Newspoll breakdowns and BludgerTrack redux

New state-level numbers for federal voting intention take the edge off for the Coalition in Victoria and Western Australia, but weaken them in (of all places) New South Wales.

If you’re reading this on Tuesday morning, the results of the Essential Research poll should be available at The Guardian, but I’m on Sydney time right now and thus unable to post it overnight like I normally would (UPDATE: See below). What we do have is the latest quarterly state breakdowns from Newspoll in The Australian, which aggregate the four polls published so far this year. Some of these results seem a bit quirky this time out – the political class will be looking askance at the finding that the Coalition has recovered three points in Victoria, and that the Greens vote is lower there than that it is in New South Wales and Queensland. Nonetheless, let the record note that poll has Labor’s lead steady at 54-46 in New South Wales, but down from 56-44 to 53-47 in Victoria, 54-46 to 53-47 in Queensland, 53-47 to 51-49 in Western Australia, and 58-42 to 56-44 in South Australia. Labor’s national lead in this period fell to 53-47 from 55-45 in the previous quarter. The Australian has packed the full results into one report, rather than rolling out state and then age, gender and region breakdowns like they sometimes do. Apart from the age breakdowns (not to mention the leadership ratings), you can find the primary vote numbers in the BludgerTrack poll results archive.

With the Newspoll numbers in hand, I have finally done what I would regard as a proper full update of BludgerTrack for the first time since the start of the year. Up to now, I have just been updating the national numbers, leaving the state-level relativities as they were at the end of last year. This is because I have hitherto had only the data provided by Essential Research to work with for the current year, and this was a shallow pool for the smaller states, where there was rather too much noise mixed together with the signal. Now that it’s all in the mix, the national seat projection is unchanged, but this comes from Coalition gains in Victoria and Western Australia (two seats apiece) cancelling out losses in New South Wales and Queensland (also two apiece).

Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

The Essential Research poll records a one-point move back to the Coalition, reducing Labor’s lead to 52-48. The Guardian’s report notes this may have been assisted by static from the New South Wales state election, since it records an increase in the Coalition primary vote in the state from 39% to 41%. The national primary votes were Coalition 39% (up two), Labor 36% (down two), the Greens 10% (up two) and One Nation 7% (steady).

Other findings related directly or indirectly to the Christchurch attacks, including approval ratings for a range of international leaders which had Jacinda Ardern on 71% favourable, compared with 41% for Scott Morrison, 36% for Angela Markel, 31% for Teresa May and 19% for Donald Trump. High uncommitted responses were recorded for Merkel and May, at 42% and 38% respectively. Sixty-nine per cent of respondents said social media platforms should be required to prevent the broadcast of violent material; 49% believed media outlets that have provided platforms for extremist and racist views bore some responsibility for the Christchurch attacks; 42% believed major party politicians in Australia had deiberately stirred up anti-Islamic sentiment; 40% believed Christchurch was an isolated act rather than being connected to broarder debates; 37% reported regularly hearing racist or Islamaphobic statements.

Questions on the federal budget produced typical responses with respect to budget spending priorities, with health, education and pensions most favoured, although it’s perhaps telling that affordable housing came fourth out of a list of 14. Fifty-eight per cent expected the budget would be good for the well off and 50% believed it would benefit business, but only 19% expected to benefit personally, and 34% thought it would be bad or very bad. Other than that, “ a majority of voters want more spending in health, education and aged pensions”.

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.

1,835 comments on “Newspoll breakdowns and BludgerTrack redux”

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  1. Boerwar @ #11534 Friday, March 29th, 2019 – 9:07 pm

    ‘Confessions says:
    Friday, March 29, 2019 at 8:08 pm

    I was told today that the federal govt will very soon be in caretaker mode in relation to a grant our organisation has received. Apparently the contracts needed to be signed and returned by Monday cob at the latest, suggesting that caretaker period is very much imminent, with a trip to the GG on Thursday or Friday next week. ‘

    Hmmm… but can we rely on GG to set the ball in motion?

    Dunno. What say you, Greensborough Growler?

  2. “Beautiful. Thank you! That haze is a cloud, of suns, self illuminating. Beautiful”

    That picture encompasses hundreds of billions of suns, maybe a trillion (10^12) or more.

    Meanwhile, Australian astronomers have discovered the other end of the Horsehead Nebula. They decided to name it after the Prime Minister.

  3. LR – after this week, I am no longer chastened about 55/45 for this weekend’s Newspoll. Make it so. The Scrotum of State is shrinking.

  4. For anyone with irrelevance deprivation syndrome, the stunningly beautiful Sombrero Galaxy :

    Certainly puts our own personal grievances into perspective, doesn’t it?

  5. TPOF says:
    Friday, March 29, 2019 at 8:24 pm
    It’s sad when someone glories in people possibly going bankrupt. Banks won’t necessarily lend to first home buyers, even if they are getting a bargain, if the economy is shocked into a spending freeze.

    That said, banks don’t spend a lot of time checking the day by day value of investment housing. Basically, as long as the loans are serviced the banks will not make life difficult for them.

    Sorry to disappoint you.
    —————————
    ooh I won’t be disappointed thank you TPOF. It is sad when someone cries crocodile tears of sympathy for those that have been parasites on genuine toiling taxpayers.
    You may find the banks take a higher interest in asset vs borrowing ratios in recent times.
    And obviously deposits become more achievable as house prices decline.

  6. EGW says:
    Friday, March 29, 2019 at 8:33 pm
    Why not first preference?

    I refuse to vote for either major party until the corruption of all corporate and large private donations is removed from politics. I think it is the biggest problem facing democracies.
    Been a Green for 2 decades.
    I must admit Labor policies have me tempted this time around though.

  7. ICANCU @ #1808 Friday, March 29th, 2019 – 9:34 pm

    EGW says:
    Friday, March 29, 2019 at 8:33 pm
    Why not first preference?

    I refuse to vote for either major party until the corruption of all corporate and large private donations is removed from politics. I think it is the biggest problem facing democracies.
    Been a Green for 2 decades.
    I must admit Labor policies have me tempted this time around though.

    OK, so you like Labor policies so reward another party with your first preference. Green logic I suppose.

  8. I won’t be surprised if the Newspoll moves toward the Coalition – I don’t believe it SHOULD – but I don’t think the disengaged will take particular note of the fact that Morrison spent most of the week prevaricating over the preferences debacle.

  9. Sitting in the traffic jam that is Coronation Drive in Brisbane this morning listening to the Lord Mayor of one of the Nations biggest Councils announce his shock retirement a year out from the next council election.
    Wondering what he has achieved in his last 8 years? The traffic is certainly much worse. I could pay $5k per year in tolls to get to work 15 minutes faster….

  10. “Of the voters who normally vote Republican but voted for Obama twice, and then voted for Trump in 2016, most could be won over by Bernie Sanders”

    Proving what a fucking fantasist you are Nicholas.

    The people you describe are unicorns: sure, in an eligible voting group numbering some 230 million people there would be a hand full of folk that fit your description, but in large numbers, they simply don’t exist: for the past 50 years or more presidential elections, in fact most American elections of any kind, are determined by who turns up to vote and who doesn’t. Those who actually habitually vote but regularly change teams are very very rare beasts indeed.

    Trump didn’t win the rust belt because Obama voters changed their votes. He won because lifetime democrats in the cities didn’t turn up at all in large numbers AND republicans in the rural areas of said rust belt states turned out bigly. Ditto the Sunbelt swing states of Florida and North Carolina. One only has to go to the county by county returns – compare 2008, 2012 and 2016 – to work THAT out.

  11. EGW says:
    Friday, March 29, 2019 at 9:40 pm
    OK, so you like Labor policies so reward another party with your first preference. Green logic I suppose.
    No I just prefer Greens policy on the hot button issue for me.

  12. Lib candidate very busy in my electorate Ryan and has been for about 3-4 weeks.
    Greens are waving our stop Adani – save the planet placards with unrivaled enthusiasm.
    Labor completely unsighted – not unusual in this neck of the woods.
    There was a rumour Jane Prentice may stand as an independent but I don’t think she will rock the boat. I heard she has been a Liberal party member since she was young. She was an ok lady – nice enough at school fetes and sponsoring sporting clubs etc. Didn’t deserve what the career minded young lib wannabees dished out to her.

  13. Jen
    but I don’t think the disengaged will take particular note of the fact that Morrison spent most of the week prevaricating over the preferences debacle.

    That is true and there could be a swing to the government. Keane had a very good article on this in today’s Crikey.
    Polls usually reflect a trend, perhaps if a government is seen to be doing well an increase of say 0.1% on the 2Pp each week for a couple of months. I am talking averages.
    Or a rare sudden change when something happens in Canberra that no one can ignore, Tampa, Leadership change or giving Prince Phillip a knighthood.
    The article was in the context of The IPSOS poll attributing an upswing in February due to medivac, only to be undone by the next NewsPoll.

  14. Late riser re: “levels of intelligence”

    How does this relate to Pearl’s “Ladder of Causality”,which comprises three levels:
    1 – association (obsevervtion and classification) – “what if I see (or otherwise sense) X?”
    2 – intervention – “what if a do Y?”
    3 – counterfactuals – “what if I had instead done Z?”

  15. In today’s Crikey, PHON has successfully split the LNP in Qld.

    We know by now that plenty of LNP MPs want to preference a party that sought to betray Australia to the NRA. The Courier-Mail has reported that Michelle Landry, a Morrison frontbencher who sits as a National in Canberra, has an “informal arrangement” with One Nation in her ultra-marginal seat — despite Morrison saying there would be “no deals” with One Nation. So last night, the LNP proceeded to split itself formally in two: LNP MPs sitting in the Liberal partyroom would put One Nation last, their fellow LNP MPs sitting in the Nats partyroom would not. One party would have two contradictory preference policies. To use Nick Greiner’s favourite word, it’s a nonsense.

    But worse, born-again Hanson fan Tony Abbott, who thinks One Nation is more “constructive” than Labor or the Greens, joined in the defiance and says One Nation should still be preferenced ahead of them, despite the Prime Minister’s clear statement.

    Then a cabinet minister leaked the entire discussion from Tuesday morning about preferences to Katherine Murphy, which showed Peter Dutton — quelle surprise — arguing against putting One Nation last, so now we know Dutton outright opposes Morrison’s — and his own party’s — adopted strategy.

    Why on earth Abbott, who is under threat in his seat from a moderate Liberal independent, thinks playing footsie with PHON is a good idea is anyone’s guess. As Vote Tony Out mob posted the other day:

    A vote for Tony Abbott is a vote for Tony Abbott.

    Surely Warringah voters are astute enough to vote for change.

  16. EGW says:
    Friday, March 29, 2019 at 10:13 pm
    I suppose you will be ready for adult politics one of these days.

    Hah! Maybe EGW, Maybe. But my planetary romp may be extinguished before then.
    Have a great night. Peace be with you.

  17. ICANCU @ #1822 Friday, March 29th, 2019 – 10:17 pm

    EGW says:
    Friday, March 29, 2019 at 10:13 pm
    I suppose you will be ready for adult politics one of these days.

    Hah! Maybe EGW, Maybe. But my planetary romp may be extinguished before then.
    Have a great night. Peace be with you.

    And peace be with you too.
    Second preference will have to do for now. 😀

  18. E. G. Theodore @ #1819 Friday, March 29th, 2019 – 9:05 pm

    Late riser re: “levels of intelligence”

    How does this relate to Pearl’s “Ladder of Causality”,which comprises three levels:
    1 – association (obsevervtion and classification) – “what if I see (or otherwise sense) X?”
    2 – intervention – “what if a do Y?”
    3 – counterfactuals – “what if I had instead done Z?”

    Awareness versus Intelligence. Hmm. That starts to get philosophical. I am a slow thinker. Can I get back to you on that?

    But what I see in those three steps ‘feels’ like a sub-process that exists within each awareness level. You’ve learned something that happens, or works, or doesn’t work, or might work.

    My hunch is that association is correlation or simple learning. This happens at each awareness level. Intervention tests and refines that learning, at each level. I need to think about the counterfactual step. That might be a level 5 activity. You need a brain to build many worlds to test for outcomes. Games theory?

  19. Shared on a doctors page.

    Don’t know who author is but is hilarious:

    Physicians were unable to reach a consensus:

    Should Brexit take place?

    The Allergists were in favor of scratching it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves.

    The Gastroenterologist’s had sort of a gut feeling about it,

    but the Neurologists thought May had a lot of nerve.

    Meanwhile, Obstetricians felt certain everyone was laboring under a misconception,

    while the Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted

    Pathologists yelled, “Over my dead body!”

    while the Pediatricians said, “Oh, grow up!”

    The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness,

    while the Radiologists could see right through it.

    Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing

    and the Internists claimed it would indeed be a bitter pill to swallow.

    The Plastic Surgeons opined that this
    proposal would “put a whole new face on the matter.”

    The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward,

    but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea.

    Anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas,

    and those lofty Cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no.

    In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the assholes in Parliament.

  20. LR, EGT,

    There’s a lot of work done on this in terms of complex systems hierarchies.

    E.g. check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_of_hierarchical_complexity#Stages_of_hierarchical_complexity

    You are thinking from level 10 and up.

    Closely related to this, the AI topic of most interest to me is transfer learning – transferring knowledge from a related task that has already been learned to a new task that has not been seen before. General game playing is one part of that (i.e. find an algorithm that can excel at chess and go).

    This is all before Goedel and the no free lunch theorems bite.

  21. Ad Man from Mad Men has been in full on enthusiastic election mode – and we have been subjected to this thru the media

    By comparison Shorten appears to have had very little coverage (at least to me and my viewing habits) – and now the defence of speculators by those with self interest following the criticism of the wages policy again by the “one man’s pay rise is another man’s job” brigade

    If these circumstances have not improved the Coalition figure this week the Coalition will be very disappointed I would suggest

    Once the election is called you would expect (hope?) that Shorten receives equal coverage

    The question is, having blitzed in full on election mode for the period of time we have been subjected to this will the electorate tire (and has it done so already?)

  22. What is Ardern thinking, being such a leftist? Doesn’t she realize that she needs all those centrists and moderates to get re-elected. Oh the humanity!

  23. “What is Ardern thinking, being such a leftist? Doesn’t she realize that she needs all those centrists and moderates to get re-elected. Oh the humanity!”

    You do realise that Arden is in coalition with NZ First, not just the Greens right? Surely you understand that NZ’s MMP system is fundamentally different from America’s political system. Are you woke to the fact that Arden’s current appeal rests largely in her ability to show leadership across the political divide: not just the left, and the young but the middle aged, the old, moderates, centrists and even a swag of conservatives as well.

    Or are you just being a smart arse?

  24. Confessions
    Why on earth Abbott, who is under threat in his seat from a moderate Liberal independent, thinks playing footsie with PHON is a good idea is anyone’s guess. As Vote Tony Out mob posted the other day:

    A vote for Tony Abbott is a vote for Tony Abbott.

    Surely Warringah voters are astute enough to vote for change.


    The Australian today (March 29th) added Warren Entsch to the list of Liberals giving Scomo the bird about putting PHON last along with Tony Abbott, Craig Kelly, Scot Bucholz, Ted O’Brien, Luke Howarth and Ted O’Dowd. Entsch dosen’t have a PHON candidate running against him, yet.

    Fess makes this list of rebellious Liberals 8 now with Peter Dutton reported in Crikey (March 29th) as being opposed to putting One Nation last on HTVs. All eight are acting against their own Parties adopted strategy, and the Nationals will not adopt the Morrison strategy either.

    I noted yesterday four NATS and four LIBS in QLD have PHON candidate challengers so far. We haven’t heard the last of this yet – every man for himself is fast becoming the order of the day for this sinking ship.

    Abbott is reported to be pouring $1M into his campaign and 52-48 down from 600+ plus voters polled for Getup overnight in the Smearstralian. I think he is ultra confident of retaining his seat and dosent mind giving Scomo a Wedgey on his way out the door – the moron thinks he can just slide back into the Liberal leadership when this ship sinks especially if Dutton loses his seat.

  25. And I like this from the Guardian blog:

    Anna Soubry, the former Conservative who is now part of the Independent Group, says she does not see why MPs are allowed to vote on the PM’s deal two or three times, while the government refuses to give the public another say in a referendum. And she says Tories who say they are only backing the deal now because Theresa May is resigning are hypocritical.

    ______________________________________

    Apparently democracy is spouted only when the extremists can manipulate it in their favour. Then it’s jettisoned if there is any chance that the people might get a chance to rethink how they’ve been duped.

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