The first Ipsos poll of the year for the Nine newspapers is the best for the Coalition of the five published under Scott Morrison’s prime ministership, with Labor’s lead cut from 54-46 to 51-49 since the December poll. The Coalition gains two on the primary vote to 38% while Labor slips four to 33% (albeit that the last result was something of an outlier, as Ipsos leans on the low side with primary votes for both major parties). The Greens meanwhile are steady on 13%, a characteristically high result for them from Ipsos. The two-party figure is presumably based on 2016 election preference flows – we should have a result for respondent-allocated preferences later (UPDATE: 51-49 on respondent-allocated preferences as well).
There is little corresponding movement on leadership ratings: Scott Morrison is up two on approval to 49% and up one on disapproval to 40%, Shorten is down one to 40% and up two to 52% (relatively positive results on leadership ratings being a further peculiarity of Ipsos), and Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 46-37 to 48-38. The poll was conducted from a sample of 1200 from Tuesday to Friday, which makes it an imperfect measure of the impact, if any, of the parliamentary vote on asylum seekers on Tuesday.
The same goes for the other poll this weekend, a Queensland-only affair on federal voting intention by YouGov Galaxy for the Courier-Mail (state voting intention results from the poll can be found in the post below). The news here for the government is bad, with Labor recording a 52-48 lead on two-party preferred, which represents a 6% swing in that state since the 2016 election, and compares with a 50-50 result at the last such poll in November. The primary votes are Coalition 35% (down three on the last poll, compared with 43.2% at the 2016 election), Labor 34% (steady, compared with 30.9%), Greens 10% (up one, compared with 8.8%) and One Nation 8% (down one, and they only ran in a few seats in 2016).
The poll also has a question on the party with the “better plan on border security and asylum seekers” which finds the Coalition leading 44% to 29%, which is a par-for-the-course result for such a question. The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 810.
A few thoughts on the Paladin contract.
Professionally I sit at Finance Manager level in a multinational construction and industrial services company and have been at that level for 12 years. In that time, I’ve dealt with construction and services contracts with state & federal governments and companies from reasonably small, right up to the then largest company in the world. The biggest contract I’ve been responsible for had a value of just short of a billion dollars.
The Paladin contract stinks to high heaven:
• When dealing with large companies there is an extensive tender prequalification process which ensures you have suitable experience to be able to successfully execute the contract and that you have the resources to take it on;
• It takes months and thousands of work hours, not six days to work your way through tender prequalification, tendering and final negotiations;
• Unless it’s a panel arrangement for which you’ve already been though tender prequalification and contract negotiation the tender process is open, not closed and tender process for the panel was open to begin with;
• A contract of either $90m or $423m would be signed off at the highest level (ministerial/cabinet/international board of directors) and there would be extensive discussion with them about your ability to undertake the contract;
• When you submit a bid for a tender of either $90m or $423m it takes months for it to be assessed by the organisation which issued it and they request extensive clarifications on a range of matters within your tender;
• Any sort of doubts around your reputation or business practices are generally terminal to your prospects of being a tier one contractor on such large tenders, and;
• Payments in advance on contracts are very unusual are very unusual and impose very onerous obligations upon the contractee.
For a real-life example, the company I work for has recently won a contract with a government business enterprise (GBE) valued in the low tens of millions. They have worked for this GBE for decades on a separate contract of similar size for related services and have previously provided the tendered services to them. From expression of interest to contract award took just over two years and the final contract had to be signed off by the full board of the GBE.
On this, Dutton and some senior people in his Department will be living in mortal fear of Labor’s ICAC and preparing themselves to stick their heads between their legs and kiss their backsides goodbye
Invest in this poll at your peril.
grimace @ #101 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:14 pm
It absolutely stinks to high heaven …and someone like Keneally should be handed the brief to prosecute front centre stage, not Neumann.
j341983 @ #102 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:16 pm
it better be a rogue !
Rex Douglas
Maybe. But Bandt and those independents better get cracking.
Speaking of the media darling Keneally, why is she still tucked away on the backbench when she could be attracting all the cameras with positive Labor messaging ..?
Late Riser @ #105 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:22 pm
Hang on… weren’t a lot of the Labor partisans here claiming ownership of the amendments only a day or so ago ?
Random thoughts:
Was there an IPSOS in Victoria prior to the Vic State election?
This should energise Labor for the coming week.
Diogenes @ #82 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 7:56 pm
Nah, that was his brother.
I heard that one ended up as a plastic surgeon in Adelaide!
Rex Douglas @ #106 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:24 pm
Possibly for the same reason she is no longer Premier of NSW.
Rex Douglas @ #107 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 7:26 pm
Are you suggesting Bandt et al. had nothing to do with it?
“grimace @ #101 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:14 pm
A few thoughts on the Paladin contract. ”
Interesting take grim..thanks.
I believe that its up for “discussion” at Senate Estimates this week. Wong was commenting quite strongly and if the ALP have assigned her or Kenealy to pursue this then the Libs are in for a torrid time.
This, on top of the Great Barrier Reef Rort, is going to be damaging. Seems to me that they have played fast and loose with the GBR stuff but maybe not actually done anything technically “wrong” that people could get busted for. The Paladin thing is more strictly commercial and there would be tighter rules and procedures apply for procurement??
A lot of pants wetting by many Murdoch organ shills over the Ipsos triumph for Scotty.
However, a more sanguine view from James Campbell, editor of the Herald Sun…
“More more magical polling numbers from Ipsos: Labor’s primary vote fell 4 points over the summer to 33%, while the Coalition’s rose 2 points to 38%. The Greens remain on 13%. Sorry but any poll in which both ALP & Coalition primary drops from 2016 is junk.”
Conservative columnist for the HS calls it as he sees it.
James Campbell
Verified account
@J_C_Campbell
6m6 minutes ago
More
More more magical polling numbers from Ipsos: Labor’s primary vote fell 4 points over the summer to 33%, while the Coalition’s rose 2 points to 38%. The Greens remain on 13%. Sorry but any poll in which both ALP & Coalition primary drops from 2016 is junk.
GG
Snap!
Late Riser @ #111 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:27 pm
Not at all. But let’s face it, the Indy’s and Greens don’t get the media focus Labor gets. I’m sure the crossbenchers will be trying to get their attention every day.
The spotlight on Paladin will come in Senate estimates this week.
Last time I looked Neumann was a member of the House of Representatives.
Player One @ #110 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:27 pm
You’d prefer Neumann doing the messaging ?
“Am I really the only one suspects that it was franking credits, as opposed to boats, that caused this?”
That’s one theory. Another is that “this” is a mirage caused by Ipsos being shit.
sprocket_ @ #113 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:30 pm
I named the source. Campbell is straight up in my experience despite his pro liberal personal bias.
Rex Douglas @ #116 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 7:31 pm
I hope so. They certainly got some glory last week. Lets see if they learned how to keep it going. Their political future is on the line.
Steve777 @ 7.10pm
“I am hoping that Labor can turn down the temperature on the whole issue once in office. Keep up the turnbacks, enter agreements with our neighbours, especially Indonesia and Malaysia.”
One thing an ALP government should do is close down the TV program “Border Security”, which seems designed purely to keep the temperature up. I recall reading once that back in the days of the Soviet Union there was a comparable program on TV there which sang the praises of the KGB.
Wasn’t James Campbell spruiking Matthew Guy as a real chance of being Victorian Premier not so long ago ?
I hope he’s right this time.
Two very different poll results. It would be interesting to know what questions and how they were asked. The government went all out and may have received some cheap votes early but as the discussion went further I’m of the opinion that voters have a better understanding and realise it is not a big change. Overreach once again, if they didn’t overcook it, it could have worked for them. It would be wise to wait for further polls and evidence of what is in the mind of voters.
GG
My post named the source, and his role. Yours didn’t. Nya, nya! (Ignore this playful banter, William)
Rex Douglas @ #118 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:32 pm
Why do you ask such inane questions?
sprocket_ @ #124 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:35 pm
Only in a direct way. What have you got to hide?
GG
One of the Ripper suspects moved to Australia and died here.
Senior Coalition figures bodgying up contracts worth hundreds of millions with mates behind closed doors and the media is obsessed by boats.
Six years ago they were hounding the Speaker over $1,000 in taxi fares.
Says it all.
Bring on the Federal ICAC. And make it retrospective.
Diogenes @ #127 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:38 pm
So, the plot thickens?
Steve777 @ #129 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 7:38 pm
Yes. But if what this smells of is indeed what it is aren’t there are laws already in place?
All I’ll say is that Ipsos has a track record of being the king of the outlier
Grimace @8:14PM. Interesting – thanks for posting.
James Campbell failed to mention the 3% extra that the Greens always manage in Ipsos.
In terms of the Paladin ‘tender’, all I can ask is what in blazes has happened to the integrity of the Australian Public Service?
Organising a transparent tender process is Procurement 101. How did this get so badly off track to as to not even pass the sniff test?!
Late Riser “Yes. But if what this smells of is indeed what it is aren’t there are laws already in place?”
There are, but an ICAC or a Royal Commission would be an effective mechanism to investigate, gather evidence and report on dodgy dealings, which can be then referred to the relevant authorities for prosecution. The alternative would be to refer it to the Police, AFP or State. But then, I regard the AFP as hopelessly compromised.
imacca @ #112 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 5:27 pm
The procurement rules for high value contracts with any large organisation, public or private, are arduous.
If you are dealing with a contract with a government department where the performance of your organisation will get regular runs on the front page of every paper in Australia and regularly lead the evening news then the difficulty of administration of the contract leaps by several orders of magnitude.
For a contract of this nature, only organisations such as Broadspectrum, UGL, Serco, Sodexo et.al would have anywhere near the resources to take on the administrative burden of a contract of this nature. No way known would an organisation who needed an advance payment* on the contract to get started have anywhere near the resources needed to successfully execute this contract..
* I’ve dealt with advance payments a couple of times and would not wish the consequential problems associated with them on anyone.
steve davis @ #133 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:44 pm
he was saying the whole poll is hokum. 13% for the Greens is part of that hokum!
GG
At least someone in the media is calling Ipsos for what it is.
Regardless of the evidence I prefer to believe that the ripper was Victor Albert.
Steve777 @ #136 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 7:49 pm
Fair enough. It was the ‘retrospective’ part of your comment I was thinking about.
Diogenes @ #71 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 7:47 pm
Diogenes
I agree we will never know who the Ripper actually was, what I find most interesting from this book is how incompetent or corrupt the English law enforcement was. In conjunction with the Masonic society as well.
I am sure the Maybrick diaries are a hoax, the book also alludes to them being fake but the interesting thing is that the culprit is not James Maybrick but his brother Michael. It is an interesting book which raises some very interesting points relating to Maybrick, his presence and access to sites of murders and it also links other murders to the Ripper. Even going as far as detailing how the Ripper was writing constantly to the police and planting clues as well as parts of bodies for them to find, one such body was even secreted in the foundations of the new police headquarters.
One thing that I find difficult to understand is if Michael Maybrick was the Ripper, why did someone that showed so many traits of a complete sociopath just stop and retire to the Isle of Wight living there without further crimes until his death of natural causes.
Still an interesting book and one that raises some interesting points, it also has a distinct disregard for the ripperologists of fame mainly blaming them for the loss of so much historical information and so many idiotic red herrings.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #139 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 8:53 pm
He didn’t play for St. Kilda.
The fact that Dutton is walking backwards from Paladin as fast as he can is telling.
Otherwise he would be on the front foot blaming Shorten, the CFMEU and outlaw motorcycle gangs.
“He didn’t play for St. Kilda.”
Perhaps he did.
Instead of dying, maybe he just arranged to disappear to the colonies when the ripper heat got too close.
“Fair enough. It was the ‘retrospective’ part of your comment I was thinking about.”
By “retrospective”, I wanted to ensure that any ICAC established could be empowered to investigate what’s happening now – the $440 million to mining mates to “look after” the Barrier Reef, for example. Maybe what’s really going on with Adani. And wtf is going on with the Murray Darling Basin.
I would not expect it to reopen any cases that have been before the courts. I wouldn’t want it to waste time investigating obscure dealings 10 or 20 years past like the ROC or the Heydon witchhunt.
An investigation into past crimes or current crimes is not “retrospective”. It would only be retrospective if perfectly proper past behaviour was later made illegal and then charged.
One cannot underestimate the number of racists in Australian society, who would not care in the least about how asylum seekers are treated in the detention centers. To these people they are seen as ‘ragheads’ or ‘muzzies’, such is the amount of hatred against people who consider themselves as Muslims in the general population.
The Coalition I predict will lose between 13-17 seats to Labor, I don’t know how many to Independents (apart from Warringah, Abbott is a goner), although I can’t see many Coalition seats to be lost to Independents. I expect Labor to have a sizable majority in the House of Representatives, along with Labor and the Greens taking up half the Senate seats.
However given what the campaign is going to shape up as, it is going to be extremely divisive and the Coalition will drift even more towards a alt-right direction as it enters opposition. Either the Coalition moves towards that direction or some other parties advocating those views replaces it.
Steve777, not to be picky, but it was $444 million. 🙂 Corruption is like lies. If you’re gonna do one make it big enough and lots of littler ones can hide. (Personal irk.)
Rossmcg @ #142 Sunday, February 17th, 2019 – 5:58 pm
And Sudanese gangs in Melbourne.