Super Saturday minus eleven days

The LNP’s candidate hits a speed bump in Longman; One Nation goes on the warpath against Labor; and a poll suggests a close result in Braddon.

Latest news to relate from the by-election campaign trails, almost all of it relating to Longman:

• The Longman campaign has been hit by the bombshell of a Courier-Mail report that Trevor Ruthenberg, the Liberal National Party candidate, wrongly claimed to have received the Australian Service Medal in his state parliamentary biography. Ruthenberg claims to have innocently confused the award for distinguished service with his Australian Defence Medal, granted to those who serve for four years or more, as Ruthenberg had done with the Royal Australian Air Force. This offers an uncomfortable parallel with Barry Urban, the Western Australian state Labor MP whose false claims led to his resignation and the staging of the Darling Range by-election on June 30.

• The Liberal National Party and One Nation are denying a preference deal, but each has the other in seventh place on their how-to-vote card. Since both have Labor’s Susan Lamb placed lower, this is as good as second. One Nation has copped flak for placing Lamb behind Jim Saleam, Australia First candidate and former leader of neo-Nazi group National Action, in consequence of its decision to place Labor and the Greens last. Another distinction of the One Nation campaign has been the involvement of Mark Latham, who recorded a robocall message for the party in which he branded Bill Shorten a liar and urged a vote for minor parties.

• A report by Amy Remeikis of The Guardian relates the view of a Labor strategist that the One Nation how-to-vote card is unlikely to prevent Labor getting around 40% of their preferences, and that the party’s support is “overstated”. The report also reveals a straw poll of 100 people at a Caboolture shopping centre captured only about twenty who knew the by-election was happening, not a single one of whom could name either major party candidate.

• A ReachTEL poll of Braddon on July 6 recorded, after exclusion of the 6.2% undecided, a 38.7% primary vote for Labor and its Section 44 casualty, Justine Keay; 45.7% for Liberal candidate Brett Whiteley; 8.5% for independent Craig Garland; and 4.7% for the Greens. No two-party result was provided, but Kevin Bonham has applied 2016 preference flows to produce a result of 50.5-49.5 in favour of the Liberals. The poll was conducted for The Australian Institute from a sample of 700.

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.

65 comments on “Super Saturday minus eleven days”

Comments Page 2 of 2
1 2
  1. Right now I am predicting Labor will win both the Braddon and Longman by-elections. However they could possibly lose the federal election which I am predicting for Autumn next year.

  2. The Liberals are trying to discredit the independent candidate for Braddon Craig Garland for pointing out an assault conviction 24 years old where he broken wrist of a off-duty female police officer when he intervened when his friends were being attacked, which Garland was up front about.

    Frankly it smacks of desperation on part of the Liberals to do something like this, especially given their candidate who is a former state and federal member for Braddon was convicted for violating the Tasmanian Electoral Act for disturbing illegal how to vote cards.

  3. @Zoidlord

    The polls for both Braddon and Longman are pretty close at the moment with the Liberals ahead very slightly, so Labor has a good chance of winning both.

    Also the opinion poll gap between Labor and the Coalition has been slowly closing for a while now. Therefore; an average of 50-50 between Labor and the Coalition in the opinion polls by the time of the election is quite possible. Plus Turnbull did promise that the election would be early next year, if he went earlier it would be seen as breaking a promise.

  4. Saw on Twitter this morning information from Ghost Who Votes about an up to date Reachtel poll for Braddon showing a TPP vote of 52:48 to the ALP.

  5. Latest Reachtel has Labor ahead 52-48 in Braddon.

    Labor’s Justine Keay is on 52 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, despite polling 34.3 per cent of the primary vote.

    The Liberals’ Brett Whiteley is polling 40.7 per cent of the primary vote.

    Labor is expected to benefit from preferences from the Greens’ Jarrod Edwards, who holds 6.7 per cent of the primary vote, while controversial independent Craig Garland is polling 8.9 per cent.

    More than two-thirds of voters said they would preference Labor above the Liberals.

    https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/labor-leads-in-crucial-braddon-byelection/news-story/27cc9450ae05277d3a3105880db4e666

  6. from another post but, did the LNP really do this?????

    “and put Labor ahead of the Liberals on his how to vote cards”.

    if so, OMFG…….

Comments Page 2 of 2
1 2

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *