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 17 of 19
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  1. A sovereign currency is backed by the productive capacity of the economy, the capacity of the currency-issuing government to enforce tax obligations in its currency, and the government’s promise to accept its currency back in payment of the taxes, fees, and fines that it imposes on the private sector. Most of the world’s governments have sovereign currencies. The major exceptions are the member nations of the Eurozone, who foolishly relinquished their currency sovereignty and now have the fiscal status of an Australian state government (that is, they are mere currency users, not currency issuers).

  2. So ScoMo is apparently going to QLD to visit “risk seats” aka Peter Dutton.

    Sky News Australia
    ‏Verified account @SkyNewsAust

    Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP will be visiting seven at-risk seats in the Sunshine State in a bid to secure them ahead of the election, including that of Home Affairs Minister @PeterDutton_MP.

  3. It’s shocking, just shocking that Aunty (RN) would broadcast such trash; tonight, for instance:

    ” Julie Bishop has had more up her arse than the cyclist who came last in the Tour de France .”

    Little wonder that Erica’s so angry, not to mention Cory, Pauline.

  4. “Bill Shorten tells Rupert to naff off!”

    Maybe that could be the middle panel in the triptych Nath suggested this afternoon – sort of like St Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland. The first panel could be St Bill, heroic defender of the workers, the third being Bill visionary Prime Minister.

  5. Mavis Smith @ #805 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 8:55 pm

    It’s shocking, just shocking that Aunty (RN) would broadcast such trash; tonight, for instance:

    ” Julie Bishop has had more up her arse than the cyclist who came last in the Tour de France .”

    Little wonder that Erica’s so angry, not to mention Cory, Pauline.

    Prepared to post a link or do you just enjoy being a sleaze?

  6. Dennis Atkins was Mick Young’s press secretary during the Hawke government, so dismissing him as a Murdoch shill is a bit ahistorical.

  7. P1
    I don’t think Nicholas has ever said unlimited money allows a country to produce past it’s production capacity. I think basically what he is saying is money supply is not an excuse for unemployment, or to invert, unemployment is an indication of a miss managed money supply.

    For your gas dream you need to cancel some projects; no coal fired stations are being built, so what project have to go?

  8. KayJay @ #782 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 8:32 pm

    don
    Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 8:19 pm
    Comment #771

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

    If you have not already —- add the following extension for Chrome

    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/outline-read-annotate-wit/daoolpmoieinofbnddaofhkhmbagfmnj

    Seems to work fairly well.

    Goodnight all. 🏏💤💤

    All it asks me is to remove it from Chrome – which means that I have already installed it, I guess.

  9. Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP will be visiting seven at-risk seats in the Sunshine State in a bid to secure them ahead of the election, including that of Home Affairs Minister @PeterDutton_MP.

    He has a lot more at-risk seats to visit than just Dutton’s! Trouble is he is a liability in many of them or just plain negative for the Liberals.

    I wonder if Malcolm might put his hand in his pocket to support the campaigns of Seggall and Banks? Revenge being a dish best eaten cold, it being nearly a year since he was knifed by the time the next election comes around.


  10. Player One says:
    Monday, January 28, 2019 at 8:58 pm
    ..

    Why would you want to cancel projects?

    Because posting on a blog doesn’t make a dream happen and all relevant resources are now pretty much utilized in the transformation of our energy system that is underway and gathering pace.

  11. And now FryThePlanet has a high profile lite-Liberal challenger!

    ‘A high profile independent candidate, Oliver Yates, is expected to run against Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in the heartland Liberal seat of Kooyong in Melbourne.

    Yates, who lives in the electorate, is a member of the Liberal party and a former international banker and former CEO of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. At present he works for several firms on renewable energy projects.

    Son of Bill Yates, a colourful character who held the Victorian seat of Holt in 1975-80 and was earlier a member of the House of Commons, Yates has made swingeing attacks on the Liberals, saying in a recent Guardian article that the “party is in need of desperate cultural reform”.

    https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-independent-push-against-frydenberg-110600?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitterbutton

  12. frednk @ #811 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 9:00 pm

    P1
    I don’t think Nicholas has ever said unlimited money allows a country to produce past it’s production capacity. I think basically what he is saying is money supply is not an excuse for unemployment, or to invert, unemployment is an indication of a miss managed money supply.

    The consequences of exceeding your productive capacity is at worst a period of hyperinflation. I’d be willing to trade that for lives – wouldn’t you? No, on second thoughts, I guess you wouldn’t 🙁

    For your gas dream you need to cancel some projects; no coal fired stations are being built, so what project have to go?

    You keep saying that, but you don’t say why. Why would you need to cancel projects? And which ones did you have in mind?

  13. Ken Wyatt intends to stand again for his seat. Hmm: I reckon the election could be won in the West, our dear moderator, being his cautious self, somewhat agreeing. Poor Porter, touted as a future Tory leader, is in danger of losing his seat unless, that is, dear Julie passes the baton to him.

  14. frednk @ #816 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 9:05 pm


    Player One says:
    Monday, January 28, 2019 at 8:58 pm
    ..

    Why would you want to cancel projects?

    Because posting on a blog doesn’t make a dream happen and all relevant resources are now pretty much utilized in the transformation of our energy system that is underway and gathering pace.

    So money and ideology trumps actually reducing emissions? 🙁

  15. GG:

    OMG please! I said the other day my eyes were on Pyne to depart and now it might be true.

    What would he do if he left politics? His CV is lighter even than Tony Abbott’s!!

  16. GG:

    [‘Prepared to post a link or do you just enjoy being a sleaze?’]

    Do your own homework, but a casual reference to RN would do it.

    When you’re arguing with a fool, there are two fools arguing.

    Wake up to yourself, tubbs.

  17. More on Oliver Yates from the AFR piece..

    This week, Liberal Party member Oliver Yates will announce his independent candidacy for Josh Frydenberg’s seat of Kooyong – which under party rules will automatically trigger his expulsion.

    Despite Labor being expected to endorse Spring Street staffer Jana Stewart as its candidate, trades hall figures have been spreading the Yates buzz.

    Funny – Yates is hardly your average comrade. A Macquarie banker (a workforce inexplicably untapped for coverage by ACTU members) who ran the Clean Energy Finance Corporation under the Gillard, Rudd, Abbott and Turnbull governments then established a renewables trading shop that he’s openly admitted makes more money the higher electricity prices remain. That’s a sure thing thanks to two stark and equally stupid choices: the Coalition’s refusal to regulate (if not legislate) its former National Energy Guarantee and Labor’s renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030. Other than Kooyong, Yates can’t lose.

  18. Nicolas Maduro is a bad leader who has mismanaged his nation’s productive capacity and doesn’t uphold civil and political rights. But Juan Guaido has expressed openness to tying up his county in an IMF loan that would no doubt come with conditions including gutting the public sector and cutting social spending. Juan Guaido is open to privatizing Venezuela’s publicly owned oil assets so that the probability of those assets being used to promote a public purpose will fall to zero. So the alternative that is being promoted by the US and some of its allies is not better. The alternative is a very neoliberal guy who would do even more harm than the incumbent. Maduro doesn’t deserve to be supported but recognizing Guaido as “interim president” is the wrong move because it gives him a legitimacy that he hasn’t earned.

    The US Government has a shameful record of intervening in Latin American countries to advance American corporate interests to the detriment of the people living in those countries. Why would you uncritically support that? Look at the alternatives and recognize that there are options that are better than anointing Guaido to a bogus, totally made-up status of “interim president”. How patronizing is it to Venezuelans to tell them, “It isn’t up to you or your instititutions to decide whether an interim presidency takes effect and who will serve in that role – we foreigners will just go right ahead and coronate this right-wing guy whom our corporate elites like.”

  19. Late Riser @ #795 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 8:45 pm

    I knew a geologist once. I probably still do if I’m honest. Something he drilled into me was context. If I “bring you a rock” (that’s a US expression btw) the rock is worthless to science, which is what geology is, unless you know the rock’s context. This means where it was found, and when, and which way it was pointing, and even who found it.

    There are a lot of rocks.

    I agree totally. Provenance is everything. Without that you have nothing.

    I run an archaeology website.

    I get people sending me images and telling me (they are usually from the US, and in particular Kentucky and environs for some reason) ‘if you hold it this way it is an eagle, this way it is an indian chief’s head, this way it is a bear’ Or they ask if it is a neanderthal artefact. (in the US, ye gods and little fishes!)

    They picked it up from their backyards, or while out on a hike. On the surface!

    When I tell them it is a garden variety lump of worthless rock, they get very upset. Call me names, and threaten me with internet versions of violence.

    I have learned not to try to identify it, but to tell them to take it to their nearest state or federal museum, and get the experts there to check it out. I now don’t tell them that they have a worthless lump of rock. They will find out soon enough.

    They think it will make their fortunes. That is often the underlying message, ‘How much will I get for this?’

  20. P1
    Hyper inflation with no extra activity. If the resources are is use and you want to do something else you have to cancel projects.

    Please do remember that our pipeline system is now pretty much fully utilized. First step would be the building of import terminal in Victoria. Hundreds of megawatts of wind farms are under construction. Do we cancel that? It’s your dream you get to be the dictator in this game, you decide.

  21. Mavis Smith @ #824 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 9:11 pm

    GG:

    [‘Prepared to post a link or do you just enjoy being a sleaze?’]

    Do your own homework, but a casual reference to RN would do it.

    When you’re arguing with a fool, there are two fools arguing.

    Wake up to yourself, tubbs.

    Don’t get cranky, think what a normal human being might do.

    If you make an assertion, then back it up with a link or explain clearly that it’s a private opinion.

    Otherwise, people might think you are a bigger tosser than you are.

    #friendlyadvicetotossersonPB

  22. I’m loving that the Liberals’ Achilles heel is turning out to be their AGW denialism.

    What goes around comes around, and 10+ years of intransigence on the issue is coming home to roost by way of challengers in their safe seats who are fed up with the hand wringing and ideological culture wars, and just want to see sensible, meaningful action.

    Perhaps it’s serendipitous that they’re reeling out Howard for the election campaign. After all he was where the AGW rot started for them by playing politics when it came to global warming.

  23. sprocket_
    says:
    Monday, January 28, 2019 at 8:08 pm
    Ok nth, I’ll play nicely – here is Bill Shorten getting a puff piece in the Herald Sun. Surely he wouldn’t have milked this sad occurence?
    ________________________________________
    Sorry been sitting in the spa smoking a blunt. Not sure what you mean by this. Are you being sarcastic and have suddenly seen the light on Shorten’s opportunism, this time with a departed canine? Or are you asking me my opinion? I’m not gonna touch this one actually. I’ve been insensitive to someone on PB who lost a dog before. What do you think?

  24. A high profile independent candidate, Oliver Yates, is expected to run against Treasurer Josh Frydenberg

    Yates, who lives in the electorate, is a member of the Liberal party

    Can you be a Liberal party member and run against an incumbent?


  25. Player One says:
    Monday, January 28, 2019 at 9:09 pm

    So money and ideology trumps actually reducing emissions?

    Oh dear you really do have this gas dream bad.

  26. I see that Trumpy has been shitting bricks since he had to pay the government workers and another one of his buddies has run foul of the Special Prosecutor.

    However, it isn’t that bad, as he now has ample supplies of the raw material to build his wall.

  27. You did note, GG, that I did use quotation marks.

    Check it to tomorrow when it’ll be podcasted – it gets far worse than that which I posted.

    And, please don’t call me a sleaze.

    What’s more, you seem to have been on the piss again, evidenced by your unwarranted slurs.

  28. sprocket_ says:
    Monday, January 28, 2019 at 9:11 pm
    More on Oliver Yates from the AFR piece..

    This week, Liberal Party member Oliver Yates will announce his independent candidacy for Josh Frydenberg’s seat of Kooyong – which under party rules will automatically trigger his expulsion.

    Yates would likely be competitive. Lib-purge develops.

  29. don, apologies, sorry. I clearly do crap allegories. I was thinking of some of the comments posted here. But yes, my geologist friend got quite worked up about such things. There is nothing quite like a passionate geologist.

  30. frednk @ #834 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 9:18 pm


    Player One says:
    Monday, January 28, 2019 at 9:09 pm

    So money and ideology trumps actually reducing emissions?

    Oh dear you really do have this gas dream bad.

    I like Mavis’ comment:

    When you’re arguing with a fool, there are two fools arguing.

    I should take my own advice, but every now and again P1 comes up with something that is so stupid, it has to be shown for the idiocy that it is.

    But to answer you, P1, yes, money and ideology trumps actually reducing emissions.

    Unless you live in La – La land, as you do.

  31. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/warringah-independents-split-on-liberal-aligned-newcomer-zali-steggall-20190128-p50u4j.html

    “Virginia Laugesen, Ms Moylan-Coombs’ campaign director, accused Ms Steggall of being only a slight improvement on Mr Abbott.”

    So, assuming that Virginia actually understands how this compulsory preferential voting malarkey works are we to take that as a recommendation to put Steggall immediately above Abbott when ordering preferences on an elector’s ballot. Which would be good.

    And another thing. Any sane person would see that Zali would be way better than Abbott, even if she’s a Tory. For Vaginia’s benefit here are a few examples of “slight improvements” on Abbott:

    https://youtu.be/PqEztDtxWBY

    https://youtu.be/bIahXVJrvT0

  32. don @ #808 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 9:01 pm

    KayJay @ #782 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 8:32 pm

    don
    Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 8:19 pm
    Comment #771

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

    If you have not already —- add the following extension for Chrome

    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/outline-read-annotate-wit/daoolpmoieinofbnddaofhkhmbagfmnj

    Seems to work fairly well.

    Goodnight all. 🏏💤💤

    All it asks me is to remove it from Chrome – which means that I have already installed it, I guess.

    You have. So when you pop up a page say – from The Australian you would then click on the Outline icon

    Which will then present you with the outlined page with the outline address in the address bar.

    Working just fine although it took a repeat performance a little earlier.

    .

  33. I think the next election will be decided before the WA polls close. Then we will get 4 hours of senseless analysis and navel gazing.

    Around 7pm the experts could just say Australia just voted out a very bad government and then call it a night.

  34. Late Riser @ #844 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 9:25 pm

    Greensborough Growler @ #832 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 8:18 pm

    Late Riser @ #832 Monday, January 28th, 2019 – 9:17 pm

    A high profile independent candidate, Oliver Yates, is expected to run against Treasurer Josh Frydenberg

    Yates, who lives in the electorate, is a member of the Liberal party

    Can you be a Liberal party member and run against an incumbent?

    Read the article!

    OK. Do you have a link?

    Go to 9.07 and do not pass Go!

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