BludgerTrack: 54.5-45.5 to Labor

A devastating Newspoll strips the Coalition of almost all of its poll trend gains from two improved results last week.

In the week that brought them the Victorian election result, Newspoll has taken from the Coalition what Ipsos and Essential Research gave the week before in BludgerTrack, with Labor up 0.6% on two-party preferred and making seat projection gains in Victoria and South Australia. I’m afraid I’ve been too preoccupied/lazy to update the leadership trends, but Newspoll is unlikely to have changed them much. 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.

3,307 comments on “BludgerTrack: 54.5-45.5 to Labor”

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  1. Quoll: ‘Ha, some ALP toerag…’

    Charming.

    However, in the interests of being fair and balanced, you won’t mind if I call you a Green snotrag then? 🙂

    But I won’t, because Labor are fair-minded people and we don’t have to stoop to such lows against our political foes. We let our superior policies, unity, candidates and organisational ability win the day for us.

  2. No wonder the ALP stooges on here are directing their animus against the Greens. With the ALP following the Coalition on the TPP, Migrant welfare cuts and the utter failure of an ALP ETS, deep down they know they are SAME/SAME.

  3. Boerwar @ #246 Thursday, November 29th, 2018 – 1:08 pm

    The interesting thing about GMO cotton is that it uses vastly less chemicals than the traditional cottons. GMO cotton also emits less CO2 because considerably less tillage is required. But GMOS are evil according to the Greens policy mavens.

    GMO or not, Australia should not be growing so much cotton. It’s lunacy – the same farmers who whinge about inadequate water for irrigation, are the very ones exporting our water hand over fist as cotton 🙁

  4. dtt

    As I have pointed out, the results locally suggest that at least half of the Green vote is still a protest one. Given somewhere else to lodge that vote, voters leave the Greens en masse.

  5. The Success of the PBO:

    https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2016/06/25/the-success-the-parliamentary-budget-office/14667768003408

    It was little noted in the media at the time, but in the four years since the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) began operation in July 2012, it has proved to be the greatest advance in fiscal accountability in many years, some say since the senate estimates committee system was set up in 1970. And it has dramatically changed the way election campaigns run.
    :::
    History would support such cynicism. All too often the major parties pay lip-service to measures that would increase accountability when they are in opposition, and then dump them once they get into government.

    And so it might have proved once more, but for the extraordinary result in the 2010 election. Labor needed the support of the Greens and independent members Rob Oakeshott, Andrew Wilkie and Tony Windsor to form government, and the Greens and independents were insistent on the establishment of a PBO.

  6. Quoll
    Just had a look at the Greens Innovations in Agriculture Policy.
    Duly costed.
    It says nothing about closing down the GMO cotton industry at all.
    What ARE the Greens trying to slip slide past the Australian public?

  7. Seems like some of these toerags are also obsessed about cotton buds or something

    Amazing considering that by the cotton industries own measure, cotton is one the most water expensive crops to grow anywhere in the world. Just behind rice.

    Those rabid radical greenies, eh, listening to the likes of the Wentworth Concerned Scientists and other ‘educated’ people’ who keep on carrying on about how we are destroying the inland water resources of Australia, mostly for corporate, often international, short term interests.

    https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/may/01/can-csiro-wwf-and-technology-fix-the-australian-cotton-industry

  8. zoomster @ #245 Thursday, November 29th, 2018 – 12:08 pm

    Andrews – quite deliberately, because I was annoyed with our HTV and tried to have it changed – ensured that the Greens were preferenced third on Labor HTVs where ever possible. The same appears to have happened this election.

    It doesn’t seem to have worked out too badly for Labor.

    Zoomster

    The problem with that aapoach by andrews is that he cannot complain if the greens next election do the same in return – supporting moderate independents ahead of ALP.

    Indeed this dilemma may be coming on very fast.

    What should the greens do say in Chisolm if Banks runs. She is good on many things greens want and they may not feel too inclined to help Labor after labor’s treatment this year.

    Ditto for nearly all the Independents – Phelps etc. It seems quite likely that in may seats we may see a four way contest. ALP/Green/new liberals/old liberals. Labor may well lose some winnable marginal seats to moderate liberals.

  9. @Quoll

    Actually there isn’t much information regarding Greens policies.

    Labor has similar policies on the website, if you care to bother go through them.

    Costings and all..

    Greens Party is the last party in the 2016 election to release their costings (this is why they are last on the website).

  10. ‘zoomster says:
    Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 1:13 pm

    dtt

    As I have pointed out, the results locally suggest that at least half of the Green vote is still a protest one. Given somewhere else to lodge that vote, voters leave the Greens en masse.’

    I suspect, without knowing it for sure, that you are right. When a well-respected local identity runs as Indie the Greens vote does seem to fizzle.
    It follows that when Di Natale assures Greens supporters that the Greens Party will form Government, Di Natale is not exactly romancing the truth.

  11. ‘Quoll says:
    Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 1:16 pm

    Seems like some of these toerags are also obsessed about cotton buds or something

    Amazing considering that by the cotton industries own measure, cotton is one the most water expensive crops to grow anywhere in the world. Just behind rice.’

    Goodness me, a Greens supporter who actually DOES policy. But again, we have a Greens who does not read the Greens policies.
    Try it, Quoll. You might find it entertaining.
    The Greens are NOT seeking to the destroy the Australian cotton industry because of its water costs.
    THAT IS NOT IN THE GREENS POLICY STATEMENT!

    The Greens are seeking to destroy the cotton industry because it is based on GMO cotton.
    BTW, if the Greens are going to stop wearing cotton clothes because cotton uses water, what ARE they going to wear?

  12. nath @ #34 Thursday, November 29th, 2018 – 1:12 pm

    No wonder the ALP stooges on here are directing their animus against the Greens. With the ALP following the Coalition on the TPP, Migrant welfare cuts and the utter failure of an ALP ETS, deep down they know they are SAME/SAME.

    Oh, now I get it! You’re a joke account.

    nathy, baby, run along now and tell your Green raggers that you win political arguments by behaving like adults, not by resorting to the social media equivalent of juvenile tongue-poking out.

    I mean, I could have gotten all indignant and shouty about the low blow at my son which you made last night in a typical snide swipe about the orchidectomy operation he is undergoing today, but I let it pass because you just can’t help yourself.

    Now, don’t say that you didn’t know, I have mentioned it before, but if you actually didn’t know then maybe you can learn from the fact that I didn’t race up your nose and go through you like a dose of salts and come out the other end still raging, like you did to me last night because I didn’t know that people half a world away and years later would get their knickers in a twist about a gif.

    It’s called being given the benefit of the doubt. Something you also don’t seem to know anything about.

  13. Quoll @ #256 Thursday, November 29th, 2018 – 1:16 pm

    https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/may/01/can-csiro-wwf-and-technology-fix-the-australian-cotton-industry

    The actual figures are just staggering …

    During the water-scarce season of 2014-15, cotton sales represented 1.7% of Australia’s agricultural commodity value but used 12.2% of its water. In the more favourable conditions of 2013-14, cotton generated 3.9% of agriculture profits but in the process devoured 24% of the water diverted to agriculture.

  14. Peg
    The failure of the PBO is that the Greens are pretending to cost their policies when they only cost some of their policies.
    This matters because they do not have a total budget.
    This matters because it allows them to make policies up with costings that are not anchored in a total budget framework.
    This matters because it enables the Greens to criticize Labor’s hard budgetary decisions.

  15. Has anyone seen the Greens costing for submarines and planes for the defence of Australia?

    Or are we going to use tinnies and bows and arrows?

  17. zoomster @ #253 Thursday, November 29th, 2018 – 12:13 pm

    dtt

    As I have pointed out, the results locally suggest that at least half of the Green vote is still a protest one. Given somewhere else to lodge that vote, voters leave the Greens en masse.

    Zoomster
    It may well be different in regional areas, but I have looked quite closely at other places and i think it really is no longer the case. Reason, AJ,Nxt etc are absorbing the protest vote (even Phon to an extent).

    Although yes i think we are agreeing. In the absence of any other alternative there is about 5% of “protesters”who will go Green. My point is that now there is such a plethora of other minor parties that this protest vote now rarely lands green and the actual greens voters are Green demographic not protest voters.

    The main qualification i make to that is to support the view that if Labor voters are angry with Labor they may swing Green but it is not really a place for centrist protest votes. Now i think there are some in the greens (inc De natale) who hope they can get conservative swing voters but does not seem to be working.

  18. DaretoTread @ #257 Thursday, November 29th, 2018 – 1:16 pm

    zoomster @ #245 Thursday, November 29th, 2018 – 12:08 pm

    Andrews – quite deliberately, because I was annoyed with our HTV and tried to have it changed – ensured that the Greens were preferenced third on Labor HTVs where ever possible. The same appears to have happened this election.

    It doesn’t seem to have worked out too badly for Labor.

    Zoomster

    The problem with that aapoach by andrews is that he cannot complain if the greens next election do the same in return – supporting moderate independents ahead of ALP.

    Indeed this dilemma may be coming on very fast.

    What should the greens do say in Chisolm if Banks runs. She is good on many things greens want and they may not feel too inclined to help Labor after labor’s treatment this year.

    Ditto for nearly all the Independents – Phelps etc. It seems quite likely that in may seats we may see a four way contest. ALP/Green/new liberals/old liberals. Labor may well lose some winnable marginal seats to moderate liberals.

    1. The Greens don’t control their preference flows. 80% of their voters preference Labor. We don’t need their management approval.

    2. With Banks in the field in a traditional blue ribbon Lib seat like Kooyong, Flinders or menzies, labor would probably run dead to assist her like they did in Wentworth. for Phelps.

    3. One of the advantages of having the Greens outside the Party is that labor does not have to put up with their endless sniping, virtue signalling and divisive behaviour.

  19. C@tmomma
    I mean, I could have gotten all indignant and shouty about the low blow at my son which you made last night in a typical snide swipe about the orchidectomy operation he is undergoing today
    _____________________________
    What the hell are you talking about? I have never mentioned your son.

  20. Maybe, when the Greens have finished off all the cotton crops we could go back to Koala Skin Cloaks?
    After all, there must be some sort of responsibility for the Greens to deal with the consequences of their policies.
    Or maybe back to the naked ape?

  21. Quoll

    The misallocation of water (aka stealing) from the MDB by large entities should not be allowed, no matter what the water is used for.

  23. zoomster @ #252 Thursday, November 29th, 2018 – 9:13 am

    dtt

    As I have pointed out, the results locally suggest that at least half of the Green vote is still a protest one. Given somewhere else to lodge that vote, voters leave the Greens en masse.

    Interesting observation!

    I just looked at Indi and in 2010 the Green primary was 9.45% and this dropped to 3.42% in 2013 and rebounded up to 3.82% in 2016 with McGowan standing. 🙂

  24. Hanson and Labor agree on the bastardisation of migrants:

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/29/labor-does-deal-with-coalition-to-force-migrants-to-wait-four-years-for-welfare

    “It is a Trump-esque punishment of migrants in this country that Labor has stitched up with the Liberal party so they can get a few budget savings in before they take government next year,” McKim said.

    Labor claims it took the “rough edges” off a bill to save it from being left to One Nation to negotiate.

    But with independents Tim Storer and Derryn Hinch and Centre Alliance’s two senators opposed, Labor could have teamed up with the Greens to block the legislation.
    ::::
    The One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, said she was proud of Labor’s support for the measures.

    She believes migrants who choose to come to Australia should make sure they can provide for themselves because they have given nothing to the country.

    “We are seeing the fools of the world come on down to treasure island – that’s what Australia’s all about,” Hanson said.

    Labor dog-whistling to the Hasonites and Labor-leaning Hasonites about dole bludging free-loading migrants.

  26. ‘steve davis says:
    Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 1:24 pm

    I find the Greens are more of a reactionary party on policy than actually having any of their own.’

    It is well worth going to the Greens online policy site. You just need to remember a couple of things. Most of the Greens policies avoid saying anything at all about the economic consequences of the decisions.
    So the uranium policy does not mandate closing down Olympic Dam. The policy mandates closing all uranium mining.
    Similarly, the genetics policy does not mandate stopping 500,000 hectares of cotton growing. It mandates removing all GMOs from the environment.
    The defence policy does not mandate shutting down the ADF. There simply is no money in the Greens budget for the ADF.
    The nuclear policy states that facilities that enable deployment of nuclear weapons will be shut. But there are literally dozens of Australian facilities which fit the bill. The Greens are totally silent on which facilities will be shut down.
    So the Greens are quite devious. So tricky that most Greens supporters are clueless about the implications of their own policies.

    https://greens.org.au/policy

  28. Strangely, this story seems to be absent from Murdoch media:

    News Corp Australia has launched an investigation into its own staff to find the source of the leak of sensitive personal salary and redundancy details of senior staff, according to a second embarrassing leak in as many days.

    The Herald revealed on Wednesday that a staff member had, by accident, widely emailed sensitive personal details of pay and redundancy provisions of senior staff members, including the $357,000 salary of The Australian’s prominent economics columnist Judith Sloan.

    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/business/companies/news-corp-launches-probe-into-staff-over-redundancy-and-salary-leak-20181129-p50j2a.html

  31. Rob
    Vernon, B.C.Nov. 28
    Times Pick
    All past civilizations rose, peaked and then fell precipitously. They cut the last trees down on Easter Island with full knowledge that there were no more. The insatiable need of the wealthy to have more, to dominate, to maintain their status, it dooms every society. It is hubris to think we are different. The Trumps of the world will scurry for the last vestiges of profit as the planet descends into flames, all the while secure in the knowledge that they are winners.

  34. Well, one myth has certainly been put to bed. The Greens raggers are NOT about ‘Peace, Love and Mung Beans’! They are quite the aggro little bunch. But then they have been taken over by the Socialist Alliance. The Left Wing equivalent of Gavin McInnes. 🙂

  35. Yes, look how well the tens of billions spent on submarines have served us over the past thirty years.

    Remember the Battle of Bass Strait in 2004! Thank goodness we had half a dozen shitty subs! Or as the U.S Navy called them because they were so loud ‘underwater rock bands’.

  38. Oh look, poor little Nath making the usual poor little whinge about how awful Labor is, and how only the smelly Greens can be trusted. LOL! It must be a day ending in “y”~but while we’re on the topic of insufferable hypocrites, I wonder if Nath has had the time to review the recent findings on au-pairs suffering endemic abuse, wage-theft and fraud from unscrup bosses? It’s a topic Tricky Dicky Di Natale is very familiar with, I’m sure!

  40. Come on. Back to the real world.
    Defence spending is a favourite back-of-the-envelope budget balancer for the Greens.
    Never going to happen.

    Costing select policies without an overall budget framework, also useless.
    The only use they would ever see is if Labor decided to adapt one.

    And here is the crux of it. The Greens are at best, left-wing, school-holiday interns working at a little known and little regarded Labor think tank. By their own admission.

  41. As for the Australian Navy, all we need is a few patrol boats and a handful of strong swimmers.

    Why should we continue to spend money so that a few of us can play dress ups and go on overseas camps with the Americans.

  42. Amy gives a language lesson! 🙂

    Josh Frydenberg has sat down with Michelle Grattan at the Conversation

    He talks about the surplus budget the Morrison government has previewed. He won’t talk about how big the surplus is though. Again, it’s worth pointing out that this is a surplus budget, not a budget surplus – the difference being while there will be money left over, largely from increased revenues, when the accounts are all done up for this budget, there is still an overall deficit (the debt)

  43. Migrants who the majority are wealthy or come here because of work anyway, Greens are too dumb to understand that crying with outrage that not being able to get welfare for a few years is not going to be a winner for them, the majority of the electorate will not have any sympathy for them.

    Labor figured that out a long time ago, the government has been able to get away with having children stuck on islands for many years, wake up Greens, majority don’t give a crap if a migrants can’t get welfare straight away, time to get out of your little bubbles and actually choose your targets wisely such as the children being stuck on nauru and manus..

  44. Phew! After reading about cotton I was worried there for a minute …

    https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/may/01/can-csiro-wwf-and-technology-fix-the-australian-cotton-industry

    But it’s all good! Our valuable cotton industry will be safe from the ravages of water scarcity caused by climate change …

    Kay says the industry has left no stone unturned in its quest for water savings and improved yield. … He says Cotton Australia’s investment of $20m a year into research and development can also help deal with the biggest new challenge of all: climate change.

    “We have research and development projects going on looking at impacts – tents out in the field to see what higher CO2 does to the crop, work on water use efficiency for potential scarcity in the future, and managing increased temperature,” he says.

    Of course, the environment might not be faring so well … but hey – you can’t have everything …

    Cotton Australia’s chief executive, Adam Kay, says asking growers to pass the dividends of improved efficiencies on to the environment is “a ridiculous thing to say” given it is farmers making the investments in the first place.

    This is what is commonly known as farming according to the FUJ policy.

  45. The Greens savings on closing Olympic Dam
    Saving the labor force working
    Company/s paying Tax
    No one paying super
    Travelling and shipping costs

    You know it makes sense!

  47. Whenever Labor does a deal with the Coalition it’s always righteous and perfectly acceptable.

    It’s always “common sense”, “pragmatic” and “realistic” to screw vulnerable, marginalised and demonised minorities.

    All for reasons of a budget-saving measure.

    Labor’s support is even more reprehensible when it is in a position with cross-benchers to block such measures.

    Labor supports such measures purely for political reasons to dog-whistle to Hansonites and Labor-leaning Hansonites about those dole-bludging migrants sucking on the teat of the public purse.

    Congratulations and kudos to Labor on its ‘pragmatism’.

  49. @Peg

    “It’s always “common sense”, “pragmatic” and “realistic” to screw vulnerable, marginalised and demonised minorities.”

    Complete bullshit.

  50. Any budget surplus will be built on smoke and mirrors. Morrison has been preloading the debt so it won’t appear in the budget. Don’t forget 1/2 billion dollars that had to be paid out before the end of the financial year to a bunch of corporates to save the reef.

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