BludgerTrack: 54.9-45.1 to Labor

Labor remains deep in landslide territory on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, despite the moderating impact of this week’s Ipsos poll.

Ipsos provided the one new poll for the week in its monthly outing for the Fairfax papers, and it raised a few eyebrows with its weak primary vote for Labor and extraordinarily strong result for the Greens, the latter exacerbating a long established peculiarity of this pollster. The poll’s addition to the BludgerTrack aggregate takes a certain amount of edge off the recent blowout to Labor, while still finding them on course for a victory of historic dimensions. The BludgerTrack seat projection has Labor down three on last week’s result, with Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia each moving one seat in the Coalition’s favour. The methodological caveats about BludgerTrack from last week’s post continue to apply, as does the fact that I won’t be updating the leadership ratings until the model has a solid enough base of Morrison-era data to work from. Other than that, full results from the link below.

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.

2,598 comments on “BludgerTrack: 54.9-45.1 to Labor”

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  2. guytaur,
    P1 hasn’t spat the dummy, nor thrown any toys out of their cot (pretty low blow from you to say that, if you don’t mind me saying so). You taunted P1 to block you. P1 did.

  3. Cat

    The issue only works as a wedge if there is a wedge their. I have not posted on AS today more than I have any other subject and I have continued to pay attention to other issues. I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

    I understand the uncomfortable position of some Labor people but I was pointing out the good moves Labor has made as the issue is starting to fade as a wedge issue and thats important to note.

    Labor people should be glad that at the first opportunity Labor has moved on AS. I like the Greens wish Labor had spoke up forcefully earlier but I am not going to be backward in saying Labor has done so now.

    If I had only seen Rex by himself making those arguments I probably would have just dismissed them as you say. However the arguments he puts have been put by refugee advocates so I don’t see it as just political talking points.

  4. Cat

    Not a low blow. A good description. Its exactly what P1 has done. I have gone against the Labor group think so blocking is a sane answer to actually arguing the issue.

    This from a poster that has almost as obsessive an issue on Climate Change as Rex has on AS.

    Edit: Maybe I should have said energy.

  5. I am so happy to have the Block function, I don’t miss the P1 posts in the least. It certainly sounds like P1 has not nor has the capacity to learn

  6. The Sociopaths, Spivs and Spinmerchants Society (S4) is going full bore for Scummo (S5?) today. Their internal polling must be scarifying.

    Ratty’s “Filth” shorthand for the LNP gang is most apposite, but “Scum” (or, perhaps, SSSScum) accurately depicts their place in the political ecosystem: floating their way to the top of the pond and blocking out the light to those of us beneath.

    The other analogy is steatorrheic turds in a cesspool: pale, bulky and offensive.

  8. Cat

    Just so you can see.

    [blockquote]Player One says:
    Sunday, September 23, 2018 at 10:03 am
    guytaur @ #2133 Sunday, September 23rd, 2018 – 9:53 am

    Or Rex is passionate about the subject.
    If Rex was passionate about it he would be willing and able to argue his case logically and coherently. But he can’t – all he does is regurgitate the same boring green “Lib-Lab same-same” groupthink at every opportunity.

    Engage with him if you want. But all you will ever succeed in doing is boring the pants off everyone else, and make it more likely that people will block you both.

    No I will scroll on by. Just bullying shut up I will shun you as I don’t like the issue being discussed its boring to me.

  10. That Arizona Republican whose siblings are all voting for his opponent sounds like a true Trumpian. Sometimes even blood isn’t even enough!

    Paul GosarVerified account@DrPaulGosar
    6h6 hours ago

    My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump. These disgruntled Hillary suppporters are related by blood to me but like leftists everywhere, they put political ideology before family. Stalin would be proud. #Az04 #MAGA2018

  11. Cat

    You are not the one saying I will block you because you dare to discuss an issue. You put your point of view. Thats why I have not said you have thrown the toys out of the cot.

    We disagree on this issue but you at least argue the case to the point we have common ground.

    The interesting thing was I had finished posting on AS as I had made my points.
    You will note all the responses since then about AS have been about people whining that I responded at all to Rex’s posts.

    IF Labor gets derailed by one person engaging with logical arguments of why Labor is not being damaged by BOATS BOATS BOATS and is showing it today then it deserves to lose the election.

  12. Zoomster

    If you are still around, I was going through my recorded programs late last night to try and find something suitable to watch before retiring to bed. I was surprised to discover that I hadn’t quite finished watching Q & A from last Monday.

    Not sure if you would have seen it, but the last ten minutes of the program concerned precisely the kind of issue which you and I were debating a couple of days ago. That is, it canvassed the question as to whether there is too much emphasis on trying to shut people up these days, rather than giving them the chance to state their opinions on important issues and being prepared to debate them.

    It was a diverse and very impressive panel in the way they all contributed and the majority opinion was clearly that there IS too much emphasis on trying to shut debate down. David Marr was the one who surprised me the most with his support of that view. He is certainly no RWNJ (and neither were the rest of them).

    I have no desire to revisit the particular matter which you and I were discussing, but if you are genuinely interested in the broader issue that underlies it, I strongly recommend that you have a look at that program if you haven’t already done so.

  13. As we know, Rex is a troll. They are from the instamatic school of political sledging. Their main output is same/same pea-shooting. They are the cynics cynic.

    For mine, their non-stop politicisation of the miseries faced by asylum-seekers places them on the same footing as the LNP – as Abbott, Morrison, Molan and Dutton – ON, Anning, and the Gs. These figures profiteer from cruelty. Rex hopes to earn a few shillings for themselves from the same trade.

  14. briefly

    IF the trolling works its only because unlike the LNP Labor party supporters have a conscience.

    THATS something Labo party supporters should be proud of.

    It shows exactly why Rex is wrong to say Lib Lab same same.

  16. Time and tide: the Spring Equinox is about an hour away, 11:54 AM Eastern Australian time. Daylight hours will be longer than night for the next six months.

  17. For mine, their non-stop politicisation of the miseries faced by asylum-seekers places them on the same footing as the LNP – as Abbott, Morrison, Molan and Dutton – ON, Anning, and the Gs. These figures profiteer from cruelty. Rex hopes to earn a few shillings for themselves from the same trade.
    ______________________
    wow. and people say I insult others. god dam.

  21. Someone (I think it may have been zoidlord) posted this article a day or two ago …

    https://www.gmo.com/docs/default-source/research-and-commentary/strategies/asset-allocation/the-race-of-our-lives-revisited.pdf?sfvrsn=4

    The article is very well written, but quite long. So I have taken the liberty of extracting a summary which gives the flavour of the full article …

    It was always going to be difficult for us – Homo sapiens – to deal with the long-term, slow-burning problems that threaten us today: climate change, population growth, increasing environmental toxicity, and the impact of all these three on the future ability to feed the 11 billion people projected for 2100.

    …

    The Industrial Revolution was not really based on the steam engine – it was based on the coal that ran the steam engine. In a world without coal, we would have very quickly run through all our timber supplies, and we would have ended up with what I imagine as the great timber wars of the late 19th century. The demand for wood would have quickly denuded all of the great forests of the world, and we would have returned to where we were at the time of Malthus, living at the edge of our capability, enduring recurrent waves of famine along with every other creature on the planet. A few good years, the population expands; a few bad years, we die off.

    …

    This extraordinary advance meant that the ordinary middle class had the power that only kings had in the distant past. And what it did, this incredible gift of accumulated power from the sun over millions of years, was to create an enormous economic surplus that catapulted civilization forward in terms of culture and science. Above all, agriculture has benefited, allowing our population to surge forward.

    …

    The sting in this tale, however, is that this has left us with 7.5 billion people today, going on a predicted 11 or so billion by 2100. Such a large population can only be sustained by continued heavy, heavy use of energy. Fossil fuels will run out, destroy the planet, or do both. The only possible way to avoid this outcome is rapid and complete decarbonization of our economy. Needless to say, this will be an extremely difficult thing to pull off. It requires the best of our talents and innovation, which miraculously, it may be getting. It also needs much better than normal long-term planning and leadership, which it most decidedly is not getting yet. In theory, Homo sapiens can easily handle this problem; in practice, it will be a very closely run race. We should never underestimate technology but also never underestimate the ability of us humans to really mess it up

    …

    With climate change, there are two separate effects on agriculture. One is immediate: the increased droughts, the increased floods, and the increased temperature reduce quite measurably the productivity of a year’s harvest. Then there’s the long-term, permanent effect: the most dependable outcome of increased temperature is increased water vapor in the atmosphere, currently up over 4% from the old normal. This has led to a substantial increase in heavy downpours. It is precisely the heavy downpours that cause soil erosion. In regular rain, even heavy rain, farmers lose very little soil. It is the one or two great downpours every few years that cause the trouble. We’re losing perhaps 1% of our collective global soil a year. We are losing about a half a percent of our arable land a year. Fortunately, it is the least productive half a percent. It is calculated that there are only 30 to 70 good harvest years left, depending on your location. In 80 years, current agriculture will be simply infeasible for lack of good soil

    …

    Before we finish on farming, I’d like to touch on the global distribution of phosphate reserves. We cannot grow any living thing without potassium (potash) and phosphorus (phosphate). We mine these elements, which are very, very finite. We dig these essential fertilizers out and we scatter them in excess around our farms because they are cheap (where the heavy rains often carry them off and pollute the streams and rivers and the Gulf). 75% of all the high-grade phosphorus reserves in the world are in Morocco and Western Sahara (which Morocco controls). This share of reserves makes OPEC and Saudi Arabia look like absolute pikers, and phosphate is much more important even than oil. Phosphorus, the key ingredient in phosphate, is an element and cannot be made or substituted for. If ISIS takes over Morocco, I give you my second personal guarantee that within a week the military of China or the US or both will have intervened. We simply cannot manage for long under currently configured agriculture without Morocco’s reserves – perhaps 35 to 40 years.

    …

    The bad news is that although the renewables in green are surging, by 2050 over 50% of energy consumption is projected to still be driven by fossil fuels. What that means is even if fossil fuels were to peak in a couple of years, and I believe they certainly will peak by 2030 or 2035, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to rise and rise. Climate change will not have been stopped. It will barely be slowing down.

    …

    If we were able to look ahead 40 years, I’m confident that there would be a decent sufficiency of cheap green energy on the planet. In 80 years perhaps it’s likely we would have full decarbonization. Lack of green energy will not be the issue that brings us down. If only that were the end of the story. The truth is we’ve wasted 40 or 50 years since the basic fact about manmade serious climate damage became known. We’re moving so slowly that by the time we’ve fully decarbonized our economy, the world will have heated up by 2.5ºC to 3ºC, and a great deal of damage will have been done. A lot more will happen in the deeper future due to the inertia in the environmental system: if we no longer produce even a single carbon dioxide molecule, ice caps, for example, will melt over centuries and ocean levels will continue to rise by several feet.

    There is much, much more in the article. It ties together many of the threads we discuss here on PB. It is neither particularly optimistic nor pessimistic about the future, and is not political at all. It is basically an economic argument to investors about the rationale for divesting from various stocks, such as fossil fuels.

  23. Steve777 @ #2166 Sunday, September 23rd, 2018 – 10:53 am

    Time and tide: the Spring Equinox is about an hour away, 11:54 AM Eastern Australian time. Daylight hours will be longer than night for the next six months.

    Dammit, my Lilies have beaten the gun – popped their beady little eyes above ground early this week.
    Something like on stems about a metre tall. I should have about maybe 30 this year.

  24. Interesting idea – we could use something like that here and it would most likely get wide public support (instead of a Mineral Resources Rent Tax whose proceeds go in to consolidated revenue)
    The Land and Water Conservation Fund was originally authorized for 25 years and then extended another 25 years. When expiration loomed again in September 2015, Congress gave it a short three-year extension, which is now about to expire. If legislators fail to reauthorize the program before September 30, the fund will immediately run dry and will no longer be able to dole out money, which in recent years has averaged about $450 million annually.

    Proponents of the fund like to highlight that it does not rely on taxpayer dollars. Virtually all of the money for the fund comes from revenue generated by offshore oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf. A small fraction of the money comes from a tax on motorboat fuel and sales of surplus federal property.
    https://truthout.org/articles/is-the-united-states-about-to-lose-its-best-conservation-program/

  25. Zoidlord @ #2165 Sunday, September 23rd, 2018 – 10:53 am

    Doesn’t it make this like a idiot?

    How can you not do free speech:

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/you-protest-you-pay-education-minister-s-bid-to-bolster-free-speech-at-universities-20180921-p5057h.html

    The intended meaning of those statements is unclear.

    But yes, only allowing people with money to speak cannot possibly bolster free speech. At universities or anywhere else.

    It just strips speech away from the most powerless amongst us, and ensures that those with the most money will always be able to get their opinion heard. It entrenches existing power.

  27. a r says:
    Sunday, September 23, 2018 at 11:04 am

    ar, there are rights that are allied to free speech. I’m thinking in particular of the rights to free association and free assembly.

    These days they are being supplanted by another one – the right to troll. We have to figure out how to deal with trolls, who are ubiquitous. Fox/Murdoch is a full-time, world-wide trolling outfit. The Liberals and the UK Tories are richly populated with trolls.

  28. “instead of a Mineral Resources Rent Tax whose proceeds go in to consolidated revenue”

    First of all consolidated revenue pays pensions, funds schools and health etc, so deliberately keeping that low is how you get fraudulent robodebt systems and then the criminalisation of poverty through the travel ban, and cashless cards.

    Keeping things out of consolidated revenue might boost the particular area of focus it goes to instead but it weakens democracy, and often deliberately so.

    Resource rent taxes are brilliant in theory but hard in detail, we don’t have a whole lot of brilliant capacity left in the public service, which private industries exploit ruthlessly. The defeat of the MRRT was a loss of democracy to vested interests like the evil self promoter Forrest.

  29. @bugwannostra · 3h3 hours ago

    Nothing says thank you better than an imaginary trophy celebrating breaches of international human rights just ask the Prime Minister.
    I’m starting to like Roman Quaedvlieg’s whistleblowing mischief.

  30. Briefly

    Nath is right about the insulting part. Arguing for standing up for human rights is not trolling.

    Thus my responses on the issue.

    Not everyone is pro Labor on this site and can discuss issues without praising the Labor party.

    Thats not trolling thats not exploiting people for political gain. That ground lies entirely with the LNP defending the inhumane treatment of refugees. A policy that Labor opposes and has not been backwards in saying so especially recently as I pointed out in my posts.

    Try thinking of things without the Labor partisan blinkers on and maybe you won’t be so dogmatic in your put down of another poster.
    The most you can say of Rex and his politics is being a hypocrite for not damning the LNP for its policies on AS. Given the way he is attacking Labor for supporting the LNP I don’t think you can say Rex supports the LNP AS policy.

    So troll or not the intent is clear Rex opposes offshore detention. Full stop.

  31. WWP

    The Coalition has been patting itself on the back for “keeping welfare costs down”, as if we’d all agree that’s a good thing.

  34. “WWP
    The Coalition has been patting itself on the back for “keeping welfare costs down”, as if we’d all agree that’s a good thing.”

    Yeah I think the tide has turned, it is like an old trick that worked like a charm for decades, and still works in some echo chambers today, but whose time is clearly past. Like hating unions, the ‘union bad’ campaign worked so well for so long, but now if you want someone to try and make sure your employer doesn’t kill you at work, well who’ve you got?

  35. The New Yorker tweets

    The question for the Church now, given the astounding scale of the dysfunction, arching from the Americas to Europe, Africa, the Philippines, and Australia, is: What in Catholic culture caused this debauchery?  http://nyer.cm/8RvrvxB

  37. “keeping welfare costs down”

    Of course they claim that. It sounds much better than “Beating up the least powerful and poorest people in the land” 🙁

  40. Briefly

    Sorry I get why the Lib Lab same same argument is wrong and insulting to Labor supporters with conscience too. However I point out that is being used by refugee advocates as part of their case which is why I addressed the issue.

  41. Shee-it. Glady B can’t beat the Invisible Man in a head to head PP contest. And that’s even before Perrottet’s madness has got out into the wild.

    Feel a bit sorry for her actually. Bit of the old misogyny at play I’d say, and I don’t throw that accusation around easily. She’s no less competent than Baby Faced Baird (insofar as ‘competence’ has any meaning for a Liberal leader), and indeed had to clean up some of his messes such as forced Council amalgamations. As filth administrations go, this is the least appalling one anywhere in the nation this century. Not a great achievement of course, but compared to the degenerate dross usually dished up by the Libs this lot are almost human. And it’s not like Luke Foley is Mr Personality. I struggle to believe that a male Liberal Premier would be 50/50 PP even if they were a complete dope (as they almost certainly would be). Which really is fucked.

    Also the imbeciles in Canberra are having a real negative effect on her. I’m sure she would like nothing better for Christmas than a Federal election done and dusted long before March. She won’t get it of course unless the Loons under the Hill implode (which isn’t out of the question).

    And now her Deputy has lost his tiny mind and looks very likely to show up Gladys as nothing but a puppet reliant on loons. That’s if he doesn’t blow the entire thing up. If Perrottet can get the idea that it’s a good idea to knife another minister to get his hands on a 30% margin and the party endorses his insanity, then why wouldn’t Dom get the idea that it would be a good idea to just bump the woman off and take the leadership for himself? Polls like this won’t provide him any evidence against such stupidity.

    Here I was thinking we were just sleep walking to a rather boring NSW state election. Foley would get another swing and couple more seats, but not enough to take government nor save his own job after the election. Now the Libs federal fucktardery looks like it wants to break out in the state ranks and combine with their barely concealed borderline (and sometimes overt) corruption to bring themselves down. What a fucking rabble they are.

  42. For those that try and shut up people talking about AS an issue this just tweeted this minute is a typical example of the majority of posts I see on the issue and why I think Labor is not being damaged by the propaganda of the LNP on Boats.

    @Jieh_Yung Lo tweets

    On the issue of refugees and asylum seekers, I believe the majority of Australians are compassionate and empathetic. It’s a shame our elected representatives and decision makers do not reflect such sentiments. It’s time for real leadership and change #auspol #insiders

  43. Also this post from a Labor supporter (at least thats the impression I have gained over time if I am wrong)

    Why on earth did @ScottMorrisonMP lie about getting the “I stopped these” atrocity trophies from a member of his electorate, instead of just saying that the member of his electorate was him? That was an unforced error, now he just looks stupid and slippery. Life choices.

  44. Newspoll Prediction Update

    Mean: ALP 54.1 to 45.9 LNP
    Median: ALP 54 to 46 LNP
    Respondents: 10
    (Akubra, BK, imacca, Late Riser, Mari, Matt, Matt31, Puffytmd, steve davis, Socrates)

  46. BK, thank you for the “Hand of God” article on Morrison.

    The quote that sticks is, “…to note the Prime Ministers that have had the strongest relationship with churches – Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison – have displayed the least amount of generosity and religious spirit in their political deliberations…”

    I wonder if for people like Morrison and Abbott, the church, rather than any religion, gives them a metaphorical shield from detractors and a metaphorical drug to let them sleep at night.

    And in answer to, “What in Catholic culture caused this debauchery?”, perhaps the shield/drug combo is what draws some to the protection of the Catholic Church. Perhaps the Catholic Church does not so much cause but allow the debauchery. (And shame on it either way.)

  47. The Coalition does not boast about keeping down the cost of Defence, support for “private” schools, submarine contracts, tax concessions for property speculators or “Border protection” down, just the cost of stuff they don’t like.

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