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”

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  1. boomy

    Glad you admit it.

    Thank you.

    Now we can continue castigating the LNP for the disaster that is their climate and energy policy that they have brought on this country.

  2. RdN “said he did not trust Labor”.

    Dirty dick is hardly able to talk about *trust*

    James Raynes –
    Q: What’s worse than being paid $4 an hour by @TurnbullMalcolm?

    A: Being paid $3.75 an hour by @RichardDiNatale.

  3. What a shit package from LNP:

    Michael McCormack
    ‏Verified account @M_McCormackMP
    55m55 minutes ago

    We are providing new tax breaks, low-interest loans and additional funding for local infrastructure in drought affected areas. #auspol

  4. dave

    The enemy is the LNP. Di Natale said only Labor would work on reducing emissions. Thats the take out.

    Ignore the don’t trust bit. Di Natale won’t be around for long. He is a bad leader as I have said before.

    Don’t look for the negative look for the positive for Labor. The media will look for the negative for Labor enough for you.

  5. poroti says:
    Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 2:58 pm
    Don

    Surfactant compatibility is real problem for us. Farmers like to mix as many chemicals as possible into each mix so as to save on multiple applications.

    ____________________

    Absolutely. If it works you have saved a lot of time and money.

  6. I will rephrase my response to dave for everyone another way.

    With Di Natale saying only Labor will reduce emissions what he is really saying is Labor is the only major party taking climate change seriously.

    Thats pure gold for Labor. Not even the MSM can then pretend that the LNP are anything other than the flat earther party

  7. boomy

    Then stop bringing it up. Get over it. I will continue to post what I think are political gay things whatever you think of it.

    I won’t shut up about gay political issues.

    Telling me to shut up just means I will post more of them.

  8. About 70 per cent of Greens voters in inner Melbourne are rich, dislike unions and think suburban people are backwards, ¬racist and bigoted, Labor has concluded based on its own research.

    A six-month survey of Melbourne Greens voters has encouraged the Victorian Labor Party to give up on campaigning to most of them, arguing they do not share Labor values and are closer to the Liberals.

    Labor has dubbed them “Teal Greens”, with teal being a colour blend of green and blue. The party has decided to target the 30 per cent “Red Greens” in Melbourne’s inner city who are typically university students or Millennials starting their careers.

    “Red Greens” are usually renters who are more likely to come from Labor families, while “Teal Greens” own expensive inner-city homes and have parents who vote Liberal.

    The qualitative research surveyed more than 50 Greens voters in inner suburbs such as Fitzroy, Brunswick and Clifton Hill, from January to June 2017.

    Party sources said the findings showed the biggest concern of many Greens voters was the ¬notion of living in the outer suburbs that contributed to their ¬interest in local planning laws.

    “Teal Greens” are usually highly paid professionals in two-wage households, are aged in their 30s and 40s and “look down on” ¬people in suburbs, thinking they hold Australia back from being “tolerant” and “just”.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/green-voters-are-snobs-says-labor-survey/news-story/9966be6beaf5020c3a82616d7d923a96

  9. Then stop bringing it up. Get over it.
    What does being gay mean anyway. We are all things roaming the planet Why label us.

  10. Ratsak

    No matter how many times you post it you cannot change the facts.

    Gillard legislated a carbon price. Abbott the LNP and allies voted to scrap it. The votes are recorded in Hansard.

    Simple.

    The policy failure is not the blame of the Greens

  11. Labor has dubbed them “Teal Greens”, with teal being a colour blend of green and blue.

    LOL. Didn’t the term Teal Greens originate courtesy of a PBer?

    And what a frightening prospect the Melbourne Greens are – just like the Liberals! *shudders*.

  12. dave @ #1010 Sunday, August 19th, 2018 – 3:36 pm

    A six-month survey of Melbourne Greens voters has encouraged the Victorian Labor Party to give up on campaigning to most of them, arguing they do not share Labor values and are closer to the Liberals.

    I think we all knew that 🙁

    Interestingly, while googling that article, the article that came up just below it was this …

    https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/05/public-concerns-high-immigration-suppressed/

    It’s a very illuminating read …

    On the immigration question politicians live in an attitudinal world remote from the average voter.

    Tapri found that 74 per cent of voters thought Australia did not need more people and that 54 per cent wanted a reduction in immigration. But adverse public opinion has had little impact on policy. There are two reasons for this: political pressures on policy makers applied by the growth lobby, Treasury and the Reserve Bank, and social pressures generated by cultural progressives (most of them university graduates). It is they who promote, and monitor, the doctrine that opposition to high migration is racist.

    Recent opinion polls from the Australian Population Research Institute (54% want lower immigration), Newspoll (56% want lower immigration), and Essential (54% believe Australia’s population is growing too fast and 64% believe immigration is too high) all show that Australian voters support lowering immigration.

    Australians are clearly brighter than most of their politicians 🙁

  13. Stop thinking about it or go and do some gay sex and get it out of your system. Either way you will feel better.

    The Truth! guytaur 3 chords and the truth!

  14. Confessions

    Saying the Greens are just like the LNP is just as wrong as saying the LNP are same same as Labor.

    Flys in the face of reality.

    Also you appear to be blaming voters. Not a good look for a party trying to win an election.

  15. You’re a Big Biz Fat Cat. You make juicy donations to the Liberal Party to keep those damn socialists out of government and ensure nice tax cuts for you and your mates.

    You had real high hopes for Brian Trumble. He’d be a chap like you. Happy to fuck over the poor to help you afford a bigger yacht.

    But now those tax cuts you were going to scam a bigger bonus off the back of are dead.

    That Banking RC that was supposed to never happen is exposing the corruption at the heart of pretty much all big business.

    And now he’s out there bashing on Electricity companies and threatening price controls and forced break up of integrated companies.

    And despite all this the damn Socialists look like they’re going to win anyway.

    You’re not really thinking about sticking your neck out for Brian are you? You’re not looking to send big cheques the Libs way. You’re thinking ‘better get in the good books with this Shorten character’. Perhaps even letting it be known in Liberal Party circles that perhaps a switch to a Bishop or a Morrison might be in order. Shame that Trumble fellow turned out to be such a disappointment of course, but business is business.

  16. boomy

    Considering I was talking about a fact this morning. Given I did not bring up my sexuality. Yes truth indeed!!

    Attacking me based on my sexuality for pointing out that truth as I have been doing all day today to get it through some thick heads the LNP is at fault for climate change failure is very a very low bullying homophobic form of attack.

  17. Turnbull announces more changes to energy policy

    Posted 39 minutes ago

    Malcolm Turnbull has outlined further changes to his national energy policy. The Prime Minister used facebook to reveal a plan to impose default energy prices on power companies, and imposing tough penalties on providers which don’t bring costs down.

  18. boomy

    I don’t care what you think but that is precisely homophobic bullying language. I know because its often used by the bullies. Anything to demean and humiliate

  19. Can we have another poll to talk about!?!

    I go out ALL day and I come back to see guytaur still ramming his gayness up everyone’s clacker and divorcing himself from the reality that The Greens are closer to the small ‘l’ Liberal Party than Labor these days.

    Even though we get their preferences back ~80% of the time. Though I hazard a guess that is a global number comprising, in the main those people in the regions and outer urban areas that vote Green 1 Labor 2 because they want their local environment preserved and no coal mining or fracking in their area, as opposed to the more boutique concerns of the Inner City Greens.

    Well, at least that’s my observation from actually speaking to these people and not just presupposing that my Inner City conceits apply to everyone who votes Green.

  20. I don’t care what you think but that is precisely homophobic bullying language. I know because its often used by the bullies. Anything to demean and humiliate

    OK.

  21. jeffemu @ #809 Sunday, August 19th, 2018 – 8:45 am

    As a confessed Question Time junkie I am looking forward to this week. It should be top shelf fun.

    What I have noticed recently is that Labor have started to openly laugh at PM Lucien Aye as he replies to Q’s and he responds with the usual – I see that the honourable members think this is a laughing matter. He starts to lose it.

    Obvious retort.

    Certainly not, but you are!!!! 🙂

  22. Can guytaur and boomy either get a frickin’ room and piss off, or stop sniping at each other and stop posting about your sex lives!

    Too much bloody information!!

  23. Roger

    I said that because I want Labor to win government. The important point for Labor is the only of the two major parties that is going to deal with climate change.

    Thats a vote winner for Labor.

    Its why Turnbull tries and cons people he will do something to save people from climate change.

    Its why his failure to stand up to his back bench is such a stark failure of leadership.
    Having the Greens on high repeat saying this does not hurt Labor at all.

  24. jenauthor @ #303 Saturday, August 18th, 2018 – 5:28 pm

    As was evident last election, Shorten does not gear up until the fight is actually on – he doesn’t waste his energy, or the electorate’s goodwill, by brow-beating them outside the actual election period.

    I am increasingly impressed by Shorten’s economy of action, along with his deft sense of timing and positioning.

    Also seems that he is somebody who knows how and when to seek and take good advice.

    ———————-

    lizzie @ #549 Sunday, August 19th, 2018 – 7:55 am

    ForeignCorrespondent‏Verified account @ForeignOfficial · 23h23 hours ago

    Sean Dorney first reported from #PNG for @ABCNews more than 40yrs ago. Now suffering from motor neurone disease, he makes a special report for #ForeignCorrespondent, on what could be his last visit to the country that’s defined his life Tuesday 8pm AEST

    Sean Dorney’s voice has been one of the background mainstays of regional news for me, since he first started in 1974. He is one of those journos who showed by sustained example just what real professional journos do and how they do it.

    His retrenching by ABC in 2014 was a bad mistake.

    I wish him and his family all the best.

    ———————-

    j341983 @ #975

    Outstanding comment.

    My main criticism of the Greens, and it is a very serious one, is that they are still politically naive.

    My advice to them is to learn to compromise, and forget the Reps, just concentrate on getting the balance of power in the Senate. Far more bang for your buck.

    ———————-

    Poroti

    I was told by a botanist that adding just single-digit parts-per-million of urea (i.e. nitrogen) to a glyphosate solution (ready to spray diluted form) helps increase its uptake by the plant.

    True?

  25. “Labor has dubbed them “Teal Greens”, with teal being a colour blend of green and blue.”
    .
    I would much prefer Cyan. Blue Green as in as in Cyanobacteria aka Blue Green Algae. Poisonous when they reach too high a concentration.

  26. lizzie @ #718 Sunday, August 19th, 2018 – 7:30 am

    guytaur

    Like it or not Sen Di Natale was stating the obvious. What the point of Labor if it just does LNP policy.

    I wish you wouldn’t say “like it or not” so often. Makes you sound as if you know everything.
    Labor doesn’t “do LNP policy.” They are tactical in order to reach their preferred outcome.

    Like it or not, guytaur doesn’t do nuance! 🙂

  27. simon holmes à court‏ @simonahac · 5h5 hours ago

    probably a good time to note that the federal government’s #NEG modelling assumes that the rate of rooftop solar installation is going to fall.

    seriously. that’s in the assumptions.

  28. lizzie

    I say like it or not because some here will not accept a politician being a politician.

    Somehow the politician has to pretend to be the mythical non politician to satisfy all the “pure” claims of Labor partisans.

  29. John Setka‏ @CFMEUJohnSetka · 28m28 minutes ago

    In Australia, any employer in the construction industry who is seen to co-operate with unions is bullied, threatened & fined & can be blacklisted from government jobs. This week 3 major builders have been targeted after union stickers were sited in lunch rooms.

  30. There appears to be some confusion…

    Deputy Nationals Leader Bridget McKenzie said she learnt of the changes to Mr Turnbull’s policy through his public announcement and expected to be briefed on them at a cabinet dinner on Sunday night.

    Asked whether she backed Mr Turnbull, the senator said his government’s record speaks for itself.

    “I think Malcolm Turnbull is our prime minister and I would like to see him stay as prime minister,” she told Sky News on Sunday.

    The Nats Deputy only thinks Trumble is PM. I can of course understand the confusion, and obviously it’s much worse for a Nat where the word ‘think’ has a different meaning than for the rest of us. But it’s good to know even senior members of the Government are unsure of who exactly our PM is.

    Perhaps there’s a quantum field effect at play with Trumble. Would kind of make sense as he’s so insubstantial being massless would not be a surprise. He can be both the PM and not the PM at the same time, a field of infinite potential Trumble failure. Heisenberg Uncertainty means you can know the direction of Trumble’s capitulation, or you can know the size of the capitulation, but you can’t know both at the same time.

    The Coalition will have their best minds on it. I’m sure they’ll clear it up soon.

  31. Ratsak

    What a surprise. Turnbull springs a new policy to appease on the eve of his great party room meeting for a victory and yet again a lot are left out of the loop.

    Such winning ways Mr Turnbull has 🙂

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