BludgerTrack: 54.0-46.0 to Labor

The trendlines turn back slightly in the Coalition’s favour on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, without lifting them out of landslide defeat territory.

New polls this week from Newspoll and Essential Research have moderated the post-coup surge to Labor on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, on which Labor’s two-party lead has narrowed from 54.9-45.1 to 54.0-46.0. This results in a gain of three seats for the Coalition on the seat projection, with New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland furnishing one seat apiece. We’re approaching the point where I will have enough Morrison-era leadership ratings data to resume tracking those measures again, but for the time being it’s still in limbo. 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.

1,490 comments on “BludgerTrack: 54.0-46.0 to Labor”

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  1. Statement from President @realDonaldTrump:
    “I’ve ordered the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh’s file. As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week.”

    Sounds just like Turnbull/Morrison ordering the banking RC which they didn’t want – must be limited in scope and completed quickly.

    Trump and Morrison are birds of a feather.

  2. doyley: “why not allocate the funds directly to the CSIRO and or the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority if concerns were in the mix re COAG issues”

    I’m no expert on this stuff, but I think that the Authority is a Commonwealth Government agency (or perhaps a joint Queensland and Commonwealth agency) and therefore the money wouldn’t have been taken off-budget in the way the Government allegedly wanted it to be.

    Re CSIRO: it’s either a Commonwealth agency or perhaps a private company owned by the government (like Qantas used to be), I’m not exactly sure which. But, as I understand it, the money was meant to be spent on repairing the reef. Perhaps that isn’t the sort of stuff CSIRO does: doesn’t it mainly conduct research?

    That’s the best I can do, I’m afraid.

  4. Roger Miller says:
    Saturday, September 29, 2018 at 9:05 am

    Probably easier to assume that Josh is lying every time he opens his mouth.

    __________________________________
    That’s the way I feel about Bill Shorten.

  5. meher:

    I don’t think it’s gullibility to expect that writing to someone in confidence would ensure confidentiality. The same thing happened to the woman in WA who complained about Barnaby. Because both women’s identities were leaked does not lessen the credibility of their allegations.

  6. The 444 million all being paid before June 30 was all about making the deficit look better in future years. In the end it makes no difference at all to Australia’s debt. In that way it was Morrison’s smoke and mirrors and they had to find an organisation to take the cash right away. I’m not sure that an organisation set up to actually fund research would like to do that for its own governance.

  7. Socrates: “Finally, despite the rage and denial, he never called Ford a liar. If she was lying, and his career is on the line, he would have called her on it. He didn’t call her a liar, because he knew she wasn’t lying.”

    That would have been an incredibly silly move to make against a witness who had come across in her testimony as a very likeable and sincere person. The right approach to take, which Kavanaugh basically did, was to run the line that a) she is quite possibly sincere, but her memory might be faulty as it was 36 years ago; and b) she is the unwitting puppet of other people with an axe to grind.

    Unless some major flaw could be found in Blasey Ford’s testimony (eg, that the party could be proven to have occurred, but that Kavanaugh couldn’t possibly have been there because he was on an interstate school trip or some such), then attacking those behind her rather than the lady herself directly was the only way to go.

  9. MB
    You point out the logic in Kavanaugh’s testimony but that is kind of my point. The whole thing was scripted to a plan and the emotion was fake.

  10. Confessions

    “I don’t think it’s gullibility to expect that writing to someone in confidence would ensure confidentiality. The same thing happened to the woman in WA who complained about Barnaby. ”

    And the same thing happened to people involved in the Emma Husar investigation.

    Blasey Ford was gullible because politics is, and has always been, a world filled with people who will use anything they can get their hands on to gain an edge on their opponents. It’s why it’s incredibly stupid to allow the political parties themselves, rather than public servants, investigate accusations of bad behaviour by elected politicians.

    I think she was rather naively hoping that, if she told a newspaper and a congresswoman about the incident, they’d be able to go out immediately and find a whole lot of other evidence about it or about other bad things Kavanaugh might have done, and she would be able to keep out of it entirely. Which might have been fine if the accusations had been about him being corrupt or going to male bathhouses or having a gambling problem or something that a private detective could look into. But an accusation of attempted rape with only one other person – a friend of the accused – in the room was always going to need a victim to come forward.

    The I don’t think the lady accusing Joyce was gullible. I think she had feared that a leak would occur. So I reckon she was just plain brave.

    “Because both women’s identities were leaked does not lessen the credibility of their allegations.”

    I totally agree with you.

  11. Kavanaugh also went very political; dragging in the Clinton’s and the Democratic Party. Not a good look for someone who would sit on the Supreme Court and be (supposedly, as the founders envisioned it as being) non-political.
    It looked as though he would have real difficulty with rational & logical discussions with all the other ‘Supremes’.

  12. The failure to follow and enforce existing rules

    I repeat this summary statement by Hayne

    Because from there questions need to be asked

    The response of the pm is that he made a mistake by focussing on legislation to fix the problems in the banking industry – in his then position as treasurer

    But in concluding that there was a failure to follow and enforce existing rules Hayne comments that further regulation is not the requirement

    What we (finally) see is a failure to follow and enforce existing rules by the banking industry, an industry central to the good order of society by the discharge of its responsibility to the Nation and its citizens

    As Hayne notes we all have a bank account

    In regards working for a bank, when Groups were transferred to my set of accounts, I would attend a consolidation netting out the inter company loans to ensure the full description of the Group was known

    I would then go back at least 5 years for the purposes of attending a funds movement summary

    What I wanted to know as the fundamental was that the ownership of the business was not being transitioned from the Shareholders to external creditors including the bank

    That Capital and Reserves were moving in tandem with the supports of external creditors – and that there was growth on this basis

    If it was the case that the interests of the Shareholders was being divested to the interests of the external creditors, so the performance of the Group saw those external creditors including the bank assuming greater ownership of the consolidated Balance Sheet, then that trend was not sustainable including because a bank banked a business and did not run that business because the business was owned and being increasingly owned by the bank

    And lending covenants were introduced in regards Balance Sheet ratios and, fundamentally, liquid asset ratios because the measure of solvency was and is the ability to meet your dues as and when they are due

    There were, of course, strained relationships courtesy of the presentation of the bankers view of the business, but on the assessment the bankers view could not be debated

    The resulting summary and the introduction of the covenants including Negative Pledges to ensure funds were not being otherwise sourced saw appointments made – as it saw recoveries

    Also identified were Companies extracting a cash to cash liquidity by way of the run down of inventories and trade debtors – so the operation of the bank account was not indicative – and that resulted in appointments because such a scenario was terminal

    I have seen no confirmation that the prudent management criteria which should be a fundamental of banking has been presented to Hayne

    Banking is a risk industry

    It has been very poorly managed including because the human resource has not been educated to its function

    The conversation was “deals” not a banker/customer relationship founded on the fundamental of the banker being a banker to the business and contributing to the success of that business – with the emphasis being on contributing

    The banker/customer relationship commences with intent

    To confirm intent you have to have an objective and an understanding of and a commitment to that objective

  13. So allocation of 1/2B$ to a private foundation of their mates was at the current PM’s behest??

    And all actually based on some accounting trick so their “surplus” looks better??

    Suspect people don’t really like the financial smart-arse look…particularly with the Banking RC interim report having just dropped. Kind of thing that you wonder what our KK will make of it?? 🙂

  14. “In that way it was Morrison’s smoke and mirrors and they had to find an organisation to take the cash right away.”

    Yup. 🙂 And the PM has to answer for that. Not a good look him behaving like a Bankster Wot??

  16. Thanks BK

    And the winner is ……………..

    Today’s nomination for “Arsehole of the Week”.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/gruesome-details-revealed-into-how-mother-and-daughter-died-at-the-hands-of-daniel-holdom-20180928-p506qv.html

    Some more or less random stuff from the good old days when the Brides in the Bath murders, seen through the time reverse telescope, seem like what if that’s as good as it gets moments.

    http://www.notablebritishtrials.co.uk/about.html

    Notable British Trials and War Crimes Trials
    https://www.wildy.com/id/147651/notable-british-trials-and-war-crimes-trials-pamphlet-48-pages-william-hodge-and-company-limited

    Husband guilty of body-in-suitcase murder
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/8497980.stm

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Joseph_Smith
    George Joseph Smith (11 January 1872 – 13 August 1915) was an English serial killer and bigamist. In 1915, he was convicted and subsequently hanged for the slayings of three women, the case becoming known as the Brides in the Bath Murders. As well as being widely reported in the media, the case was significant in the history of forensic pathology and detection. It was also one of the first cases in which similarities between connected crimes were used to prove deliberation, a

  17. Well, Marriott has made it clear that she was totally shocked that her complaints against Joyce were leaked, and it seems highly probable that she would not have made these complaints if she thought there was any chance of the information becoming public.

    It’s actually a bit sad that we tar people as ‘naive’ when they act in the expectation that proper processes will be followed. If Ford confided in a journalist and a congressperson, she had every reason to expect the information remain confidential – both professions rely on people being able to share confidential information with them.

  18. I think she was rather naively hoping that, if she told a newspaper and a congresswoman about the incident, they’d be able to go out immediately and find a whole lot of other evidence about it or about other bad things Kavanaugh might have done, and she would be able to keep out of it entirely.

    I think that’s true, but I do not think an expectation of anonymity is unreasonable. What it does suggest to me is that she knew instinctively that other women in the same situation would be easily found, such was the frequency and commonplace-ness of attacks by Kavanaugh and his mates back then.

  19. They wanted Dr Ford to appear in person. They haggled over the sequence. She did. She answered every question openly. How did she fail in any way? Was there ever to be any other outcome, or was it just for show?

    She said unequivocally that it was Kavanaugh who tried to rape her. 100%.

    In his (heroic!!!!) response he hysterically denied the charge. Of course he would.

    So one of them is lying. Charitably, or honestly cannot remember what happened. This most likely would be the young, drunken, boy out of the two of them.

    Ramming this through now just so Trump can crow over another “achievement “, when there is otherwise no rush, is what would be the disgrace in all of this.

  21. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/29/australia-spent-320000-fighting-requests-for-urgent-medical-transfers-of-asylum-seekers

    The federal government spent more than $320,000 in legal costs last financial year on challenging requests for urgent medical transfers of asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Manus Island.
    ::::
    It does not appear any transfer applications to the court have been dismissed, and many more are expected to be lodged amid a worsening physical and mental health crisis on the island.
    ::::
    On Thursday the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and the Australian Medical Students Association joined the #doctorsforasylum campaign.
    ::::
    More than 180 charities and organisations, including World Vision, the Australian Council for International Development, the Refugee Council of Australia and the Australian Lawyers Alliance, are now petitioning the government, giving it until 20 November – Universal Children’s Day – to have families transferred to Australia or another safe third country.

  23. Pegasus @ #72 Saturday, September 29th, 2018 – 9:44 am

    Senate inquiry into lowering the voting age:

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/29/lowering-australias-voting-age-would-give-voice-to-youth-but-risks-politicising-them-senators-told

    Introduced by Greens senator Jordan Steele-John in June, the bill proposes voluntary voting rights for those aged 16 and 17, as well as allowing for electoral enrolment at polling places on election day.
    :::
    The final report is due in December.

    So the Greens think they can at least convince 16 year olds to vote for them?

  25. Pegasus @ #72 Saturday, September 29th, 2018 – 6:44 am

    Senate inquiry into lowering the voting age:

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/29/lowering-australias-voting-age-would-give-voice-to-youth-but-risks-politicising-them-senators-told

    Introduced by Greens senator Jordan Steele-John in June, the bill proposes voluntary voting rights for those aged 16 and 17, as well as allowing for electoral enrolment at polling places on election day.
    :::
    The final report is due in December.

    These seem like good and rational steps.

    I especially like the ability to enrol at polling places, but I would take out the election day condition.

    With pre-polling becoming more prevalent there is no reason you wouldn’t allow someone to enrol at a pre-poll both. 🙂

  28. I note a commenter on the Guardian Australia’s site compared the SCOTUS nominee carrying on in front of the senate committee with that South African athlete carrying on in the court room whose sentence for shooting his GF/ wife got upped on appeal ….

  29. P1

    As Jordon Steele-John said

    The Young Liberals accused the bill of being an “ill-designed and poorly masked attempt by the Australian Greens to increase their vote share” in a submission Steele-John labelled “as close to a troll submission as you could possibly get”.

  30. P1

    “We can definitely make uninformed votes,” Wren Gillett, a 16-year-old member of the Victorian Student Representative Council, told the hearing. “But I would also then say that I think that is the reality for everyone who is casting a vote.”

  31. meher baba @ #34 Saturday, September 29th, 2018 – 8:13 am

    Nor am I trying to impugn Blasey Ford

    Sorry, but this is exactly what you do by speaking as if there remains any reason why Kavanaugh should stay as a Supreme Court nominee. Two people went before Congress and under threat of perjury said completely opposite things.

    One account must be wrong. So you either accept Kavanaugh’s defense and in so doing brand Ford a liar and a perjurer, or you accept Ford’s testimony and in so doing brand Kavanaugh a liar, a perjurer, and an attempted rapist.

    The most charitable view can be taken towards Kavanaugh without impugning Ford is that he was simply so drunk that he honestly cannot remember the incident in question. Which would save him from being a liar and a perjurer, but not from the third thing.

    But what standard of proof are we looking at here? Certainly not beyond reasonable doubt, and perhaps not even balance of probabilities.

    This is a job interview, for one of the highest, most powerful public offices in the land. And appointments last for life. It’s not a criminal trial. Kavanaugh is not facing jail time, or any penalty more adverse than “you don’t get to be on the Supreme Court”. Which is something that pretty much all of us have to live with, every day for our entire lives.

    So no, we’re definitely not looking for “beyond a reasonable doubt”. I’d argue there’s a good case to be made that we’ve already reached “on the balance of probabilities”, but really that’s still way more than what’s needed. If you’re doing a job interview and your interviewer has even an inkling of suspicion that something’s not right, you can kiss that job goodbye.

    So I’d say the standard here is that if there’s adequate evidence to generate any amount of doubt whatsoever in the mind of a reasonable observer, that’s evidence enough. The fact that Republicans have delayed the vote for a week and called the FBI in to investigate their own candidate (as should have been done in the first place!!!) shows that we’re well and truly past that point and Kavanaugh’s nomination should be withdrawn.

    Anyhow, quite pleasantly surprised. I was sure I was going to wake up this morning to stories of Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Instead we’ve got a week of delay and an (albeit brief and nobbled) FBI investigation. Not quite a victory for the forces of good, but not an outright defeat either.

    I hope the FBI say “the only way we can hope to complete this investigation in a week is by giving Kavanaugh a polygraph test”. And that Kavanaugh consents to one.

    And somehow Rosenstein seems to have managed to stick around. Hopefully he did that by threatening to nuke Trump with everything the FBI already knows about his criminal past if Trump touches him or tries to go anywhere near Mueller.

  33. Pegasus @ #80 Saturday, September 29th, 2018 – 10:07 am

    “We can definitely make uninformed votes,” Wren Gillett, a 16-year-old member of the Victorian Student Representative Council, told the hearing. “But I would also then say that I think that is the reality for everyone who is casting a vote.”

    The difference is that a 16 year old has far less rational thinking ability than an 18 year old, and also far less life experience. So you are adding a pool of voters to the electorate that are far more likely to make uninformed decisions.

    What could possibly go wrong?

  34. P1

    What’s Shorten and Labor’s current position on lowering the voting age?

    In 2015:

    Labor promises to lower voting age to 16 or 17 if it wins next election

    Bill Shorten says the move could re-engage young people with politics and if they are young enough to join the military or drive, they should be able to vote

  35. The difference is that a 16 year old has far less rational thinking ability than an 18 year old, and also far less life experience.

    How much rational thinking ability does it really require to decide which of two options is worse? Not that much, I’d think.

  38. Pegasus @ #84 Saturday, September 29th, 2018 – 10:15 am

    P1

    What’s Shorten and Labor’s current position on lowering the voting age?

    In 2015:

    Labor promises to lower voting age to 16 or 17 if it wins next election

    Bill Shorten says the move could re-engage young people with politics and if they are young enough to join the military or drive, they should be able to vote

    I would disagree with it whoever introduced it. It is clearly self-serving.

  40. @P1

    Don’t you think that young voters should be heard? I know my niece is working part time at KFC right now and could use some protection from Liberals and fascists.

  45. Player One

    16 and 17 year olds can earn money and pay taxes.

    There is no evidence that 16 year olds are more stupid than homo sapiens of any other age.

    If you argue for a test of capacity before the right to vote it can hardly be based on an irrelevancy like age.

    A number of countries have already extended the franchise to 16 or 17 year olds.

  48. I’ve always felt voluntary voting between 14 and 18. Would encourage teenagers to take an interest in politics. Could tie it in with a civics class in Year 8. Those really interested already would have a voice.

  49. Diogenes @ #93 Saturday, September 29th, 2018 – 10:23 am

    ar
    Kavanaugh wont agree to an FBI polygraph test. I bet anything hes already taken one organised by his lawyers and didnt do well.

    At the end of the day, Ford needs corroborating evidence to verify her version of the events. Polygraph tests are known to be unreliable and can’t be used as evidence. Knowing/believing /wanting something to be a crime is not the same being able to prove a crime has occurred.

  50. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/07/voting-irrational-emotions-politics-ideology

    When we talk about politics, we tend to pretend that voting is ultimately a rational choice.
    ::::
    In recent years, however, a growing body of evidence has shown that our political behaviour is governed more by emotions and less by rationality.
    :::
    Ideology too is mostly about emotions and hardly at all about rationality. Imagine a world in which ideology was ruled by rationality without any biases. In such a world there would be little room for political debate among intelligent people. If we were all exposed to the same facts we would end up reaching the same conclusions. We would still need parties and elections since our interests are not identical. But we would never remain split over questions such as which economic policy would benefit most British people, or which policy would be most effective for tackling terrorism.

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