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”

Comments Page 7 of 67
1 6 7 8 67
  1. Funny how things are timed to be reported upon

    ______
    Natasha Bertrand
    Natasha Bertrand
    @NatashaBertrand
    ·
    3h
    NEW from me and
    @ScottMStedman
    : George Papadopoulos allegedly told a confidant in 2016 that he was pursuing a business deal in Russia that would result “in large financial gains” for him and Trump. The House Intel Committee and FBI are now investigating.

    Papadopoulos’s Russia Ties Continue to Intrigue
    theatlantic.com

  2. The ALP stooges have become a little bit overheated ever since they realised that Shorten wasn’t going to bring in an ETS. Suddenly they realise that SAME/SAME is pretty accurate.

  3. Actually, I’d go for keeping the air force and the navy and getting rid of the army.

    We need to stop potential enemies getting here. Once they’re here, we’d probably be cactus anyway.

  4. Our Armed Forces are not in the business of defending Australia. There is no need for that. It’s just an arm of our Foreign Policy, or to be more accurate, a chance for Australian macho’s to talk tough and think they are the USA.

  5. With a votership under 10% the Greens don’t need to be pragmatic. They can be as culty as they like because they never will govern for a majority of Australians.

    What gets irritating is the constant sanctimonious drivel that their minority status allows. It belies reality and in this regard puts them in same naive camp as One Nation.
    I actually have more sympathy for the dim & ignorant One Nation supporters than the supposedly educated Greens…

  6. I’m not buying into the argument (I have a living to earn) but the expression is “tow rag”, not “toe rag”.
    Tow is a rough cloth like material often used to clean up grease, oil etc in engineering workshops and the like.
    A toe rag is more likely to be a bandage applied after some party has endured a good kicking.

  7. Well I was talking about Australian politicians not members of the ADF Zoidlord. I have relatives who have served as well. In fact my great uncle won a DSC for strangling 5 Japanese soldiers with his bare hands in PNG.

  8. Any Greens voter who does not preference Labor above the Coalition and right-leaning minor parties and independents, is an idiot.

    Any Labor voter who does not preference the Greens above the Coalition and right-leaning minor parties and independents, is an idiot.

    That is all I have to add to the interminable debates over Labor and Greens political strategies towards each other.

    Debates over policy disagreements are another matter, though. I have yet to hear the Greens explain how they will shepherd carbon emissions reduction measures through Parliament without cooperation from Labor, or what substantive concessions they will make to secure this. I have yet to hear anyone from Labor justify the “common sense” of excluding migrants from Newstart for four years, either.

  9. What a cretin Kelly is. The night before last all the commentators on Sky News After Dark suffered apoplexy over Banks’ decision to defect to the cross-bench. Yet last night, not a mention of their pin-up boy’s similar threat. Credlin, Bolt, Murray, Rowan (their panelists), time and time again extol the virtues of this reactionary, who has the temerity to wear a tea-shirt with Pig Iron Bob on the front of it. Kelly will be no loss to the Parliament – good riddance!

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/craig-kelly-denies-imminent-crossbench-move-as-labor-overturns-parliamentary-calendar-20181129-p50j1v.html

  10. Zeh,
    Only in a country as wealthy and supportive as Australia could a noisy minority of Greens supporters spend so much time on PB arguing the Utopian toss!

  11. Urban Wronski

    @UrbanWronski
    3m3 minutes ago

    Morrison in #QT appears to believe his own spin that he initiated the Royal Commission into banking – when the record shows he is part of a govt which fought tooth and nail against what he called “a populist stunt” – that he voted 26 times against a RC.

  12. New Zealand has gotten away with a defence policy that means it spends only a third per capita on defence than what Australia does. We’re Australia to adopt the same policy that would equate to a Defence Budget somewhere in the order of $12 billion per annum and a cost saving of over $20 billion per annum to the federal budget.

    It is arguable that by disengaging from ANZUS NZ has made itself a smaller target for hostile threats than Australia’s ‘all the way with the USA’ approach which sees both the coalition and Labor committed to a 2% of GNP benchmark for Defence spending.

    I think there is a very contestable debate to be had over ‘small target’, vs ‘big Defence’ spend deterrrance. Especially given the increasing political and diplomatic unreliability of our major security partner America post the 2016 Presidential Election and the determination of the current Administration to have a trade war and diplomatic Cold War with our main trading partner, China. On one view, were Australia to disengage – even ever so slightly – from the American alliance we would actually need to increase Defence spending to the 3 to 4% of GNP range to adequately protect our strategic position (spanning as it does an entire continent and three of the six main Oceans of the world).

    On the other hand it could be argued that the small target approach is worth the risk. At the moment it is my view that the small target approach is not worth the risk; australia’s assets and strategic interests are different and massively larger than NZ.

    However, we do need to temper our relationship with America. Picking unnecessary and stupid fights with China is certainly not in our strategic interests. The flow-on implications of that with respect to defence spending are probably two fold: more money and more partnerships with European Defence contractors than American ones.

    While Labor can sneer at the Greens approach to defence policy, at least the Greens have a position consistent with their general small target approach to defence. On the other hand, I don’t think either Labor or the Coalition have fully grasped the implications of the Shitgibbon in the Whitehouse’s approach to China. …

  13. Mavis Smith

    “….has the temerity to wear a tea-shirt with Pig Iron Bob on the front of it.”

    ———-

    The temerity of a Liberal, because Pig Iron Bob has now become the founder of the modern Labor Party.

    Don’t tell me that Billy Shorten is angling to become Lord Wardern of the Cinque Ports!!

  14. Player One:

    [‘Makes you wonder how many prisoners have been “accidentally” released?’]

    Probably not many as to be discharged from prison, there’s a thorough dischare routine – not to imply I’ve personally been in the slammer.

    I would add that if I were representing Mr. Brown, I’d seek on his behalf an early release. I mean to say, he fronted court twice to be sentenced for murder, where he may’ve been in the slammer for a only a minor offence.

  15. A-E
    New Zealand’s defence policy is to rely on Australia to defend New Zealand.
    The Australian Greens defence policy is to rely on New Zealand to defend Australia.

  16. The Coalition invariably drops “strong economy” into every question and most replies.

    Would Oz have a strong economy whoever was in charge, or is it, as Coal would have us believe, only possible when they rule the roost?

  17. Nah Boer. Between 1985 and 9-11 2001, NZ Defence policy is based on limiting entanglement in Geopolitical issues outside the South Pacific. It relies upon the physical existence of Australia as a buffer from other threats. Post 9-11 that policy has eroded to a small degree given NZ’s involvement in Afghanistan and also its alignment to Australia’s Amphibious warefare capbilities, but the core doctrine remains.

  18. Boerwar

    NZ policy works on the sensible notion that if NZ was in serious danger of attack/invasion there would be virtually a world war on the go. In which case a NZ armed to the teeth would make SFA difference.

  19. The irony being that the only nation that could threaten/invade Australia is the USA. Yet we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars over previous decades for a non-existent reason.

  20. Amy Remeikis has obviously had enough of QT today!
    “I’m really beginning to doubt if anyone other than the poor Hansard reporters are conscious down there in the chamber.
    There are more eyes on the floor then a classroom full of students confronted over who drew the penis on the whiteboard.”

  21. I was on a ferry off Auckland last year and a fellow passenger, a New Zealander, asked me, ‘Do you want to see the New Zealand Navy?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘There it is,’ he said, pointing at two frigates.
    Then he asked me, ‘Do you want to see the New Zealand Air Force?
    ‘There is it is!’ he laughed.
    He pointed to a seagull.

  22. swamprat:

    [‘The temerity of a Liberal, because Pig Iron Bob has now become the founder of the modern Labor Party.’]

    I have to tell you that I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed – advancing years, a terrible burden to bear. I accordingly don’t quite follow you. Hang on. Are you suggesting that due to Menzies founding the Tory Party, he should’ve anticpated the advent of the reactionary Abbott, Abetz, Andrews, Dutton? – which in turn has led to Labor’s renaissance. Nah! Okay, I give up.

  23. “NZ policy works on the sensible notion that if NZ was in serious danger of attack/invasion there would be virtually a world war on the go. In which case a NZ armed to the teeth would make SFA difference.”

    Yep.

    Australia is in a different kettle though. So I don’t think ‘small target’ could work for anything less than a ~$20 billion p.a. spend. ‘Small target’ means distancing ourselves from America and it would be a hell of risk to do that without actually increasing defence spending (not so much to ‘defeat china’ in some hot war, rather to simply handle all the other threats and potential threats out there from our natural sphere of influence and interests).

  24. Labor moves to suspend standing orders for ‘part time parliament’
    You might remember that Tony Pasin was booted from the parliament, an act he gave a wink for.

    Labor, who, as I noted have been very, very quiet with the interjections and heckles, are now moving to suspend standing orders.

    The government does not have a majority. It has even less of a majority with Pasin out of the House.

  25. ‘poroti says:
    Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 2:42 pm

    Boerwar

    NZ policy works on the sensible notion that if NZ was in serious danger of attack/invasion there would be virtually a world war on the go. In which case a NZ armed to the teeth would make SFA difference.’

    I had a dangerous moment in New Zealand shortly after New Zealand decided to get rid of its Air Force when I suggested to a room full of New Zealanders wtte, ‘Some people in Australia say that New Zealand is hiding behind Australia’s skirts.’

  26. Andrew_Earlwood

    Australia is in a different kettle though.

    Well you would park yourself close to vital shipping lanes and stuff the country full of juicy mineral resources 🙂

  27. “The irony being that the only nation that could threaten/invade Australia is the USA. Yet we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars over previous decades for a non-existent reason.”

    That is no longer true. Especially when planning – as one must – for the next 30 years. Further, it is not the threat of invasion that is the core reason for a defence budget. Australia’s maritime EEC zone is larger than the size of the continent. More than 1 million Australians work overseas. Many Australian businesses operate out of foreign countries, especially those to our near north. The potential for those countries to ‘go rouge’ and threaten Australia interests is real. The possibility that one or more of these countries may fragment, leading to the establishment of some ISIS type regime on our doorstep looms large.

  28. HaveAchat @ #319 Thursday, November 29th, 2018 – 1:33 pm

    Funny how whenever the coalition are in trouble the pretend greens come here to create a G vs ALP fight

    Can we also blame the ‘pretend Labors’ for engaging in that fight? It takes two to tango.

    But yes, it’s bizarre that the worse the Coalition does, the more people seem to start plumbing the depths of Labor vs. Greens nonsense.

    The right is imploding. Everyone on the left should be united in either kicking the RWNJ’s while they’re down, or celebrating.

  29. Whatever our views on the Defence Budget, and I favour a decrease, if not halving. The decision to spend tens of more billions on submarines is a huge waste. Maybe I am missing something, but I cannot see the logic of it. It seems to me we have people who think we are in the Battle of the Atlantic or something.

Comments Page 7 of 67
1 6 7 8 67

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *