Another night before Christmas

Doubts the election is quite as imminent as all that, and a slightly dated poll result showing business as usual pre-budget.

Or maybe seven nights. According to Anthony Galloway of the Herald Sun, “speculation intensified yesterday about whether Mr Morrison will call the election tomorrow for May 11, or wait until the end of next week for a May 18 poll”. The latter would suit me better, if he’s reading. Liberal sources say the Prime Minister might be considering holding off “in the hope of a poll bounce after this week’s Budget”, which would be optimistic of him.

Also in the paper today is a rather unusual bit of opinion polling from YouGov Galaxy, which was conducted pre-budget – last Monday to Thursday, to be precise – from a large sample of 2224. The interesting bit is that Labor leads 53-47 on two-party preferred, discouraging the notion that the New South Wales election might have changed anything. However, the larger purpose of the exercise is to burrow down into voters’ perceptions of the party leaders, taken to include Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer as well as the usual suspects. I don’t find this stuff particularly interesting myself, but there’s a lot of detail in the report linked to above, if you can access it.

UPDATE: The poll appeared not to provide the usual forced response follow-up for the initially undecided on voting intention, thus includes an undistributed 8% “don’t know”. The remainder went Labor 34%, Coalition 33%, Greens 9%, One Nation 8%, United Australia Party 3% and Australian Conservatives 2%. Excluding the don’t know component, this becomes Labor 37%, Coalition 36%, Greens 10% and One Nation 9%.

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.

1,277 comments on “Another night before Christmas”

Comments Page 13 of 26
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  1. Just in case you don’t feel sufficiently rooted in Western Civilization:

    ‘The term “miaphysitism” arose as a response to Dyophysite criticisms of Monophysitism. As Nestorianism had its roots in the Antiochene tradition and was opposed by the Alexandrian tradition, Christians in Syria and Egypt who wanted to distance themselves from the extremes of Nestorianism and wished to uphold the integrity of their theological position adopted this term Miaphysite to express their position.

    The theology of miaphysitism is based on an understanding of the nature (Greek φύσις physis) of Christ: divine and human. After steering between the doctrines of docetism (that Christ only appeared to be human) and adoptionism (that Christ was a man chosen by God), the Church began to explore the mystery of Christ’s nature further. Two positions in particular caused controversy:

    Nestorianism stressed the distinction between the divine and the human in Christ to such an extent that it appeared that two persons were living in the same body. The view was condemned at the Council of Ephesus.
    Eutychianism stressed the unity of Christ’s nature to such an extent that Christ’s divinity consumed his humanity as the ocean consumes a drop of vinegar. The view was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon.’

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miaphysitism

  3. Dennis Atkins on Scotty rubbing our noses in having to put up with a lame duck government…

    ‘Ricoh is dead right. @ScottMorrisonMP would be a dill to wait a week to announce the election. A week of estimates too dangerous for the government. Public want the election held yesterday. They’ll go nuts if they have to wait to suit the LNP. Waiting is dumb, so they might do it’

  4. William Shakespeare created hundreds of neologisms that endure to this day.

    They endure because they clarify meaning and they enliven our beloved language.

    The worst attempted neologisms that I’ve ever seen:

    Negging (in a political context)

    followed closely by:

    Libling

  7. Michael @8:36 PM.

    And John Howard extended his last term to 3 years and 46 days.
    Billy McMahon extended the last term of the Coaltion’s post-war ascendency to 3 years and 38 days, which was 3 years and 38 days too long.

  15. For anyone tracking PHON they put another QLD candidate up this week on their website for Dawson making 11 in QLD and a few elsewhere.

  17. SkyFoxNews, aka the pay-for-view Government Gazette, is trumpeting the Scotty decision on the date…

    ‘Sky News can confirm Prime Minister Scott Morrison will not be calling an election this weekend.’

  19. Ok I’ll spell it out for you C@t. Simon Northeast is running for a seat in the Southwest. Now you know what you were laughing at. 🙂

  20. Is Simon supporting a pool for Torquay. That seems to be the most important campaign issue in corangamite this election.

  21. Tomorrow’s Newspoll Snap Guessing.

    PB median: ALP 53.0 to 47.0 LNP
    PB mode: ALP 53.0 to 47.0 LNP
    PB mean: ALP 53.7 to 46.3 LNP
    No. Of PB Respondents: 11

    ALP / LNP
    53 / 47 a r *until the election
    54 / 46 EB *permanent
    54 / 46 Fozzie Logic *permanent
    53 / 47 Frednk *permanent
    57 / 43 KayJay – all next polls
    53 / 47 Late Riser
    50 / 50 mikehilliard
    53 / 47 Quasar *perpetuity
    55 / 45 Question *until the election
    56 / 44 Simon² Katich® *eternal
    53 / 47 sonar *permanent

  23. C@tmomma says:
    Saturday, April 6, 2019
    Mr Bowe is funnier.
    _______________
    He has had a few beauties. But the most memorable were at your expense. 🙂

  25. @William

    The Greens can’t get anything right. They’ve got a candidate called Simon Northeast — and they’re running him in Corangamite.

    ROFL

    He should run in a NorthEast Seat 😛

  26. Morrison will wait till November to call the election like I said back in January as he is waiting for the poll to change in there favour

  28. Wayne, if Morrison had control of the Lower House I would go for Nov 2nd, something could happen. He doesn’t now so he has to go in May.

  31. The longer Morrison waits the better it will go for Labor. There will be more time to run field campaigns. The more intent on change voters will become.

    I’ve had several successful persuasion conversations in the last week. I really wasn’t even looking for these opportunities, but voters essentially talked themselves into swapping to Labor while we chatted on their doorsteps. These would have to be the easiest persuasion exchanges I’ve had while campaigning for Labor. Many voters – especially those who are feeling economically stressed, and there’s a lot of those – really want to change the government. This is plainly clear from all their verbal and non-verbal expression. It’s true for both male and female voters, for young and for old. If male voters, who have favoured the Liberals in the past, swing to Labor this time, there will be some massive results.

    I think we will see some upsets.

    I think this is really inevitable as long as Labor can sustain its voter contact effort.

  32. There are various signs that the British Army may be in deep trouble.

    This is a terrible event:

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/06/six-british-army-soldiers-arrested-alleged-sexual-assault

    It comes on top of the Corbyn target shooting event.

    It comes on top of horrendous imprisonment rates for demobbed British vets.

    It makes me wonder whether the obvious pointlessness of the Afghanistan War and the extremely tough fighting conditions… basically for nothing… has had an impact. It also makes me wonder whether the utter chaos of Brexit has left what is essentially a leadership vacuum for the Army.

  34. a separate half senate election is insane … with no govt at stake the protest vote would go through the roof… the lnp would look so desperate… to hang on to the perks of office….. that the 2pp would be
    something like 55/45 or worse……… and there could be 40 seats lost when the election occurred

  35. Wayne (AnonBlock)
    Saturday, April 6th, 2019 – 9:10 pm
    Comment #627
    LR

    Can you put me down pls

    Newspoll 54/46 ALP

    Essential poll
    53/46 ALP

    –
    53 and 46 is 99; saving 1 for PHON ?

  36. nath, I got the discombobulated directional name thingy, m’ok?

    Sheesh! I’m in the next State, not on another planet! 🙄

  37. mick Quinlivan says:
    Saturday, April 6, 2019 at 9:19 pm

    a separate half senate election is insane … with no govt at stake the protest vote would go through the roof… the lnp would look so desperate… to hang on to the perks of office….. that the 2pp would be
    something like 55/45 or worse……… and there could be 40 seats lost
    ____________
    It makes perfect sense for Morrison to wait until November. The problem is selling the reason for a half senate election. It’s more that its so unconventional and prone to be called cowardice. But its what he should do. Imagine the Shortenites having to wait another 6 months!

  40. mQ
    I would encourage Morrison to do it. He would continue to have a minority Government in the House and a far uglier Senate.
    What is not to like?

  41. Was our door knocking in Pearce today. Unusually most doors we knocked on were home, and they were VERY Labor positive. Transport, health and education all got a good run today.

    My confidence that Porter will loose his seat is growing. Now need to keep a lid on the confidence.

  42. N, I have plenty…

    Libling
    Libkin
    Lib-a-like
    Sanderellas

    At least they are kind of original, unlike the staple ‘neo-lib’ and ‘centrist’, which are cleechays.

  43. mick quinlivan,
    I agree. If Scott Morrison tries to delay the HoR election till November, he’ll be run out of town on a rail!

  44. Greensborough Growler says:
    Saturday, April 6, 2019 at 1:38 pm
    The people I see as possibly in the Liberal leadership team are Frydenberg, Hastie, Tehan, Taylor and Fletcher.

    *********

    The feedback from the Canning campaign is that Hastie has quite the fight on his hands to retain his seat.

  45. grimace, I spent the morning in Pearce and the afternoon in Moore. The feeling in Moore is clearly positive for Labor too, though the campaign is still small. I’m sorry I missed you this morning. We had a great time.

  47. grimace @ #644 Saturday, April 6th, 2019 – 9:25 pm

    Greensborough Growler says:
    Saturday, April 6, 2019 at 1:38 pm
    The people I see as possibly in the Liberal leadership team are Frydenberg, Hastie, Tehan, Taylor and Fletcher.

    *********

    The feedback from the Canning campaign is that Hastie has quite the fight on his hands to retain his seat.

    What about Alex Hawke (nasty but safe)?

  49. I reckon Canning is winnable. The sentiment for change is very palpable. Labor’s candidate in Canning is also very good.

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