Joyce, Christensen, Abbott, etc will split and cross the floor and the Greens will not support it in the supper house, allowing Labor to be seen as the united voice of reason. It will pass, and the LNP and the murdoch media will be torn as to whether it is a win for a turnbull or is a disaster. Labor should also announce coal industry transition programs to create jobs in renewables in the coal mining regions.

  17. C@tmomma @ #297 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 4:36 pm

    Pegasus @ #288 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 4:17 pm

    AE

    Projection.

    $25 million spent on the homeless living on the streets , for example, would get them through winter and probably save lives.

    …..

    You truly are a pathetic specimen, Pegasus.

    ……

    C@tmomma @ #304 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 5:00 pm

    Cynicism, that’s all Pegasus has. When she’s not employing sniping, snark or condescension. Not a generous bone in her body towards Labor. And she wonders why ALP members on this blog target her.

    C@tmomma @ #312 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 5:15 pm

    …..

    You truly are pathetic, Pegasus.

    C@tmomma @ #339 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 6:07 pm

    Pegasus @ #324 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 5:55 pm

    Who is going to be the first to exclaim “Quelle horreur!!!!” at the outcome of Mexico’s election?

    ….

    You are losing the plot, Pegasus.

    Why hasn’t anyone called out this blatant bullying and abuse ?? You should be ashamed of yourselves.

  18. poroti:

    Australia needs to increase its commitment to the Paris Agreement. 26% reduction in the NEG is at the bottom end of the spectrum, and is a bee’s dick less than a business as usual scenario.

    But it’s something, and with a coalition govt (esp this coalition govt) it’s probably the best we’re going to get.

  19. Boerwar
    That’s interesting for the Dutch. Agree completely about how to treat drug use.
    What sorts of crimes get the ankle band and what sorts of crimes get you a prison sentence?

  20. Labor could play the ultimate wedge by saying they’ll support it with some proposed minor amendments

    Yes! Including increasing the abatement part of the NEG above the proposed 26% it is now.

  21. https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/07/07/bludgertrack-52-3-47-7-labor-8/comment-page-7/#comment-2828514

    Gun control mainly goes up in response to gun crimes and I think this particular gun murder`s response seems to indicate there will be some pressure for greater gun control directed at preventing similar situations happening in future.

    The number of gun owners is, I believe, still lower than before the Port Arthur reforms (which did not, I believe, include any numerical restrictions on guns, only on who can hold what type of guns and how they have to store them) and lower than it would be now if they had not been enacted (largely due to said reforms). The increased number of legal guns has a significant component of gun owners having more guns each, which is not as lethal as there are only so many guns one person can fire at once.

  22. HSO
    The rough split for ankle banding is between bad people who do bad things and good people who do a bad thing.
    If you hurt someone by getting into a traffic accident and hurt someone you do not go to jail. You get ankle-banded. (As a side note you had better never under any circumstance hurt a cyclist if you are driving a car. The onus is overwhelming on the car driver not to hurt cyclists.)
    If you hurt someone by sticking a knife into someone you go to jail.
    Psychopaths and the like can expect lots of jail time.
    The expectation with ankle banding is that it decreases recidivism enormously: family and friends are still in daily contact, your life is normal, you are not institutionalized, you are not criminalized because you are surrounded by bad criminals. It is flexible. Towards the end of your sentence you might go out to work on week days and go back to being ankle banded on weekends.
    Further, ankle banding is cheap!
    The social and economic resource implications are huge.

  23. RD

    As she did yesterday, Zoomster might respond with a self-serving rationalisation that I am not “balanced” in what I post, implying I deserve this kind of abuse.

  24. Boerwar

    As a side note you had better never under any circumstance hurt a cyclist if you are driving a car. The onus is overwhelming on the car driver not to hurt cyclists

    The Japanese have a wonderful approach to the old “I did not see them” excuse when car drivers hit motorcyclists . I did not see them is taken as ‘I did not look’ .

  25. Gun Control Australia

    https://www.guncontrolaustralia.org/australia_s_gun_laws_in_trouble

    An independent report commissioned by GCA into the state of Australia’s gun laws, reveals that each state and territory has significantly weakened its gun laws.

    Years of political pressure from the gun lobby has persuaded politicians to trade tough guns laws for political gain.

    ———————
    Its Report – Firearm Legislation in Australia 21 Years after the National Firearms Agreement:

    The aim of this 2017 analysis is to revisit all current State and Territory legislation and consider: first, whether any of the jurisdictions have attempted to address the areas of non-compliance identified in four previous reports; and secondly, whether there has been any “watering down” of the legislation by any of the jurisdictions.

    ——————–
    Current court action by GCA:

    Gun Control Australia has announced it has commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court of Tasmania against the Premier of Tasmania seeking to have reviewed a decision by the Premier to refuse the release of information under the Right to Information Act 2009.

    In late February 2018 the Government released a firearms policy which proposed to move Tasmania away from the 1996 National Firearms Agreement.

  26. B,

    lol individuals, including z, never bad mouthing me when i am not around. Pull the other one. I wait with bated breath for you to call them out.

  27. From a Rugby League blog:

    $25 million for Tasmanian AFL team? No freakin’ way.
    I can do it cheaper than that.
    Merge the Suns and Giants, send the abomination that’s just been created to Tasmania and call them the Tasmanian giant sun devils or something

  28. Boerwar
    tks for that. Is there information available in English that you could point me towards?
    On the gun discussion, of course it is glaringly obvious you don’t need a gun to kill someone. The case of the young comedienne raped and killed on her way home from work is a case in point. It is also a case which underlines there may be no prior indicators of the potential for lethal violence.

  29. Australia has around 40,000 prisoners who cost around $100,000 per annum to incarcerate.
    That is $4 billion a year.
    While estimates vary, roughly 40% of the prison population is there for drug or drug-related offences.
    That is roughly $1.6 billion at play in terms of redirecting drug issues to the health system.

  30. OC

    Merge the Suns and Giants, send the abomination that’s just been created to Tasmania and call them the …

    Tasmanian Two Heads ? 🙂

    ttp://devilsden.com.au/images/stubby-2heads-visit-lg.jpg

  31. HSO
    Agree in relation to guns to some extent except that, IMO, guns are qualitatively different. They are power symbols. They provide a focus because they are designed to be lethal and they can be deployed in the instant. IMO, they are also a disproportionately powerful background threat in many cases where they are not even deployed.
    In terms of random killings in public places by psychotics, gun control is probably not going to make a huge difference, if for no other reason than that they are statistically the rarest form of murder now.

    IMO, where gun control would make a systematic difference is where non psychotics are enduring (and probably generating) huge stress levels during separation, divorce, custody and resource-sharing battles. It is during these periods that male murderers are statistically most likely to strike. I have not seen the stats but I assume that female murderers would probably be most likely to strike then as well: murdering their children out of misplaced love and protection; murdering for money if they fear they will be impoverished during the divorce/separation.

  32. The Age
    ‏Verified account @theage
    14m14 minutes ago

    COMMENT Lyonhhelm and his ilk conveniently ignore the fact that women are reminded at every avenue that it’s ultimately our responsibility to avoid rape and violence.

  33. Boerwar @ #378 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 6:57 pm

    Peg
    Bad-mouthing Z when she is not even in the room is a bit nasty – even for a Greens.

    But, but! Poor Pegasus is being bullied! By someone making reasonable points which exemplify how pathetic her and The Greens’ position is wrt Homelessness….Which apparently should give her the untrammeled right to bad mouth other posters in their absence, apparently, according to Rex.

    There are different standards for Greens, it seems.

  34. Z
    IMO L and his ilk enjoy bastardizing all women in any way they can.
    IMO, they are also a walking, talking insult to most* men. Some men wallow in L and his misogynous bastardry.

  35. HSO
    I tried a bit of Googling to find some english texts without a lot of luck. My view is that the general proof is in the pudding: large numbers of prisons being closed.

  36. BW:
    Agree in relation to guns to some extent except that, IMO, guns are qualitatively different. They are power symbols. They provide a focus because they are designed to be lethal and they can be deployed in the instant. IMO, they are also a disproportionately powerful background threat in many cases where they are not even deployed.

    Exactly. As in the case which spurred Rebecca Peters on:

    Flory Teletor was 17 when she began living with her boyfriend, Santo, in a cramped apartment in Guatemala City. Santo, who was 20, worked as a security guard. He was violent and controlling. He gave Flory a daily allowance of 20 quetzals ($3.50). She had to account for every cent; when she failed to do so, he would beat her. Sometimes, he would brandish the pistol he used for work, even shooting above her head. Flory was terrified, but she had already fled an abusive father and had no other place to go. Then one evening, Santo came home in a rage. He had heard that Flory was cheating on him with the man in the apartment above. “He thought I had been writing this man letters,” she says. “No matter what I told him, he didn’t believe me.”

    Santo came at Flory; she thought he was going to hit her. Instead, he pulled out his pistol and fired. “I was so frightened that I didn’t hear the shot,” she says. “All I knew was that suddenly I was lying on my back, and I couldn’t stand up. My legs seemed incredibly heavy, like my shoes were concrete blocks.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/south-america/rebecca-peters-i-m-not-afraid-of-horrific-grief-20180703-p4zp80.html

  37. Boerwar

    Google normally offers a translate for ‘foreign’ language sites. Machine translation so often a bit ‘not quite right’ but it normally gives you a good idea. Sooo it should/may not be a waste of time posting a link for………….

  38. C@tmomma @ #392 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 7:19 pm

    Boerwar @ #378 Saturday, July 7th, 2018 – 6:57 pm

    Peg
    Bad-mouthing Z when she is not even in the room is a bit nasty – even for a Greens.

    But, but! Poor Pegasus is being bullied! By someone making reasonable points which exemplify how pathetic her and The Greens’ position is wrt Homelessness….Which apparently should give her the untrammeled right to bad mouth other posters in their absence, apparently, according to Rex.

    There are different standards for Greens, it seems.

    How about we all just refrain from bullying and abuse? It’s not that hard.

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