BludgerTrack: 53.2-46.8 to Labor (still)

No new grist for the BludgerTrack mill this week, but there’s a Greenpeace-sponsored federal poll and some preselection news to relate.

There haven’t been any new polls this week, so the headline to this post isn’t news as such – the point is that a new thread is needed, and this is it. Developments worth noting:

• We do have one new poll, but it was privately conducted and so doesn’t count as canonical so far as BludgerTrack is concerned. The poll in question was conducted by uComms/ReachTEL for Greenpeace last Wednesday from a sample of 2134, and has primary votes of Coalition 38.8%, Labor 36.7%, Greens 9.7% and One Nation 6.1%. A 53-47 two-party split is reported based on respondent-allocated preferences, but it would actually have been around 51.5-48.5 based on preferences from 2016. The poll also features attitudinal questions on carbon emissions and government priorities, which you can read all about here.

• The Greens have landed a high-profile candidate in Julian Burnside, human rights lawyer and refugee advocate, to run against Josh Frydenberg in the normally blue-ribbon Melbourne seat of Kooyong. This further complicates a contest that already featured independent hopeful Oliver Yates, former Liberal Party member and chief executive of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

• The Liberal preselection to choose a successor to Julie Bishop in Curtin will be determined by a vote of 60 delegates on Sunday. Initial reports suggested the front-runners were Celia Hammond, former vice-chancellor of Notre Dame University, and Erin Watson-Lynn, director of Asialink Diplomacy at the University of Melbourne, which some interpreted as a proxy battle between bitter rivals Mathias Cormann and Julie Bishop. However, both have hit heavy weather over the past week, with concerns raised over Hammond’s social conservatism and Watson-Lynn’s past tweets critical of the Liberal Party. Andrew Tillett of the Financial Review reports that some within the party believe a third nominee, Aurizon manager Anna Dartnell, could skate through the middle.

• Tom Richardson of InDaily reports moderate faction efforts to install a male candidate – James Stevens, chief-of-staff to Premier Steve Marshall – in Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt are prompting a slew of conservative-aligned women to nominate against him. These include Deepa Mathew, a manager at the Commonwealth Bank and state candidate for Enfield last year; Joanna Andrew, a partner with law firm Mellor Olsson; and Jocelyn Sutcliffe, a lawyer with Tindall Gask Bentley. However, Stevens remains the “overwhelming favourite”.

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.

2,867 comments on “BludgerTrack: 53.2-46.8 to Labor (still)”

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  4. Manafort’s perversely light jail sentence should have all Americans livid: conservative commentator

    Calling it a victory for rich white people, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post slammed the 47 months given to convicted Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as perverse and a slap in the face to average Americans.

    According to Jennifer Rubin, the slap on the wrist for Manafort delivered by Judge T.S. Ellis was not only wrong but, “added insult to injury by stating Manafort had lived a ‘blameless’ life before getting caught committing a host of crimes.”

    As Rubin noted, “Ellis seems to have been unaware that for a good deal of his adult life, Manafort made money — blood money, his own daughter called it — representing a rogues’ gallery of butchers.”

    Rubin then lambasted the judge for “perpetuating” a system where the rich get off easy, while the poor suffer the most.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/manaforts-perversely-light-jail-sentence-americans-livid-conservative-commentator/

  5. My view is that Trump is more certain to be in legal trouble today than the day of his inaugural when we were predicting he would not last his term.

    The complaints about the Democrats going “fishing” and Presidential Harassment show that just like with the Mueller inquiry Trump knows trouble is coming.

    I still think we might see President Pelosi as soon as the GOP is prised from supporting Trump.
    As the evidence builds up a smoking gun will come. So far remember the standard with Nixon has not been met. There are no tapes recording actual crimes of the President. Just his fixer alleging the same.

    Thats from the public evidence. Its going to be a fun time when the secret parts get revealed.
    The thing to remember about the Mueller report is its not going to be the end but just the beginning.

  6. Victoria says: Saturday, March 9, 2019 at 9:41 am

    PhoenixRed

    Rub and tug is no biggie. It is the trafficking aspect which is a biggie

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

    Totally agree Victoria – I remain hopeful with all this Florida/Epstein/Kraft etc things – that the lid will be lifted on all this ‘underage human trafficking’ – and all the Model/Escort/Spa will be exposed and ALL those involved will be brought to justice …

  7. lizzie @ #1345 Saturday, March 9th, 2019 – 9:33 am

    Eyebrows have been raised in legal circles over Attorney-General Christian Porter’s decision to appoint a junior barrister he knew at law school to the Federal Court.

    Industrial relations specialist John Snaden was a prominent Liberal student politician whose time at the University of Western Australia’s law school overlapped with Mr Porter’s for several years.

    The decision to appoint someone so young, known to the Attorney-General and with past political links raised “genuine questions” about transparency, according to one law professor.

    Mr Snaden, 43, who has been named as a close friend by two other Liberal politicians, will be sworn in next month and eligible to sit on the bench until 2046.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/ag-christian-porter-appoints-junior-barrister-he-knew-at-uni-as-judge-20190308-p512r6.html

    Finally, the US style of judicial appointments begins overtly to infect Australia.

  11. Ven says: Saturday, March 9, 2019 at 9:39 am

    Confessions9:01am
    Trump is surrounded only by shady characters.

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

    Well he certainly can’t keep staff : there has to be some reason !!!!

    Bill Shine resigns from the White House after just 8 months

    Former Fox News executive Bill Shine has reportedly resigned from the Trump White House — just over seven months after he joined it.

    According to Brian Krassenstein‏ @krassenstein

    Just a reminder….

    Bill Shine is the 414th person to quit or be fired since Trump took office 25 months ago

  12. Observer:

    [‘I really tire of their (Greens) repetitive presence on this site’]

    Fancy others expressing different views to yours having the audacity to post on this site.

    And your less than subtle putdown of another’s sexuality speaks for itself. You owe him an apology.

  13. Trump will not go quietly, have a real fear the damage to institutions and the breaking down of tbe separation of powers beyond repair.

    Republican party need to seperate from Trump and his crass maga appeal needs to be moved on from. This willnot happen easily

  15. Bill Shine is the 414th person to quit or be fired since Trump took office 25 months ago

    And here’s No. 415.

    Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, one of the first officials to join the Trump administration in the Pentagon, said Friday she has informed President Trump she will resign, as the University of Texas System announced she has been named the sole finalist to become president of its campus in El Paso.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/03/08/air-force-secretary-heather-wilson-expected-resign/?utm_term=.e7100e8f3486

  18. Can I have a therapeutic whinge? I have had a total gutful of the false equivalence in the media on the “major parties’ problems” with independents. Jane Cadzow is at it again Nine/Fairfax, reporting on Waringah:
    “Independent candidates are expected to poll well in a number of electorates at this year’s federal election, benefiting from disillusionment with the party system and politics in general. ”

    How coy is that? “A number of electorates” indeed. Sorry, you mean “a number of Coalition electorates” don’t you.

    ABC are also particularly egregious on this. News 24 yesterday ran some puff piece again about trouble for rural incumbents (who all just coincidently are Nats?) and how this was indicative of “fracturing party loyalties” and “localism” spelling trouble for “the major parties”.

    So somehow the problems of Indi and New England and Waringah and Wentworth and Deakin and Kooyong all spell TROUBLE for Labor.

    Seriously – where the f*** are the high profile independents in Jagajaga and Graydler? Until then kindly STFU.

    My hope is that after the election someone in the media will have the intellectual honesty to own up to own up to this and come clean on this as a Coalition problem, NOT a “shared” one. But then I did just use the word intellectual honesty and media in the same sentence I reckon I’m cactus.

  20. Very interesting from Paul Bongiorno: Whiney Piney basically retired because he wanted his pension pegged at his last 3 years as a cabinet minister. It was his last big chance to screw us all and he took it!

  21. Geetroit

    Good Post. I agree.

    We get the right wing view of the world every day from our media.
    We don’t get much talk about how wrong the LNP are on tax cuts and what a political loser it is by citing polls every time its mentioned. Yet every time a living wage is mentioned we hear the BCA view of why that costs too much

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/apr/18/most-voters-want-turnbull-government-to-tax-more-and-reduce-inequality-poll-finds

    Thats the last time we had a media outlet mention what Australians actually think

  24. Stop the presses!
    According to the West this morning, the “Libs are thinking of Cowan win”.
    Based on the scientific and totally impartial ReachTel single-seat poll done/commissioned by Liberal senator, Dean Smith, some 618 of the good citizens of Cowan were asked their opinion. Result: 37.2% said they would give their first preferences to the Libs while 30.7 said Labor. But, when the wash out for TPP was mentioned this shows Labor’s vote had climbed to 51.5% TPP. The poll then indicated that compared to the actual vote for first preferences had declined from Anne Aly from 41.88% in 2016.
    Anyhow, according to Smith, this result “would enthuse local Liberals”
    While Smith also enthused about the change of tactics to attack Labor held seats here in WA, Cowan was the only one so far identified as worth the effort. Meanwhile, there are 4-6 Liberal seats with margins less that 5% and it is significant that Morrison spent a lot of his time here in Porter’s and Iron’s seats. Still, single seat polls with a cohort group of just over 600 shows the Libs have the seat in the bag……………..not.

  25. My feeling is that if PB became only a Labor love in site then it would begin to whither. You need a variety of views to make interesting conversations and disputes which keeps places like PB alive. Also we all get tired of the way things are going on occasions and the best thing to do when that happens is to take a break and come back refreshed when you are ready.

  27. Manafort’s sentence was a travesty, by a judge known for his empathy for white-collar criminals. The retirement age for judges in Australia is 70, though this is sometimes extended by up to two years by appointing them as acting judges. Ellis is 78, seemingly ill-equipped to accept the seriousness of Manafort’s offending, failing to take into account personal and general deterrence.

    The sentencing guidelines called for a term of imprisonment of between 19 & 25 years, but due to his age and state of health, his previous “good character”, Manafort dodged a bullet, the prisoner showing no remorse, normally a strong mitigating factor.

    When his bail was revoked nine months ago for witness tampering, he was seen going into court walking with no impediment, yet at his sentencing hearing, he was seated in a wheel-chair, with a walking stick in hand – one of the oldest tricks in the book. Gout can be a painful condition, but it normally stems from lifestyle choices – too much of the high life, Russian vodka.

    When he’s again sentenced next week, I do hope that whatever sentences are imposed are consecutive, to right the wrong of Ellis’ manifestly lenient sentence. I won’t go so far as to suggest that Ellis was nobbled by the Trump regime.

  28. Pegasus says:
    Friday, March 8, 2019 at 11:45 pm

    Grassroots activism is on the rise.

    ***********

    Remind me again, whose field campaign is bigger than the other three combined? I’ll give you a clue, it isn’t the he Greens.

  29. When he’s again sentenced next week, I do hope that whatever sentences are imposed are consecutive, to right the wrong of Ellis’ manifestly lenient sentence.

    Ironically Manafort’s lawyers have pushed for consecutive sentences. I doubt they will be wanting it now though in light of Ellis’ leniency.

  32. Davidwh

    I could not agree more, but we can’t get away from the fact that most here are happy to plug the left-of-centre line and those on the other side of the aisle are either of the rabid breed or get fed up with baiting the majority. Yours is one of the few sane and consistent voices from the other side of the aisle currently. I prefer to hear some sensible views from political opponents rather than a lot of self-indulgent stuff which passes as debate between centre, left, right and radical left which takes up a lot of room here.

  33. @Guy:

    “Labor would have been better to stick with Curtin Whitlam era politics but Hawke and Keating ruled in the Neo Liberal era and some Labor people are having some trouble remembering why Labor standing up for workers has been more Curtin Whitlam than Hawke Keating throughout its history.”

    Literally clueless about labor history.

  34. Tricot

    I have not seen many radical left commentators here. Just as I have not seen many radical right people posting here.

    Radical Left = Communists in favour of dictatorships. Radical Right = Fascists in favour of dictatorships.

  35. Geetroit @ #1368 Saturday, March 9th, 2019 – 10:12 am

    Can I have a therapeutic whinge? I have had a total gutful of the false equivalence in the media on the “major parties’ problems” with independents. Jane Cadzow is at it again Nine/Fairfax, reporting on Waringah:
    “Independent candidates are expected to poll well in a number of electorates at this year’s federal election, benefiting from disillusionment with the party system and politics in general. ”

    How coy is that? “A number of electorates” indeed. Sorry, you mean “a number of Coalition electorates” don’t you.

    ABC are also particularly egregious on this. News 24 yesterday ran some puff piece again about trouble for rural incumbents (who all just coincidently are Nats?) and how this was indicative of “fracturing party loyalties” and “localism” spelling trouble for “the major parties”.

    So somehow the problems of Indi and New England and Waringah and Wentworth and Deakin and Kooyong all spell TROUBLE for Labor.

    Seriously – where the f*** are the high profile independents in Jagajaga and Graydler? Until then kindly STFU.

    My hope is that after the election someone in the media will have the intellectual honesty to own up to own up to this and come clean on this as a Coalition problem, NOT a “shared” one. But then I did just use the word intellectual honesty and media in the same sentence I reckon I’m cactus.

    Well said.
    These days the ABC assidiously substitutes the words ‘Canberra’ or ‘politicians’ for ‘government’, to avoid being seen to be criticising the LNP.

  36. Have I even mentioned Greens in my posts that obviously have a theme of the rise of the non-major party vote share?

    No, but anti-Greens detractors are so fixated on a supposedly “irrelevant” party that is their take-out of the posts.

    Unsuprising to say the least.

  37. Andrew Earlwood

    You are literally clueless about Labor history if you think the Hawke Keating era policies are like those of the Curtin Whitlam era.

  38. “You are literally clueless about Labor history if you think the Hawke Keating era policies are like those of the Curtin Whitlam era.”

    Useless, as well. There is no “Curtain Whitlam” era. The “Curtain Era” if there is just a beast, ended with Arthur Caldwell. The Hawke-Keating Government was the continuation of the Whitlam era, only with competent governance.

    Got it?

  39. Davidwh

    I agree that this site is more entertaining when there is a variety of opinions, and for the last few months I have felt not only repelled, but bored by the repetition of attacks and insults, which result, of course, in repetitive spitefulness in return.

    Perhaps it will all calm down when we don’t feel suffocated by the Morrison miasma.

  40. Andrew Earlwood

    Nope. You are wrong. Whitlam policy was not to have privatisation.
    Remember buy back the farm?
    Utterly clueless.

  41. I have not seen many radical left commentators here. Just as I have not seen many radical right people posting here.

    Neither have I. The radical strawman exists on PB for the so-called ‘sensible centrists’ to rail against the likes of democratic socialists.

  44. https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/united-states-rise-democratic-socialism

    https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/united-states-rise-democratic-socialism

    The Bernie Sanders presidential campaign has generated huge excitement in the United States. In the first week following the announcement of his presidential campaign, over one million supporters signed up as volunteers in every part of the country. Hundreds of thousands of people contributed small donations —averaging US$27, as occurred in his 2016 campaign — for a total of $10 million in grassroots funding.

    He has now begun a speaking tour of the country, with back-to-back mass rallies in New York and Chicago attended by more than 10,000 people.

    His campaign has mass support and resonance among working people. Sanders confidently frames his agenda of reforms as majoritarian, common-sense proposals, in the interests of the vast majority, against the predominant politics of both the Republican and Democratic parties — which he describes as being captured by a tiny, wealthy elite.

    Sanders emphasises the necessity of grassroots activity and the involvement of ordinary working people in what he calls a “political revolution.” He has spoken in support of striking teachers and manufacturing workers and references the historic social movements of the past as the engine of progressive change.

  45. Pegasua

    ‘Have I even mentioned Greens in my posts that obviously have a theme of the rise of the non-major party vote share?’

    No, but why does that mean I can’t? Have you got some kind of copyright on the articles you link to which restricts people’s right to respond in the way they want to?

    After all, ‘all’s fair in love and war’…. and it’s not as if you yourself haven’t seen some articles as referring to ‘the duopoly’ when really they’re only talking about one party.

  46. ..particularly when the point I was making that it is incorrect to blame ‘the major parties’ for preventing independents getting elected when a ‘minor party’ has been involved, too.

  47. On the Gay tour posting: I have on a number of occasions had to go back and immediately edit peoples screen names because the ‘intuitive’ word processor ‘fixes’ my spelling.

    If you’re using an iPad – it is something you continually have to watch for.

    So don’t jump to conclusions folks!

  50. Jen

    Its not the first time with that poster and in my reply I did make it clear I was apologising if it was not deliberate for the very reason you cite. I don’t keep close track. I did not need Nath’s reminder of past mistakes and its why I used the words looks like.

    It would have been nice to get a sorry my bad I did not mean it response.

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