BludgerTrack: 51.1-48.9 to Labor

Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings lose their lustre, but the poll trend records no change on voting intention. Also featured: preselection action from Labor in the ACT and the Liberals in Tasmania.

BludgerTrack has been updated this week with new results from Newspoll and Essential Research, both of which provided leadership ratings as well as voting intention, and a Queensland-only federal poll result from YouGov Galaxy. None of this has made any difference to the two-party preferred reading, although both parties are down on the primary vote and One Nation is up. On the seat projection, the Coalition gains a seat in Victoria and loses one in New South Wales, with no change anywhere else. However, conspicuously poor personal ratings for Malcolm Turnbull from Newspoll have knocked the edge off his surge in the BludgerTrack trend. Full results from the link below.

Now on to two areas of intense preselection activity this week, involving Labor in the Australian Capital Territory and Liberal in Tasmania.

The former produced an unexpected turn this week when Gai Brodtmann, who has held the seat of Canberra for Labor since 2010, announced she would not seek another term. This leaves the Territory’s vigorous Labor branch with three situations vacant: the lower house seats of Canberra and Bean, and the Senate seat that was vacated by Section 44 casualty Katy Gallagher in May and filled by David Smith.

Smith is now seeking preselection in Bean, which early appeared to be lined up for Brodtmann. Sally Whyte of Fairfax reports Smith has been formally endorsed by the Right, which appears to consider that the Right-aligned Brodtmann should be replaced with one of their own. However, the Left is throwing its weight behind Louise Crossman, manager at the Justice and Community Safety Directorate and former federal staffer and CFMEU industrial officer. Also in the field are Taimus Werner-Gibbings, factionally unaligned staffer to Lisa Singh (and formerly Andrew Leigh), and Gail Morgan, business management consultant and former campaign manager to Brodtmann.

Apparently in retaliation to the Left’s intrusion in Bean, the Right is sponsoring a challenge to Left-aligned Katy Gallagher for the Senate seat, in the person of Victoria Robertson, chief-of-staff to Gai Brodtmann. The race for the Canberra preselection was covered here last week; only the lower house seat of Fenner will be defended by a sitting member, in this case Andrew Leigh.

The news from Tasmania relates to Senate preselection for the Liberals, who are in the happy seat of having a likely Senate seat to spare thanks to the vagaries of the Section 44 affair. When the Senate was carved into short-term and long-term seats after the 2016 double dissolution, the Liberals originally got two seats with six-year terms and two with three-year terms, based on the order of election in which the twelve Senators were elected. However, in the recount after Jacqui Lambie’s disqualification, her party won its seat at a later point in the count, and the Liberals gained a third six-year term at their expense. Given the likelihood of their winning two seats, this means their four seats will likely become five after the election.

Eight candidates have nominated for Liberal preselection, with top position reportedly likely to go to Richard Colbeck, the only one out of the party’s four incumbents required to face the voters. Colbeck initially failed to win in 2016 from his fifth place on the Liberal ticket, to which he was demoted after heading the ticket in 2013. This resulted from a purge of Malcolm Turnbull loyalists led by conservative powerbroker Senator Eric Abetz, and inspired a surge of below-the-line votes for Colbeck, though not enough for him to overhaul the top four candidates. As fate would have it though, number five effectively became number four in the recount held after Section 44 prompted the resignation of Stephen Parry in November last year.

Assuming Colbeck takes top place, that will leave a further seven candidates chasing number two, plus the outside chance offered by number three. A newly confirmed starter is Brett Whiteley, who held a state seat for Braddon from 2002 until his defeat in 2010, gained the federal seat for the Liberals at the 2013 election, lost it at the 2016 election, and failed to win it back at last month’s by-election. But with the party under pressure to balance its all-male parliamentary contingent, he seems likely to struggle against Claire Chandler, risk advisory manager at Deloitte Australia and former electorate officer to David Bushby, who reportedly has the backing of Eric Abetz. Also in the field are Tanya Denison, a Hobart alderman; Wendy Summers, political staffer and the sister of David Bushby; Stacey Sheehan, Davenport Chamber of Commerce and Industry president; Kent Townsend, whom I take to be a developer from Launceston; and Craig Brakey, an Ulverstone businessman.

Finally, two other bits of polling I missed:

• Last week I noted Greenpeace had published a ReachTEL poll that included Victorian state voting intention numbers. I missed the more interesting fact that they also had one on federal voting intention from a sample of 3999. It’s getting on a bit now, having been conducted on July 30, but let it be noted that Labor led 52-48, from primary votes of Coalition 36.9%, Labor 35.0%, Greens 12.0% and One Nation 8.1% (after exclusion of 5.2% undecided.

• The Courier-Mail had further results from last week’s YouGov Galaxy poll which, despite the newspaper’s best efforts to give an impression to the contrary, found respondents strongly opposed to the company tax cuts. Only 16% registered support for tax cuts for businesses with more than $50 million turnover, which the government has tried and failed to pass through the Senate. Twelve per cent favoured a response that excluded banks from the cuts, and 56% were opposed altogether.

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.

1,332 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.1-48.9 to Labor”

Comments Page 19 of 27
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  1. P1, on French nuclear.

    There is no “French” system. To speak of it in isolation is just wrong.

    France is enmeshed in the western European interconnection. It relies heavily on dispatchable resources in Germany, Switzerland and Italy to balance it’s nuclear generation. The Swiss make a lot of money pumping water uphill overnight using French nuclear energy and releasing it back downhill the next day to supply peaking power to the rest of the EU.

    You are not wrong that they deliberately targetted investment in nuclear to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. However, the reason was strategic – reduced reliance on Russian gas.

  2. How ABC online reports Di Natale on Insiders – this is a Turnbull disaster but it’s “Don’t trust Shorten”.

    Greens leader Richard Di Natale criticised the Government’s decision to set emissions reductions by regulation, rather than legislation, and said he did not trust Labor to introduce more ambitious targets if it wins the next election.

    “I don’t trust Bill Shorten to do it and let’s remember, if Labor don’t win, we’re giving the tools to the climate deniers within the Coalition to slash these already-pathetic targets even further and effectively rip up the Paris climate agreement,” he told Insiders.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-19/labor-unveils-plan-to-cut-power-prices/10137298

  3. Argh that rooftop PV policy of Andrews’…

    Sure it’s a vote winner, but bad in lots of ways.

    Better off giving everyone a share in a state-owned portfolio of mixed utility-scale renewable developments, paid as a rebate.

  4. citizen

    Actually the ABC buried the lead. This bit.

    let’s remember, if Labor don’t win, we’re giving the tools to the climate deniers within the Coalition to slash these already-pathetic targets even further and effectively rip up the Paris climate agreement,

    Otherwise yes I agree with you. It is all about boosting the LNP.

  5. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/19/turnbull-sets-out-power-price-fix-to-stay-ahead-of-coalition-rebellion

    The prime minister took to social media on Sunday to confirm the government would accept the recommendations of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s recent inquiry into power prices – including default pricing for consumers – and he also signalled he had reverted back to legislating the emissions reduction target in the Neg.

    On Friday, Turnbull, the energy minister Josh Frydenberg and the treasurer Scott Morrison worked up a proposal that the Neg’s emissions reduction target be set by ministerial regulation, which is different to legislation, which must clear the parliament.

    But Sunday’s message appears to walk that option back. The prime minister said “we will introduce a new law that ensures that before any new emissions target is set, or changed, the energy regulators and the ACCC must advise what that means for your electricity prices”.

  10. citizen:

    The Greens don’t want the emissions targets set by regulation because it means they will never get to have a say in what the target is as they will never win govt in their own right.

    I’m sure there are moderate Greens voters out there hugely disappointed the party won’t even come to the table on the NEG, but just want to shout from the sidelines.

  11. “I don’t trust Bill Shorten to do it and let’s remember, if Labor don’t win, we’re giving the tools to the climate deniers within the Coalition to slash these already-pathetic targets even further and effectively rip up the Paris climate agreement,” he told Insiders.

    What’s this crap from Di Natale? Labor’s target is 45%. That’s what they will take to the election. That’s why they wouldn’t accept NEG as it stood a couple of days ago. If Labor wins and inherits a NEG that allows the target to be set by regulation, they will set it to 45%.

  12. boomy

    When Labor people start arguing facts then yes I will stop defending the Greens.

    Eg there may be some truth in this comment.

    Confessions says:
    Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 1:41 pm
    citizen:

    The Greens don’t want the emissions targets set by regulation because it means they will never get to have a say in what the target is as they will never win govt in their own right.

    I’m sure there are moderate Greens voters out there hugely disappointed the party won’t even come to the table on the NEG, but just want to shout from the sidelines.

  13. E. G. Theodore @ #889 Sunday, August 19th, 2018 – 1:17 pm

    Confessions:

    “To be honest I’m shocked. How often does it happen that a lawyer shares so much so willingly with investigators digging into their client? Hardly ever to never!”

    McGahn’s client is the “the presidency”, he’s not Trump’s personal lawyer. He is acting in the interests of his client.

    Here’s a background piece that explains the situation and motivation.

    Looks like McGahn is determined to not be this scandals “John Dean” and McGahn talking with Mueller was a strategy of the administration which seems to have gone out of control.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/us/politics/don-mcgahn-mueller-investigation.html

  14. LU

    Better off giving everyone a share in a state-owned portfolio of mixed utility-scale renewable developments, paid as a rebate.

    Damn right.

  15. Don@12:17pm
    Refer to imacca @12:20pm
    As imacca pointed, climate change is affecting Antarctic climes in such a way that dormant volcanoes may be exposed to open atmosphere.
    Although Hawaii and Bali may or may not be because of climate change, Hawaii volcano is more devastating this time around than in more than 50 years and volcano near Bali is erupting more frequently than before causing a lot of disrupt. I can’t site any studies to any correlation between climate change and volcanoes but why is volcanic activity more frequent now when there is lot more climate change disruptions. Humans never studied affects of climate change on volcanoes before because they never studied about climate change before 1950s.

  16. “Murdoch Editor on record saying exactly that.”

    Gullible much?

    The ruperverse loves the Greens. It gives them another weapon to bash Labor with.

  17. guytaur says:
    Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 1:26 pm
    Ratsak

    You can post it as many times as you like. The point is the best Labor people can come up with their assertion that the Greens are “pure” is a what if.

    I would never accuse the Gs of purity. This implies some kind of innocence, the possibility that they are motivated from sincerity. They are none of these things.

  18. Steve

    The I don’t trust comes from history for the Greens. Including Tasmanian Labor. Both sides still argue to this day who was at fault for the first minority Labor government falling.

    However to focus on that is to miss the real point.

    Di Natale is saying there he trusts that the LNP will do everything they can do destroy the planet. So he is halfway there.

  19. Andrew Earlwood

    Yeah yeah I am the gullible one for thinking the Fascist media want to destroy progressives by splitting the vote so they can win.

    Its worked well for them so far. Its only now reality is causing them to split and the shoe is on the other foot.

    Pointing this out is not being gullible.

  23. Julie Szego pushes back against the Catholic education and private education lobbyists, those same lobbyists both major parties continue to pander to with promises of more funding to the detriment of public schools.

    https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-great-public-v-private-education-con-job-20180815-p4zxmv.html

    We rarely hear such sentiments because since the Howard years there’s been an undeclared war – yes, a class war – against public education, with our political lords eroding confidence in the system either through overt rhetoric or in more subtle ways, the negative messaging amplified by obscene funding inequities.

    The reasons for the war: 1. Like elsewhere in the West, Australia’s political elite is disconnected from the concerns of ordinary people, and 2. Our political leaders are hostage to a private schools lobby that purrs about wanting the best for all schools, but they don’t, obviously, because it’s a law of the market that competitors seek to crush each other.
    ::::
    For years we’ve been sold this con job that funding private schools takes pressure off the public system when the reverse is true. A bigger public system would offer economies of scale. Gutting high schools of middle-class families, their resources and networks, residualising public education so that it becomes an option of last resort, with plunging standards and expectations, simply increases the long-term welfare burden for taxpayers. And what about the long-term psychic injury we’re inflicting on ourselves by raising children in stratified and segregated environments?
    :::
    At a time of growing inequality, when liberal democracy finds itself under siege, the real balance to “what’s in it for me” is the local high school: open to all comers, accommodating many faiths and backgrounds but striving for a common language and universal truth. The case for public education is more urgent than ever.

  24. LU not logged in @ #901 Sunday, August 19th, 2018 – 1:33 pm

    P1, on French nuclear.

    There is no “French” system. To speak of it in isolation is just wrong.

    Nice strawman! 🙂

    France is enmeshed in the western European interconnection. It relies heavily on dispatchable resources in Germany, Switzerland and Italy to balance it’s nuclear generation. The Swiss make a lot of money pumping water uphill overnight using French nuclear energy and releasing it back downhill the next day to supply peaking power to the rest of the EU.

    And another!

    You are not wrong that they deliberately targetted investment in nuclear to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. However, the reason was strategic – reduced reliance on Russian gas.

    So? The result is they are achieving real and substantial C02 emissions reductions. The only country (apparently) to do so. Germany could have done the same, except that their Green party decided to force the abandonment of nuclear in favour of other sources, including fossil fuels. Yay Greens! 🙁

  26. David Marler
    ‏ @Qldaah
    49m49 minutes ago

    Haha George Christensen: “You can’t put pig on a lipstick…” on a #qldpol #auspol

  27. guytaur says:
    Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 1:47 pm

    Di Natale is saying there he trusts that the LNP will do everything they can do destroy the planet. So he is halfway there.

    This is a misleading construction. The G says Labor is not to be trusted. He is an echo of Barnaby Joyce or Tony Abbott or Malcolm Turnbull.

    The G is running interference for the Tories….day in/day out.

  29. I see the Labor group think is lets bully a poster off the blog working again.

    Not all Labor people here I hasten to add. Just the usual suspects who know who they are.

    Trying all kinds of ad hominem attacks because they don’t like facts being pointed out.

    How sad.

  30. So here we are on Sunday afternoon and this useless government’s useless Prime Minister is backflipping again on Friday’s backflip as, for the the first time in yonks, the media is actually focussing on the real story of a government in utter shambles of outright division and a leadership desperately searching for the magic formula to shut up a bunch of wreckers whose main interest is destroying him.

    And 90% of the posts, requiring endless scrolling, are devoted to left of centre squabbling which, at this precise point in time, is only a distraction from the real story that we all want (with the exception of a couple of people here and we all know who they are).

    It’s a good thing that the Labor leadership are not distracted by this nonsense and focussing on the main game.

  32. Besides the bullying they are missing the opportunity to use Di Natale to attack the LNP.

    Ignore the don’t trust bit. Focus on the factual part of the statement that is Labor’s political gain.

    Labor will be the next government. Labor will do something on emissions.

    For Labor’s campaign that admission is the important bit from Senator Di Natale not the I don’t trust bit.

    Despite Di Natale stating doubt he is saying ONLY Labor will reduce emissions. Thats gold.

  33. guytaur says:
    Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 1:57 pm
    I see the Labor group think is lets bully a poster off the blog working again…..the usual suspects….

    I for one have not bullied you. I’ve been talking about the Gs. You called me a hater. I called you a bag carrying apologist. Who is bullying who here?

  34. “thinking the Fascist media want to destroy progressives by splitting the vote so they can win”

    You are gullible for not working out what a child could. The rupeverse MO is to (1) demonise the Greens, then (2) tie the Greens to Labor, and then (3) simply say that a vote for Labor is a vote for the Greens.

    The Greens antics play into this MO perfectly and there is no way that Rupert would ever give up his Green Gollum when it has proven itself to be so effective thus far.

    Take the current energy debate. Bandt (sorry Willie) comes out and demands that a future Labor Governemnt increase the renewables target to 90% by 2030. His factional rival De Natalie comes out today and says WTE “I cant trust Shorten to increase renewables quick enough”. So then the rupevrse start writing stories saying (1) Foregt Labor’s 45% renewables pledge. Their Green partners will insist on 90% by 2030 – that’s just lunacy. Electricity prices will go through the roof, (2) just look at what happened the last time Labor partnered with the Greens. CARBON TAX!!. (3) Vote Labor, get the Greens economy killing policies. Of course, Trumble is so hopeless and the governemnt so far gone, that such stories are unlikely to change the outcome of the next election, but if the Greens repeat their positioning in 2009-10 then such an attack will likely prove potent at the following election.

  35. briefly

    All your posts add up to one long hate campaign against the Greens

    That said I never named anyone. I think its instructive you felt compelled to respond.

  37. poroti says:
    Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 12:41 pm
    Don

    I’m surprised you need to add more surfactants. Formulations generally have a good dose of wetting agent(s) in them already. Maybe your dish washing liquid is the ‘killer’
    ____________

    You would hope that they would add them at the factory.

    Yet so far as I am aware, neither Roundup nor Grazon have effective surfactants, that I can notice.

    Standard el cheapo ‘Earth choice’ detergent, $2 at Woolies works a treat.

  38. guytaur says:
    Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 2:03 pm
    briefly

    All your posts add up to one long hate campaign against the Greens

    Ohhh, I for one reject the G drivel. They campaign day in/ day out against Labor. It is not hateful to draw attention to this and to express opposition to it; to defend Labor against the worthless objections of a minor political cult who are intent on weakening Labor and aiding the Tories.

  39. There are idiots in the CPG, and then there are fools:

    Paula Matthewson
    ‏
    Verified account
    @Drag0nista

    The half billion dollar payment to the GBRF is a huge rort.

    But the party that poured millions with little care into the home insulation and school halls programs is not in a position to criticise.

    Same shit, different government.

  43. Nah, guytaur, the greens in Germany and people like Garrett here made a mistake opposing nuclear when the only options at the time were coal and gas.

  44. The half billion dollar payment to the GBRF is a huge rort.

    But the party that poured millions with little care into the home insulation and school halls programs is not in a position to criticise.

    Same shit, different government.

    WTF? The two aren’t even vaguely analogous!!

  45. LU

    Nope. They made the right choice. The results of Chernobyl and Fukushima are clear.

    Then there is the problem with decommissioning nuclear and where to store the waste.

    Even back then we had hydro options. Add some wind and solar power to that without batteries and using gas and you are still better off than today. The batteries would have come with the investment as we have seen. We would have been faster on the same curve we are on now.

  47. Confessions

    WTF? The two aren’t even vaguely analogous!!
    _______________________________

    False equivalence. If you can push the lie that both are as bad as each other, the theory is that you stick with the one you have as the other won’t be any better. Of course, the far left and right are, with some justification, repurposing the propaganda to argue for something completely different indeed.

  48. Andrew Earlwood.

    No matter how many times you say it. Facts are clear. The Gillard government legislated a carbon price.

    All other argument is what if.

    The only blame for dismantling that carbon price lays with the LNP.

    Thats the facts.

    To make it clear for you. Substitute Medicare for carbon price and Whitlam for Gillard

  50. Ven:

    Ven says:
    Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 1:45 pm
    Don@12:17pm

    Although Hawaii and Bali may or may not be because of climate change, Hawaii volcano is more devastating this time around than in more than 50 years and volcano near Bali is erupting more frequently than before causing a lot of disrupt. I can’t site any studies to any correlation between climate change and volcanoes but why is volcanic activity more frequent now when there is lot more climate change disruptions. Humans never studied affects of climate change on volcanoes before because they never studied about climate change before 1950s.

    ______________________________________________
    ______________________________________________

    There has been no increase in volcanic activity.

    The rise in population has meant that there are more people affected and displaced by volcanic activity, which is not the same thing at all.

    Climate change has been studied effectively since at least the 1920s when good data became available (in the previous century there had been attempts made, but there was not the knowledge to work with) when the Serbian geophysicist Milankovic hypothesised that variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth’s orbit resulted in cyclical variation in the solar radiation reaching the Earth, and that this orbital forcing strongly influenced climatic patterns on Earth. Solar insolation at the 65 degree north latitude is the key.

    See:
    http://www.stableclimate.org/milankovitch-cycles/

    and Wikipedia.

    These Milankovitch cycles, which to some extent explained previous ice ages, but with predictions of no new ice age for tens of thousands of years from the present, but not much increase in temperature either, have since been overlaid by the increase in greenhouse gases.

    The scientific consensus is that there has NOT been a recent increase in volcanic activity.

    See:

    http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/has-there-been-increase-volcanic-activity-past-few-decades

    There are many factors at work here and it is all too easy to present data that appears to say something that it really doesn’t. First, as populations increase, people end up living in many regions that were once considered remote, and if these happen to be volcanic regions then once unseen eruptions will now be reported. Plus the impact of volcanic events now ripples across the globe as seen in the 2010 eruption in Iceland. The same eruption, in 1500, would likely not have been as much trouble for the folks in England.

    More importantly, nearly every inch of the Earth is now monitored by many satellites so volcanic activity occuring in even very remote areas, with little or no population, is instantly reported to volcano monitoring agencies. Coupled with the ability to communicate around the world and rapidly transmit information from very remote places, the world now knows of an eruption almost immediately.

    Also, there is the natural randomness of natural events. It is unreasonable to expect that natural processes won’t have some sorts of variations to them. Keep in mind that we have only been scientifically investigating most volcanic regions for a few hundred years. If there presently happens to be a cluster of eruptions, it would not necessarily signal an increase in activity.

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