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 4 of 23
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  2. Confessions says: Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 12:51 pm

    CNN PoliticsVerified account@CNNPolitics
    1h1 hour ago
    BREAKING: Mueller’s team says Paul Manafort deserves up to 24.5 years in prison https://cnn.it/2DJEVnv

    He’d be 93 by the time he got out of jail.

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

    Mueller, in a court filing, also suggested the judge fine Manafort between $50,000 to $24 million, order the longtime Republican operative to pay restitution of more than $24 million, and forfeit more than $4 million.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/special-counsel-robert-mueller-wants-ex-trump-campaign-boss-paul-manafort-imprisoned-for-up-to-24-years.html

  6. Good afternoon everyone.
    I make it:
    47/53 Newspoll
    55/45 Essential
    54/46 Morgan
    52/48 MyGov Queensland only.
    Assorted seat level polls, of which only one (Porter’s seat) is positive for the Coalition.
    We also have 31 month consecutive polls in which the Government is behind.

    At the same time, and if I have it right, those polled believe that the Coalition is ahead on border protection and managing the economy and Morrison is the preferred prime minister.

    My guess, FWIW, is that nothing the Government can do will cause voters from voting the hip pocket. Real world inputs to this are falling real wages, penalty cuts, wage theft, conditions stripping, Super theft, rising prices, increasing precarious work and rising household debt.

    Ergo, despite all the song and dance, the Beast is stirring and Morrison is gone.

  7. Confessions says: Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 1:05 pm

    phoenixRed:

    Mueller isn’t mucking about!

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

    As for Manafort – he gave up his plea deal – I guess he figures he will chance dying of old age in prison rather than a shiv between the ribs or some Novichok agent painted on his doorknob in the family home …..

  8. Rob Oakeshott
    ‏ @RobOakeshott1
    5h5 hours ago

    Rob Oakeshott Retweeted Fr Rod Bower

    $16 billion on 2,000 people. That’s fibre-to-the-premises right there. #cowpervotes

  10. “I mean, you’d have to be pretty firmly on the people smugglers’ side to misrepresent the law to the smugglers’ advantage. Wouldn’t you, Prime Minister?” Waleed Aly

  11. Some of us Boomers were refugees.

    Some grew up in daunting circumstances.

    Some grew up in incredible poverty even by today’s standards.

    Some lived a very savings-rich and frugal life while working up to three jobs a week.

    Other Boomers spent like there was no tomorrow and planned to rely on the government for all their retirement needs and wants.

    Some Boomers were dogged by personal misfortune, and/or were cursed with an inability to manage their resources, and/or were dogged by ill health.

    Some Boomers are significant donors to various worthy causes.

    Some Boomers believe that the point of being wealthy is to become wealthier.

    Some Boomers don’t whinge about having Howard’s middle- and upper-class rorts fixed.

    I suggest that posters who think that a Boomer is a Boomer is a Boomer, think again.

  13. Zoidlord, I am a ‘baby boomer’ – part of the group born post WWII up to around 1960

    Slandering us is routine.
    We are, apparently, responsible for most of the ills of society, whilst living off tax payer funded fat of the land.

    Well, like all generalisations, it’s flawed. It’s bullshit.
    Whitlam made universities free after 1973, so those born up to early 50’s still had to get scholarships or cadetships because there was no HELP or loans schemes.
    A tiny percentage of the populace have investment properties. The rest don’t.
    Many boomers are homeless (including many women who live in cars).

    I marched (a very dangerous thing to do,btw) against our involvement in the war in Vietnam, and remain active now in campaigns.

    So don’t put me in the group supporting Wilson’s inquiry. I don’t agree with it, and have argued the case with other (self-entitled) members of my extended family.

    One thing you can say about any generalisation about boomers, is it is probably wrong (including this one)

  18. First lawsuit filed against Trump emergency declaration

    Liberal advocacy group Public Citizen on Friday filed the first lawsuit seeking to block President Trump’s national emergency declaration to allocate government funds for his proposed border wall.

    The consumer rights think tank is suing on behalf of the Frontera Audubon Society and three landowners in South Texas who were told their land would be used to construct the barrier.

    The lawsuit is expected to be the first of many challenging the declaration, which appropriated $8.1 billion for the wall.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) also said Friday he intends to sue the White House over the declaration.

    “President Trump is manufacturing a crisis and declaring a made-up ‘national emergency’ in order to seize power and subvert the constitution,” Newsom said in a statement. “Our message back to the White House is simple and clear: California will see you in court.”

    https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/430313-first-lawsuit-filed-against-trump-emergency-declaration

  19. Boerwar @ #161 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 1:18 pm

    Some of us Boomers were refugees.

    Some grew up in daunting circumstances.

    Some grew up in incredible poverty even by today’s standards.

    Some lived a very savings-rich and frugal life while working up to three jobs a week.

    Other Boomers spent like there was no tomorrow and planned to rely on the government for all their retirement needs and wants.

    Some Boomers were dogged by personal misfortune, and/or were cursed with an inability to manage their resources, and/or were dogged by ill health.

    Some Boomers are significant donors to various worthy causes.

    Some Boomers believe that the point of being wealthy is to become wealthier.

    Some Boomers don’t whinge about having Howard’s middle- and upper-class rorts fixed.

    I suggest that posters who think that a Boomer is a Boomer is a Boomer, think again.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdVwKHSBO5Q

  22. KayJay @ #53 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 9:49 am

    Question without notice.

    What currency is used in Heaven ❓

    Krugerrands and blood diamonds, according to Dave Hodgson, ex-Selous Scouts.

    The Selous Scouts were the Rhodesian Dirty Warfare unit. They were one of the effector arms of the last State-sponsored and deliberate biological weapons atrocities: the use of weaponised Anthrax “cattle cake” (ex South African Project Coast, via Robert Symington’s tender ministrations) to target “Tribal” (ie “Keffir”) communities, with large numbers of human victims . Looks great on a Dominionist CV.

  23. imacca @ #135 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 11:40 am

    “Price’s most recent job was with one of WA’s smaller iron ore miners.

    I would surmise any interest she had in the environment would have been working to get around rules to protect it.”

    Price, the silent waste of space. Just warming the chair and taking the extra $ until the election.

    You short change her. She’s a woman and from WA. She fulfills 2 Ministerial quotas in the one stroke. Any semblence of competence or interest is secondary.

  28. Bridget was clearly looking around, otherwise why the pose ?
    She’s obviously out of touch with her National party voting regional Australians, who have higher incidences of obesity than the city folk where she lives.

  29. Yes, and not only baby boomers benefit from dividend imputation.

    As for gardeners and cleaners, many old people rely on them part time. They are not rich.

  30. Dan Gulberry

    How the fuck can “struggling retirees” afford a gardener and cleaner?

    They sold one of their polo ponies and skipped Biarritz this year.

  31. @Maude Lynne

    Yawn yawn yawn, I heard all the excuses before.

    When I was little, housing cost less than $100,000(My parents house cost $75,000 I think it was when they bought it).

    Now the same house would cost about $600,000, 30 years later.

    You not the blame, whatever floats your boat.

    The policies done by Howard and Costello, screwed the pooch.

    “Whitlam made universities free after 1973, so those born up to early 50’s still had to get scholarships “or cadetships because there was no HELP or loans schemes.”

    Its not because there was no HELP or loan schemes, it’s because Education is and should be part of founding building blocks of any country, just like Health and Infrastructure

    “A tiny percentage of the populace have investment properties. The rest don’t.”
    Another LIE. A tiny percentage is the problem, that have large investments in property, you don’t need a large population who have investment properties to change that.

    Just like the top income earners who hardly pay any taxes.
    Just like the top big multi nationals who don’t pay any taxes.

    Many boomers are homeless (including many women who live in cars).

    There are many homeless people now because liberals have tightened the belt for low-medium income earners. but have ignored big multi nationals.

    You are using excuses, you are blinded as bat.

    The Evidence is there.

  32. Player One @ #177 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 12:35 pm

    Boerwar @ #161 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 1:18 pm

    I suggest that posters who think that a Boomer is a Boomer is a Boomer, think again.

    I agree Boomers are a diverse lot … but they are also – on average – the wealthiest, most privileged and most selfish generation Australia has ever seen, and probably ever will.

    Oh dear, such generalisations worthy of A Current Affair. Whilst many here criticise (rightly) the same-same mantra, they are happy to consider a few wealthy, selfish people of a certain age as representative of a whole segment of society.

    And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

  33. Never understood the way my Boomer cohort became more conservative with age, I just get angrier and more left wing the older I get!

  35. How the fuck can “struggling retirees” afford a gardener and cleaner?
    ______________________________________
    Getting some help for a couple of hours a fortnight is hardly having a ‘gardener and cleaner’. We want elderly people staying in their homes for as long as possible.

  38. @Nath

    Then maybe should lobby for extra services to be paid for by the Federal Government.

    oh wait, LNP cut servcies for Aged Care, and neglected them, waiting lists, and so forth.

  40. I have a cleaner and a gardener for a few hours a week. Why shouldn’t I, my efforts can best be utilised elsewhere and other people get a job. Don’t demonise all of us landed gentry.

  41. We are, apparently, responsible for most of the ills of society, whilst living off tax payer funded fat of the land.

    Of course with the inequality and unfairness flowing from 40 years of trickle down / flood up this hasn’t been spread evenly or fairly. Very few of you are as selfaware as you, congrats.

  42. Dan Gulberry
    says:
    Why do “we” want that?
    ______________________
    Well the government subsidises all nursing and retirement places to some degree. And why not? It’s their home, they should live in it.

  44. They are trying to pretend that they are poor pensioners.I again say if it wasnt for the Labor party they wouldnt have had any franking credits anyway.

  45. Dan Gulberry
    says:
    Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 1:51 pm
    nath @ #190 Saturday, February 16th, 2019 – 10:48 am
    Don’t demonise all of us landed gentry.
    ROFL. Why not get your mate Dutton to fly in some au pairs on your behalf?
    ____________________________________
    Don’t need any these days but sure, a couple of hot French girls bouncing around the place would have been nice.

  46. Then maybe should lobby for extra services to be paid for by the Federal Government.

    This already happens but the waiting lists are very long, as they always seem to be when a Neoliberal government organises things. Choke points are introduced that drive people into the arms of private providers.

    My parents have a Home Help person, funded by the government, who comes in once a week to clean their house. They get along well enough otherwise and it frees up Aged Care places in their area.

  48. At least the Boomers got off their arses and sometimes literally put their body on the line to fight for equality and peace. A bit more effort than clicking the ‘like’ button.


    .

    .

    .

    .

    .

  49. Dividend imputation was introduced in 1987, one of a number of tax reforms by the Hawke–Keating Labor Government. Prior to that a company would pay company tax on its profits and if it then paid a dividend, that dividend was taxed again as income for the shareholder, i.e. a part owner of the company, a form of double taxation.

  50. C@tmomma
    says:
    My parents have a Home Help person, funded by the government, who comes in once a week to clean their house. They get along well enough otherwise and it frees up Aged Care places in their area.
    ___________________
    Exactly, well said C@tmomma.

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