Newspoll and ReachTEL: 51-49 to Labor in Herbert and Flinders

Seat polls show Labor with their nose in front in one seat where they won by a whisker in 2016, and another where they haven’t won in since 1983.

Two new seat polls today, with due caution for the fact that seat polls tend not to perform very well:

• The Australian has a small-sample Newspoll from the Townsville-based seat of Herbert, which Labor won by the barest of margins in 2016 for the first time since the Hawke-Keating era. The reason this seat in particular has been targeted appears to relate to Clive Palmer’s expensive bid to re-establish his political career, to which Townsville is relevant given the failure of his nickel operation there. The poll has the 50-50 result from 2016 turning into a Labor lead of 51-49, which I’m guessing is based on respondent-allocated preferences, as the primary votes look a little more favourable for Labor than that. Labor’s Cathy O’Toole is on 32%, up from 30.5% in 2016; the Liberal National Party is on 32%, down from 35.5%; One Nation is on 9%, down from 13.5%; Katter’s Australian Party is on 9%, up from 6.9%; the Greens are on 7%, up from 6.3%; and Palmer’s United Australia Party is on 8%. The poll was conducted Thursday from a sample of 509.

• The other poll is a uComms/ReachTEL poll for the CFMMEU, which targets Greg Hunt’s Melbourne fringe seat of Flinders, which he holds on a post-redistribution margin of 7.1%. As related by the Herald Sun, the poll credits Labor with a lead of 51-49, with the Liberal primary vote at 36.8%, compared with 51.6% in 2016 – although this is probably complicated by an undecided element. Hunt’s primary vote is only 32.7% among women, compared with 41.2% among men. I hope to be able to obtain full results over the next few days. The poll finds 47.8% less likely to vote for Hunt due to his role in the move against Malcolm Turnbull, compared with 34.4% for no difference and just 17.8% for more likely. The poll was conducted Thursday from a sample of 627. The Herald Sun report also reveals that Julia Banks, the Liberal-turned-independent member for Chisholm, is considering running against Hunt.

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.

924 comments on “Newspoll and ReachTEL: 51-49 to Labor in Herbert and Flinders”

Comments Page 11 of 19
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  2. At this early stage of the game, I’ll remain sceptical about Steggal’s, or any other independent candidate’s, chances against Abbott.

    Firstly, Steggall is incomparable with Kerryn Phelps, whom she is seeking to emulate. Primarily, Phelps had a record of public policy advocation over decades behind her. With this, Phelps had authenticity in her campaign, she was not just out for herself.

    This is something Steggall lacks. It appears more opportunistic and celebrity-driven. As far as I can see, Steggall is a north shore rich girl who was able to play on the ski slopes in the winter. Regardless of outcome, she will stay the pampered rich girl.

    The by-election was also a special circumstance. The Wentworth electorate was seething with rage at Morrison for removing their beloved local member and PM. Phelps was able to capitalise on this and even then, facing a non-descript entity as an opponent, won by a relatively small margin.

    Abbott, is a veteran. He will draw on a wealth of experience in campaigning and resources that will be sent his way from supporters across the country. I can see his margin taking a significant hit, but he will find a way to win and continue as member.

  3. phoenixRed:

    Just as Bill Maher predicted. The prospect of invading another country to get himself out of his Wall dilemma.

  7. I know there seem to be some dangers attached to myhealthrecord, but, although I’m tremendously fit and healthy for a 78-y-o I have to accept there’s some small danger of being wheeled in an unconscious state into a hospital where nobody know me one day. I think I’d like them to be able to look up my record, including minor congenital heart defects and the name of my cardiologist. Spose I should check it for accuracy though…

  8. I am surprised that Price did not chuck at Steggall an immigration question.

    Yeah her position on that is going to be pretty important. If I was advising her it would be a ‘must protect our borders, but we can do that in a better way at a lower less cruel cost, and I’m prepared to try and find a better, kinder, cheaper solution that still protects our border.

  9. It’s too late now.

    If only we’d turned back a few more boats in the 60s. A quiet torpedo to the Oronsay in the Indian could have saved us a lot of problems with sustainability for a start.

  10. Confessions says: Monday, January 28, 2019 at 4:26 pm

    phoenixRed:

    Just as Bill Maher predicted. The prospect of invading another country to get himself out of his Wall dilemma.

    ******************************************************

    Yes Confessions – it’s classic Trump – lets WAG THE DOG mentality – create a distraction, start a war somewhere, anywhere ……..

    …… so it takes the heat off domestic DO NOTHING TRUMP F**kUPS …..

  13. The article is very interesting, but – is it really a picture of Nigella Lawson’s father?

    Obviously, Britain can leave the EU, but only if it is willing to pay an extortionate price. Yet first the institute’s judges, led by Nigel Lawson and Gisela Stuart, then the Leave campaigns of Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Dominic Cummings and, finally, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, who even now cannot speak plainly, have refused to acknowledge the harsh truth.
    …
    You don’t need to be a detective to work out why the darkness fell. How could the Brexit campaign inspire nationalist passions, how could Fox, Lawson, Johnson, Farage and Banks inspire even themselves, if they were to say that the only rational way to leave the EU was to carry on paying money, accepting freedom of movement and receiving laws that Britain had no say in making, while an orderly retreat was organised? Who would vote for that? What would be the point of leaving at all?

    Better to take the road to Narnia and promise everything while committing to nothing.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/26/brexiters-never-had-a-real-exit-plan-no-wonder-they-avoided-the-issue?__twitter_impression=true

  15. The pampered assertion is gratuitous.

    Steggall has followed courses which required self-sacrifice albeit she had a running start.

    Her father was a Manky solicitor.

    In my experience Manly solicitors are surfers first and lawyers second.

  17. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/close-shave-as-southern-states-once-again-spin-climate-roulette/news-story/7187c5e143874487228cce11b8c7100c

    https://outline.com/CtkUgp

    Close shave as southern states once again spin climate rouletteRobert Gottliebsen

    States spin climate roulette
    January 27, 2019

    New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia last week again diced with massive power blackouts. The politicians who have vandalised our power system were again lucky — although AEMO was forced to pull the trigger on rolling power outages — their numbers by and large came up.

    Last week, the vast wind generators in Victoria and South Australia worked at around 20 per cent of capacity in the crisis periods because the winds didn’t blow enough.

    It was a repeat of the events on February 10, 2017 when the NSW system had 2080MW in renewable capacity, excluding the Snowy, but only generated 707MW from that capacity at the peak demand time because the wind did not blow and at 5pm the sun had lost power.

    Mostly an exercise in getting Outline to work for me.

    I have an outline.com tab open but often when I enter an item from (mostly) The
    Australian

    Such as:
    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/close-shave-as-southern-states-once-again-spin-climate-roulette/news-story/7187c5e143874487228cce11b8c7100c

    More or less (mostly less) nothing happens.

    Sip of the finest coffee –☕

    But then – if I scroll down the page to:-

    and then Right Click on Home and then click on Open Link In Outline
    I then get

    Following my nose I then click on

    🠰Return to Outline

    and get

    I then cleverly enter the original
    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/close-shave-as-southern-states-once-again-spin-climate-roulette/news-story/7187c5e143874487228cce11b8c7100c

    Click on Create Outline

    Et Walla (as one of my dearest friends says)
    https://outline.com/CtkUgp

    States spin climate roulette
    January 27, 2019

    New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia last week again diced with massive power blackouts. The politicians who have vandalised our power system were again lucky — although AEMO was forced to pull the trigger on rolling power outages — their numbers by and large came up.

    Last week, the vast wind generators in Victoria and South Australia worked at around 20 per cent of capacity in the crisis periods because the winds didn’t blow enough.

    It was a repeat of the events on February ⏩⏩⏩

    Wasn’t that simple ❓

    I am using Windows 10 & in this case Firefox .

    I am getting dizzy with this item. 😵😵😵

    E & OE

  19. If only we’d turned back a few more boats in the 60s. A quiet torpedo to the Oronsay in the Indian could have saved us a lot of problems with sustainability for a start.

    That’s how my family and I came to Australia. No £10 for us though. My parents had compulsory English classes. I don’t remember the trip at all.

  21. They put wind turbines out at sea in Britain:

    Gwynt y Môr (English: Sea Wind) is a 576-megawatt (MW) offshore wind farm located off the coast of North Wales and is the fourth largest operating offshore windfarm in the world. The farm has 160 wind turbines of 150 metres (490 ft) tip height above mean sea level.

    Planning consent for the project was granted on 3 December 2008. The project has a value of 2 billion Euros, of which 1.2 billion Euros were spent on turbines and electrical connections. Construction began in 2012, power production started in September 2013, construction phase ended in November 2014, and final commissioning occurred in June 20.

  22. Shellbell @ #504 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 12:35 pm

    The pampered assertion is gratuitous.

    Steggall has followed courses which required self-sacrifice albeit she had a running start.

    Her father was a Manky solicitor.

    In my experience Manly solicitors are surfers first and lawyers second.

    Is this some sort of North Shore – south Shore rivalry?

    manky – describes an object that is unpleasantly dirty, usually because it is old or has been used a lot

    And he seems to have substituted the skis for the board for much of the year. 😆

  24. Whoever advised Steggall to go on 2GB made a mistake. Absolutely nothing to gain by doing so and it only gives opportunity for RWNJ jocks to ply their trade of deceit.
    A bad followup to a great start.

  25. Thank you KayJay for persevering and sleuthing the Outline.

    One of your quotes got to me.

    Last week, the vast wind generators in Victoria and South Australia worked at around 20 per cent of capacity in the crisis periods because the winds didn’t blow enough.

    Vast? What vast? Perhaps we simply haven’t enough. Maybe we need 5 times as many? (I know the calculations aren’t like that, but I get irritated when not having enough something is used to argue how useless that something is.)

  26. And, Steve, I’ve heard a vague statement by a Minister at a public meeting that the Qld government has done a scoping study on where would be a good place to put a wind farm in Queensland waters. I gather (I said he was vague) that they’ve found a place or two where’s there’s nearly always a decent wind. I await an official announcement.

  27. Rex Douglas @ #513 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 12:49 pm

    Whoever advised Steggall to go on 2GB made a mistake. Absolutely nothing to gain by doing so and it only gives opportunity for RWNJ jocks to ply their trade of deceit.
    A bad followup to a great start.

    Her team will be feeling very upbeat after that assessment.

    Obviously doing the right things! 😆

  29. If Ms Steggall wants to win Warringah, she will need to reduce the Liberal Party’s primary vote to the low 40-per-cent mark.

    It will not be an easy feat given the Liberals have never polled below 50 per cent in the seat.

    At the last election, Mr Abbott still polled 51.6 per cent, despite a 9.2-per-cent swing against him.

    At the last election Trumble was still (just) PM and the really solid sniping and undermining hadn’t started. There’s no reason at all to think a double digit swing on PV isn’t easily on the cards. These people want a competent Liberal government, and if they blame Abbott for denying them one…

    Adding to her workload is the fact she will be vying for the seat in a general election, meaning she will not get anywhere near as much media attention as Kerryn Phelps did during the recent Wentworth by-election.

    “Television, radio and newspapers across the country were covering that by-election,” Green said.

    “Warringah’s going to get less national attention … it’ll require a lot more on-the-ground work by the candidates.”

    Ah, yeah, nah. This sounds like the delusion that elections and election coverage in the media is all about the contest of ideas and rationally discussing the policy offerings.

    Bullshit. The media is driven by novelty. They are mostly dopes who wouldn’t work in an iron lung. So the gotcha or the gaffe or the colour and movement is what will fill the media coverage. If it’s easy to produce and attracts eyeballs it’s exactly what the media will focus on.

    And what story this election is likely to be more easy to cover and interesting than the possibility of Abbott losing in Warringah? (trying to pretend the overall result isn’t a foregone conclusion will be hard enough) Nice to look at Olympian taking on the ex-PM. Dead fucking easy to turn into numerous stories, chuck in a couple of seat polls, bingo! And that’s before you get to how much coverage she is already getting and will continue to get before the election has even been called.

    Lack of exposure is not a problem Zali Steggall will need to deal with.

    Candidates in urban seats are also typically less connected to their communities than their regional counterparts.

    Running for parliament is also an expensive affair. Dr Phelps spent $300,000 on her campaign last year, much of it crowdfunded or donated.

    Neither problem seems to be one relevant to this situation though is it? Steggall has never lived anywhere else, local sporting identity, seems to have a large and committed support base, and not short of a quid herself. And again that’s before you even get to external players like GetUp driving money in her campaign’s direction.

    Ms Steggall will be up against other independents at the election but her profile and her centre-right views mean she will dominate the independent vote at the upcoming poll, Green predicts.

    Antony has the right of it.

    I’m pretty certain no other significant independent will nominate. Caro (who was never a serious contender) has confirmed she won’t stand. Some of the others who had previously decided to stand may well reconsider.

    We can’t say for certain that Abbott’s PV can be eroded enough to put him in danger, but we can be pretty damn certain the 2CP count will be Abbott v Steggall and Tones won’t be sitting on a 60% 2CP at the end of it. Warringah is going to be one of the most watched seats in the election and one of the biggest stories and it won’t make a lick of difference to the actual election result. But it will be instructive as to why the Liberals lost and how much trouble they really are in.

  31. Mikearoo
    ‏Verified account @mpbowers
    10m10 minutes ago

    Approximately 15kms upstream from Menindee a carpet of dead fish chokes the river (pic courtesy of Graeme McCrabb) @GuardianAus #Menindee #fishkill #auspol
    :large

  32. Barney in Go Dau @ #522 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 4:54 pm

    Rex Douglas @ #513 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 12:49 pm

    Whoever advised Steggall to go on 2GB made a mistake. Absolutely nothing to gain by doing so and it only gives opportunity for RWNJ jocks to ply their trade of deceit.
    A bad followup to a great start.

    Her team will be feeling very upbeat after that assessment.

    Obviously doing the right things! 😆

    She should focus on the ground game and social media. The odd long form interview with carefully selected print journo’s. Stay right away from live MSM.

  35. Late Riser

    Last week, the vast wind generators in Victoria and South Australia worked at around 20 per cent of capacity in the crisis periods because the winds didn’t blow enough.

    20% Shits all over all the 0% from the broken down coal generators.

  39. Player One @ #515 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 4:42 pm

    KayJay @ #516 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 4:38 pm

    Wasn’t that simple ❓

    I find that quite a few sites fail to “outline” on the first attempt. But they quite often work on the second attempt.

    Go figure!

    Its quite interesting.
    Both Firefox and Chrome have extensions which seem to work quite well. An interesting exercise which keeps me from tearing my (very little) hair out at the efforts of
    Mr. Robert Gottliebsen – to whom all praise. 😵

    Good day today – Manky Solicitors ♡

  40. Abbott will not see the spotlight on Warringah as a disadvantage.

    More than likely he will relish the backs-to-the-wall siege mentality that the Steggal candidacy is beginning to generate, and tailor his messaging accordingly. If Fairfax, The Guardian and the ABC decide to focus attention on Steggall, then Abbott will draw on favours from his friends at 2GB and Sky News.

    At the end of the day, Steggal is untested in the public sphere. Whereas Abbott, for all his faults, is a public animal. There is far too much investment in candidates who have sporting or business careers. These backgrounds rarely translate to success in the public realm.

  41. “generators in Victoria and South Australia worked at around 20 per cent of capacity in the crisis periods because the winds didn’t blow enough.”

    What about the vast coal powered stations that stopped altogether. Three of them worked at 0% capacity.

  43. The statistic that always gets me is that, if Saudi Arabia put a giant solar farm in it’s deserts, it would create enough power for the whole world!

    But they don’t, because, Oil.

  44. Rex Douglas @ #521 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 12:59 pm

    Barney in Go Dau @ #522 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 4:54 pm

    Rex Douglas @ #513 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 12:49 pm

    Whoever advised Steggall to go on 2GB made a mistake. Absolutely nothing to gain by doing so and it only gives opportunity for RWNJ jocks to ply their trade of deceit.
    A bad followup to a great start.

    Her team will be feeling very upbeat after that assessment.

    Obviously doing the right things! 😆

    She should focus on the ground game and social media. The odd long form interview with carefully selected print journo’s. Stay right away from live MSM.

    I think you must be the reason the Greens have failed to increase their vote. 😆

  45. Late Riser (Block)
    Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 4:52 pm
    Comment #520

    Mr. Robert Gottliebsen would appear to be preaching to the already converted. Neither I nor the bears (Brown and Bobo) pay much heed.

    🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

  46. used to be that the US Congress was the war declaring body – not the President. That all changed immediately after 9/11 and the power to declare war was passed to George Bush.
    I am not sure if the Congress has taken that power back into thier own hands – if so Trump cannot declare war on Venezuela.

  47. Confessions @ #469 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 3:57 pm

    Steggall won’t direct preferences.

    Zali Steggall has promised not to direct preferences to other candidates and says the government should be more ambitious on emissions reduction than Labor as she makes her pitch to replace Tony Abbott in Warringah.

    The independent candidate told Guardian Australia that Abbott had “continually denied climate change” and the conversation had “moved on” from carbon pricing because renewables were already cheaper than coal.

    Steggall’s candidacy was welcomed on Monday by Labor and the independent MP for Wentworth, Kerryn Phelps, who said people were “disillusioned by the performance of the Liberal party” on issues including climate change and marriage equality.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/28/zali-steggall-says-she-wont-direct-preferences-as-she-makes-pitch-to-replace-abbott

    You can see the tide going out on Morrison’s boofhead style of Leadership before your very eyes!

  50. “generators in Victoria and South Australia worked at around 20 per cent of capacity in the crisis periods because the winds didn’t blow enough.”

    It is difficult to believe people are this stupid. As if the engineers expected 100% output 100% of the time.

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