BludgerTrack: 53.8-46.2 to Labor

A lurch back to Labor in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, plus further polling tidbits and preselection news aplenty.

The addition of this week’s Newspoll and Essential Research polls have ended a period of improvement for the Coalition in BludgerTrack, which records a solid shift to Labor this week. Labor’s two-party lead is now 53.8-46.2, out from 53.1-46.9 last week, and they have made two gains on the seat projection, one in New South Wales and one in Queensland. Despite that, the Newspoll leadership numbers have resulted in an improvement in Scott Morrison’s reading on the net approval trend. Full results are available through the link below – if you can’t get the state breakdown tabs to work, try doing a hard refresh.

National polling news:

• A poll result from Roy Morgan circulated earlier this week, although there’s no mention of it on the company’s website. The primary votes are Labor 36%, Coalition 34.5% and Greens 12.5%, which pans out to a Labor lead of 54-46 using past preference flows (thanks Steve777). Morgan continues to conduct weekly face-to-face polling, but the results are only made public when Gary Morgan has a point to make – which on this occasion is that Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party is on all of 1%. One Nation doesn’t do great in the poll either, recording 3%. The poll was conducted over two weekends from a sample of 1673.

• The Australian had supplementary questions from this week’s Newspoll on Tuesday, which had Scott Morrison favoured over Bill Shorten by 48-33 on the question of best leader handle the economy – little different from his 50-32 lead in October, or the size of the lead consistently held by Malcolm Turnbull. It also found 33% saying the government should prioritise funding of services, compared with 27% for cutting personal income tax and 30% for paying down debt.

• The Australian also confused me by publishing, together with the Newspoll voting intention numbers on Monday, results on franking credits and “reducing tax breaks for investors” – derived not from last weekend’s poll, but earlier surveys in December and November (UPDATE: Silly me – the next column along is the total from the latest poll). The former found 48% opposed to Labor’s franking credits policy and 30% in support, compared with 50% and 33% when it was first floated in March (UPDATE: So the latest poll actually has support back up five to 35% and opposition down two to 38%). Respondents were instructed that the policy was “expected to raise $5.5 billion a year from around 900,000 Australians that receive income from investments in shares”, which I tend to think is friendlier to Labor than a question that made no effort to explain the policy would have been. The tax breaks produced a stronger result for Labor, with 47% in favour and 33% opposed, although this was down on 54% and 28% in April (UPDATE: Make that even better results for Labor – support up four to 51%, opposition down one to 32%).

With due recognition of Kevin Bonham’s campaign against sketchy reports of seat polling, let the record note the following:

• Ben Packham of The Australian reports Nationals polling shows them in danger of losing Page to Labor and Cowper to Rob Oakeshott. Part of the problem, it seems, is a minuscule recognition rating for the party’s leader, one Michael McCormack.

• There’s a uComms/ReachTEL poll of Flinders for GetUp! doing the rounds, conducted on Wednesday from a sample of 634, which has Liberal member Greg Hunt on 40.7%, an unspecified Labor candidate on 29.4% and ex-Liberal independent Julia Banks on 16.1%. That would seem to put the result down to the wild card of Banks’ preference flows. There was apparently a respondent-allocated two-party figure with the result, but I haven’t seen it. UPDATE: Turns out it was 54-46 in favour of Greg Hunt, which seems a bit much.

• The West Australian reported last weekend that a uComms/ReachTel poll for GetUp! had Christian Porter leading 52-48 in Pearce, which is above market expectations for him.

• Another week before, The West Australian reported Labor internal polling had it with a 51.5-48.5 lead in Stirling.

Preselection news:

• Following Nigel Scullion’s retirement announcement last month, the Northern Territory News reports a field of eight nominees for his Country Liberal Party Senate seat: Joshua Burgoyne, an Alice Springs electrician, who was earlier preselected for the second position on the ticket behind Scullion; Bess Price, who held the remote seat of Stuart in the territory parliament from 2012 to 2016, and whose high-profile daughter Jacinta Price is the party’s candidate for Lingiari; Tony Schelling, a financial adviser; Tim Cross, former general manager of NT Correctional Industries; Gary Haslett, a Darwin councillor; Kris Civitarese, deputy mayor of Tennant Creek; Linda Fazldeen, from the Northern Territory’s Department of Trade, Business and Innovation; and Bill Yan, general manager at the Alice Springs Correctional Centre.

• Andrew Burrell of The Australian reports Liberal nominees to succeed Michael Keenan in Stirling include Vince Connelly, Woodside Petroleum risk management adviser and former army officer; Joanne Quinn, a lawyer for Edith Cowan University; Michelle Sutherland, a teacher and the wife of Michael Sutherland, former state member for Mount Lawley; Georgina Fraser, a 28-year-old “oil and gas executive”; and Taryn Houghton, “head of community engagement at a mental health service, HelpingMinds”. No further mention of Tom White, general manager of Uber in Japan and a former adviser to state MP and local factional powerbroker Peter Collier, who was spruiked earlier. The paper earlier reported that Karen Caddy, a former Rio Tinto engineer, had her application rejected after state council refused to give her the waiver required for those who were not party members of one year’s standing.

• The Nationals candidate for Indi is Mark Byatt, a Wodonga-based manager for Regional Development Victoria.

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.

1,132 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.8-46.2 to Labor”

Comments Page 11 of 23
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  2. EB @ #491 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 5:31 pm

    Tweets & replies Media
    Pinned Tweet

    Christian Porter

    @cporterwa
    4 Jul 2018

    After years of fighting for a fairer #GST share for #WesternAustralia, we have finally achieved a permanent fix for our State. A great day for WA and a huge effort by our WA Liberal team #auspol @LiberalsWA @LiberalAus @MathiasCormann @ScottMorrisonMP.

    Notice who is missing ?

    Ken Wyatt? Nola Marino? Rick Wilson?

  4. I must say I appreciate the new Bludger paradigm of civilized discourse.
    The scroll finger has very little to do.
    But, but, but… talk about bite yer tongue!
    Good night all and sweet dreams.

  6. zoomster
    I was introduced to a 50/50 blend of Stone’s Green Ginger and whiskey fir when fishing overnight in winter.
    Warming and delicious!

  9. Since we’re reminiscing on alcoholic indulgences past, I grew up on schnapps. German style. We had a family tradition that consisted of a sponge cake sealed on the bottom and sides by a solid layer of sweetened cream and topped by a hard icing. What I didn’t realize until my mid-teens, when I was allowed to share in it, was the half-bottle of schnapps that was added shortly before serving, for afternoon tea. Celebratory evening indulgences included hot mulled wine with overproof-anything-handy that was liberally poured over a mountain of sugar and set alight to drip flaming globs into the wine and served still alight to eager idiots.

    I was never drawn to the rather odd looking (so I thought) “low alcohol” stuff others enjoyed. These days a good scotch is still a good scotch.

  11. Is someone not Blocked by Peter Dutton on Twitter? Apparently he went on a rant today and it, apparently, shows that he is unhinging in real time, or sumfink. 😀

  12. Waste materials in Tailings Dams are almost never benign. Especially for gold or copper or lead mines. They’re designed to be a waste repository. It makes no sense to complain that putting waste material that is radioactive into it will somehow make it all worse.
    They’re designed to be wet so they will leak – though they’re often designed not to. The ground water there would already have high levels of radioactivity.

  15. Just seen a reference to a Galaxy Poll ( for the Courier Mail) with bad news for Scummo and calling Clive Palmer the King Maker. Sounds suss. Anyone know about this poll? Look forward to Williams forensic analysis.

  18. [‘I must say I appreciate the new Bludger paradigm of civilized discourse.’]

    I don’t, the moderator ruining his own site by his invocations stifling social intercourse – I mean few speak their mind after his ruminations.

  22. Just seen a reference to a Galaxy Poll ( for the Courier Mail) with bad news for Scummo and calling Clive Palmer the King Maker. Sounds suss. Anyone know about this poll? Look forward to Williams forensic analysis.

    The Courier-Mail describes Clive Palmer as a “kingmaker” according to logic that makes him less so than One Nation, and still less than the Greens. It also finds the Coalition with a par-for-the-course lead of 44% to 29% as best party to handle asylum seekers. Newspoll had it at 47% to 30% nationally in July.

  23. MS

    If there are bludgers who can not speak their minds without being abusive, that says something about their inability to engage in a civil and mature manner.

    I appreciate the much improved vibe.

  24. BW Upthread…
    As I understand it, South Australian Greens are going to support mining the uranium and then storing it but oppose storing uranium waste but the Australian Greens do not support mining the uranium or storing it as waste.
    Neither bother explaining how cutting a mine’s gross income by 25% (which is the current proportion of uranium sales compared with total sales) while the costs are increased won’t actually close it down.
    ______________

    BW…You can seriously drone on about stuff you actually know nothing about….

    Now personally, I think the greens are a bunch of bumptious dills, but the SA Greens policy statement around Uranium mining and processing is self consistent. At Late Riser noted the process of extracting the ore is a complex mineral processing task…but it would be entirely possible to selectively extract copper concentrate and not leave the U based ores to exit the process with non valuable gangue material as tailings. The tailings could be dewatering by conventional technologies to give a handleable cake and stored, or deposited into the mining void with other spoil.

    Look I don’t pretend to know the processing flowsheet at Olympic downs but it would be entirely possible to concentrate only the non Uranium valuable minerals.

    Regarding the financial implications, I have no idea of the margins at Olympic Downs, but following is my own experience in the industry that we only talk about in hushed tones….I wouldn’t presume that a 25% hit would be Armageddon.

    At the height of the resources boom, prime hard coking coal was over US$300 per tonne. The mining and processing costs would have been higher than today (US$40 rer tonne) – because everyone got a bit lazy and bloated, so lets say for giggles US$60 per tonne. So a hit of 25% to either revenue, gross margin, or EBIT (you choose the financial metric), would have been a pain in the buttocks, but would not have dented the commercial viability of the operation.

    So the banning of Uranium exporting without closing Olympic Downs is entirely possible from a metallurgical and commercial perspective.

    I don’t purport to know the toxicity of the Uranium in the tailings, when it is not concentrated, but I would have thought it is not much more than in the mineral orebody from whence it came…could be wrong in this instance….happy to be proven wrong if someone knows something about the metallurgical extraction of U based concentrates…

  26. “I don’t purport to know the toxicity of the Uranium in the tailings, when it is not concentrated, but I would have thought it is not much more than in the mineral orebody from whence it came”

    Wouldn’t be as toxic as most of the stuff in there… And the TSF is already toxic, adding Uranium isn’t going to make it suddenly much worse

  30. Read all about it here:

    https://www.gotquestions.org/seven-mountain-mandate.html

    This is but a horrifying snippet:

    The seven mountain mandate or the seven mountain prophecy is an anti-biblical and damaging movement that has gained a following in some Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. Those who follow the seven mountain mandate believe that, in order for Christ to return to earth, the church must take control of the seven major spheres of influence in society for the glory of Christ. Once the world has been made subject to the kingdom of God, Jesus will return and rule the world.

    Here are the seven mountains, according to the seven mountain mandate:
    1) Education
    2) Religion
    3) Family
    4) Business
    5) Government/Military
    6) Arts/Entertainment
    7) Media

    These seven sectors of society are thought to mold the way everyone thinks and behaves. So, to tackle societal change, these seven “mountains” must be transformed. The mountains are also referred to as “pillars,” “shapers,” “molders,” and “spheres.” Those who follow the seven mountain mandate speak of “occupying” the mountains, “invading” the culture, and “transforming” society…

    The 7-M teaching puts a tremendous burden on believers to perform, make progress in their relative spheres of influence, and set the stage for Jesus’ return to earth—all without a definite end point.

    😯

  31. Good grief, to think we taxpayers are on the hook to these guys

    Creating the World’s First “Sheep Nation” Through the Marketplace

    God then spoke to Dave, reminding him that he was assigned to help that pastor. Dave disobeyed for a year, and his business crumbled. Now $70,000 in credit-card debt, Dave moved his family to the Sunshine Coast and began again to assist his pastor and his local church. In the next three years, his business grew to be worth over $100 million, and in six years, it grew to $300 million. Dave now heads up the Paladin Group, a conglomerate of 32 companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. For 15 consecutive years, the group has returned 17 percent annual growth to its investors.
    https://www.charismamag.com/sponsored-content/33657-creating-the-world-s-first-sheep-nation-through-the-marketplace

    What is a Sheep Nation?

    …………At this time, the church will fulfill her ministry as the literal army of
    God, fighting with Jesus in many battles climaxing at Armageddon (

    http://nebula.wsimg.com/0160c1ff5f93262e65cd7867b6796e23?AccessKeyId=6B2958A0E81174854131&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

  32. Granted, Peg, though I’m perturbed by the way this site is turning, the moderator needs to spend less time moderating. It’s worked before, it’ll work again.

  33. @Dan Gulberry – Today’s schoolkids aren’t millennials. They’re the generation after millennials, often called “Gen Z”. Millennials were born anytime from 1980 (1981 by some studies) to the early or mid 1990s (1994 is a number I often see..). Gen Z were born anytime from then to ~2005.

    Remember: millennials were so named because we came of age at the turn of the millennium, not because we were born then. Although I kinda wish I was that young…

  35. Mavis Smith @ #518 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 9:13 pm

    [‘I must say I appreciate the new Bludger paradigm of civilized discourse.’]

    I don’t, the moderator ruining his own site by his invocations stifling social intercourse – I mean few speak their mind after his ruminations.

    Of course you can speak your mind. You just need to do it in a slightly more civilized fashion.

  38. Matt @ #533 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 6:39 pm

    @Dan Gulberry – Today’s schoolkids aren’t millennials. They’re the generation after millennials, often called “Gen Z”. Millennials were born anytime from 1980 (1981 by some studies) to the early or mid 1990s (1994 is a number I often see..). Gen Z were born anytime from then to ~2005.

    Remember: millennials were so named because we came of age at the turn of the millennium, not because we were born then. Although I kinda wish I was that young…

    OK, thanks for clarification. Personally I don’t know what category I fall into. I’m too young to be a boomer, but too old to be an Xer. I prefer to call myself a Cold War Kid. Given that I was born on the day after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended, I think that’s pretty accurate.

  39. Astrobleme…Да…”The tailings contain 70-80% of the radioactivity associated with the original ore”, so if it is not concentrated, then the tailings will contain slightly less than 100% of the radioactivity yada yada….” Simples

  40. poroti @ #9825 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 9:30 pm

    Good grief, to think we taxpayers are on the hook to these guys

    Creating the World’s First “Sheep Nation” Through the Marketplace

    God then spoke to Dave, reminding him that he was assigned to help that pastor. Dave disobeyed for a year, and his business crumbled. Now $70,000 in credit-card debt, Dave moved his family to the Sunshine Coast and began again to assist his pastor and his local church. In the next three years, his business grew to be worth over $100 million, and in six years, it grew to $300 million. Dave now heads up the Paladin Group, a conglomerate of 32 companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. For 15 consecutive years, the group has returned 17 percent annual growth to its investors.
    https://www.charismamag.com/sponsored-content/33657-creating-the-world-s-first-sheep-nation-through-the-marketplace
    What is a Sheep Nation?

    …………At this time, the church will fulfill her ministry as the literal army of
    God, fighting with Jesus in many battles climaxing at Armageddon (
    http://nebula.wsimg.com/0160c1ff5f93262e65cd7867b6796e23?AccessKeyId=6B2958A0E81174854131&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

    Once a Selous Scout, always a Selous Scout…until the war crimes tribunal sits.

  41. Player One:

    [‘Of course you can speak your mind. You just need to do it in a slightly more civilized fashion.’]

    I do hope you’re not accusing me of being uncivilised- no, you can be better than that(?).

  42. “I wonder what a ‘sheep’ nation is.”

    Jesus will return and separate the sheep from the goats. Then he’ll send the goats to Hell.

    There, explained it for you.

  43. Aaaah the 70s, sharehouse in Newtown (Palm Beach end), The Grose Farm on Missenden Av dicing with the RPA Trolley Boys; but for any Ag or Vet student it was a gallon flagon of Cogno Bros (Cobbity) “Hock” at the Bar-B-Grog , the Annual University Farms ‘social function’.

  44. rhwombat

    Being one of those would make for heavy odds on he committed a number of war crimes. A way old NYT article from back in the day

    Rhodesia’s Bush War: An Aerial Closeup
    By JOHN F. BURNSJULY 4, 1979

    …, Capt. Peter Hean, acknowledged that survivors of contacts were sometimes shot, but only, they said, as a precaution. But as long as he’s snivelling, posing a potential problem, that’s his bundle. You can’t be sentimental about this, it’s war.”
    https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/04/archives/rhodesias-bush-war-an-aerial-closeup-bush-war-closeup-rhodesia-wins.html

  45. Rossmcg @ #478 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 8:06 pm

    Cold Duck.

    A sparkling red in a white plastic coated bottle.

    Reported at the the time (the mid 70s) to have aphrodisiac qualities.

    Never worked for me.

    All these years later I am a fan of sparkling Shiraz, particularly those from Bleasedale in SA’s Langhorne Creek region

    And the fortified Shiraz goes OK as well

    The Cold Duck true facts. The origin of ‘Cold Duck’ was a tradition/practice in German restaurants to collect all of the part bottles left by patrons, pour them into a large bowl, and add cheap fizzy wine, for consumption by the staff, after the restaurant closed, with their late evening meal.

  47. “So, in the course of 24 hours Morrison has turned the potential arrival of a boat or boats around from being the fault of Shorten and no one else to being a failure of the Morrison government.”

    Baldrick still firmly in control of their “strategy” and messaging i see. 🙂

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