Latest electorate-level campaign news updates for the Poll Bludger election guide:
• The Australian reports a uComms/ReachTEL poll for the Australian Forest Products Association gives the Liberals a surprise 54-46 lead in Bass, the north-eastern Tasmanian seat that has changed hands at seven of the last nine elections, most recently in favour of Labor incumbent Ross Hart in 2016. The primary votes from the poll are Liberal 42.8%, Labor 32.6% and Greens 10%, though I would guess the balance includes an undecided component of around 6% that hasn’t been distributed. The two-party result suggests a much more favourable flow of preferences to the Liberals than in 2016, when Labor received fully 89.2% of Greens preferences as well as about 55% from the other two candidates. That would have converted the primary votes in the poll to a two-party total more like 51-49. The poll was conducted on Monday night from a sample of 847.
• Rachel Baxendale of The Australian reports Labor is “distributing postal vote application forms across the blue-ribbon Liberal seats of Goldstein and Higgins for the first time ever”. As for the Liberals’ assessment of the situation in Victoria, you can take your pick between reports yesterday from The Australian and the Daily Telegraph. The former spoke of the Liberals “becoming less pessimistic about a wipeout”, with optimists speaking of the loss of two to four seats. But according to the latter, “the Coalition fears its losses will be worse than it expected before the campaign began”, to the extent of being “seriously concerned about the loss of up to eight seats”.
• The Melbourne seat of Chisholm has been much in the news over the past few days, partly on account of Liberal candidate Gladys Liu’s overreach as she sought to bat off a question about her views on gender identity and same-sex marriage. Liu helped organise anti-Labor activity on popular Chinese language social media service WeChat at the 2016 election, much of it relating to the Safe Schools program, as she discussed at the time with Doug Hendrie of The Guardian. Confronted over her comments to Hendrie, Liu appeared to claim his report was “fake news”, and that she had been pointing to views that existed within the Chinese community rather than associating with them herself. However, Hendrie provided the ABC with a recording that showed Liu had been less careful on this point than she remembered. Thomas O’Brien of Sky News reported yesterday that a planned interview with Liu as part of its electorate profile had been cancelled by party headquarters, following earlier efforts to insist she not be questioned about the matter.
• Gladys Liu’s comments on Sunday were made at an Australian-first candidates’ debate conducted in Mandarin, the first language of Labor’s Taiwanese-born candidate Jennifer Yang, but only a third language of Liberal candidate Gladys Liu, who identifies her first languages as English and Cantonese. Rachel Baxendale of The Australian quoted a Labor strategist saying they expected Liu “use Ms Yang’s Taiwanese heritage against her with mainland Chinese voters”, but also indicates that Labor has a better handle on the importance of WeChat than it did in 2016. The service was also much discussed during the New South Wales state election campaign, with respect to the controversy generated by Labor leader Michael Daley’s statements of concern about the impact of Asian immigration on the employment and housing markets.
• Leaning heavily on the passive voice, a report in The Australian today says it is “understood” Labor polling shows it is unlikely to gain the regional Queensland seats of Capricornia, Flynn and Dawson, in addition to facing a “growing threat” in its own seat of Herbert. However, Labor is said to be encouraged by its polling in the Brisbane seats of Petrie, Bonner and Forde, and believes itself to be in the hunt in Brisbane and Dickson.
Lizzie @10:37
I was born in the early 50s and the same applied to my parents – always thrifty, attitudes they carried into the 21st century.
Nostradamus says:
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 10:33 am
You’re certainly nothing like your namesake.
He at least had the wit to hide his musings with vagueness, something you certainly lack. 🙂
KayJay,
Thanks for the anti-paywall stuff. The Economist is well worth a read but amazingly overpriced.
“‘theft (from self checkouts) is estimated to cost Australian retailers $4.5 billion a year’ Divided by Australian population we get $225 / person
I call this FAKE news
Victoria
The proposed changes to negative gearing have been out there a long time. Anyone who was going to switch their vote from Labor because of them has already done so, so if it was significant, it would be showing up in the polls.
Very helpful of Senator James Paterson to tell everyone the Coalition still hopes to get tax cuts for big business through the parliament if re-elected.
I suppose the point I’m trying to make on “intergenerational conflict” in Australia is that it is less accurate to say that Gen X & Millennials are living under the shadow of the Boomers, than to say that all three are living under the colossal shadow cast by the 1928-1945 generation. That is, today’s 74-91yo’s.
guytaur says:
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 10:39 am
“Personal shopper”?
Is that the nice way of saying warehouse worker?
Of course they’re treated so well just look at Amazon.
“The Australian Content [on Netflix] is pretty thin though”
That could be because Australia is a second-rate creator of content.
Oops sorry for the double post and where is the Labor person speaking at this?
Barney
Yeah checkout operators are treated so well too. Its why we have unions.
Its up to unions to help defeat the Amazon business model. I am doing my bit by at least forcing the companies to use people not machines.
Barney
Yeah checkout operators are treated so well too. Its why we have unions.
Its up to unions to help defeat the Amazon business model. I am doing my bit by at least forcing the companies to use people not machines.
guytaur says:
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 10:54 am
You could withhold your custom until they changed, why support flawed practices?
I don’t use self serve checkouts on principle, I wish nobody did.
Barney
Why do you think I shop for fresh stuff outside the supermarkets.
jenauthor says:
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 10:15 am
I was phone polled first time ever last night by a mob I’ve never heard of – but I checked online before I answered any questions and they were legit. Was basically a seat poll (Reid) but asked some Fed 2s as well.
@jenauthor
Was this from national field services? I was polled too by them for the seat of Reid. I suspect they are being used by the Libs for internal polling. National field services is a part of Millward Brown which has polled for the Libs in the past.
If Scott Morrison is so Anti Tax, why doesn’t he just advocate to remove tax altogether!?!
guytaur says:
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 11:04 am
There’s nothing wrong with using a supermarket, just avoid using self checkouts.
Zoomster
It has been out for a while. I am merely reporting feedback from labor supporters. Have to say I was very disappointed by what I heard from them.
Very selfish and inward thinking to say the least
Barney
I just outlined why online for supermarkets is my choice and why. Its more employment its more convenient. Whats not to like? Supermarket personal shoppers are not Amazon.
We need a Royal Commission into the IPA, with particular reference to its charity status.
About to do some grocery shopping. I will not be using a self serve checkout, despite the notice in the supermarket that assures me that, having listened to customer requests, it has installed more of them.
I am also reminded that, although I am younger than 80, I can remember during WW2 how the groceries were delivered and unloaded on the kitchen table and how my mother would then carefully cut out the required no. of ration coupons for the items delivered, as well as sometimes her being told that item “x”on the shopping list was not available that week. We lived in a small country town in NW NSW at the time .
guytaur says:
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 11:10 am
So you’re in the market for a bridge! 😆
Barney
Supermarkets are unionised.
Bill Shorten on ABC24 now.
The High Court decision on developer donations has me confused. Is this an issue for a federal election? From what I’ve read this limits federal level developer donations helping out state campaigns. A QLD developer can still donate to Dutton. ??
guytaur
says:
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 11:21 am
Barney
Supermarkets are unionised.
_______________________
You mean the union that for 20 years made a deal with the employers to pay the workers less than the award?
Michael @10:41 “I see the “born 1928-1945” generation as having had the greatest influence in shaping the Australia we live in today. “
Interesting and there’s a lot to support that analysis.
In my youth, it was the World War 2 generation that were dominant. John F Kenndy’s “The Generation now in Charge”. Gough Whitlam was the last Australian PM to be a WW2 veteran. Meanwhile, Menzies was from an earlier time and by the 60s, in spite of his popularity, seemed stuffy and old fashioned.
The accession of Fraser represented the growing ascendency of the post war generation, which brought with it the poison of neoliberalism, a revival of the “paleoliberalism” which brought on the Great Depression and indirectly WW2.
P.S. Re generations, Kevin Rudd was the first Australian PM to be born after the end of WW2.
For those decrying self service in supermarkets, how do you fuel up your car.
Do you remember waiting for the bowser boy to get to you. Can you remember being chipped if you dared try to touch the bowser. What about sitting there with the bowser on auto, while the boy cleaned your windscreen, checked the oil n water, and topped them up if needed.
Then came self serve servos. “Buggered if I’m going to a self serve servo” was the cry. Same as “Buggered if I’m going to use the self serve checkout at the supermarket”
Plenty of other similar complaints over the years, such as “removal of the train guards van will lead to trains being rear ended by the following train” and “why would you want to carry your phone around with you”.
Call it change, call it progress. It’s the human spirit, always moving forward.
Late Riser,
From what’s on the Guardian blog it seems that if a State bans certain donations then no donations can be made at all, regardless of whether it is for the State or federal Party.
The Guardian blog.
Media seem a bit rabid on Shorten. Just shows how desperate they are for a bad news story to bash Labor around with.
What gaffe did he do now?
mikehilliard @ #231 Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 – 11:35 am
He brought it on himself.
Good to see he has owned his blunder.
Where’s KK and Chalmers ?
slackboy72 @ #201 Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 – 10:44 am
Didn’t seem to work for me. Most of the others seem to be readable.
Good luck. 😎
And, being a bit of a numbers / statistics nerd, I’ll note that Menzies was the last Australian PM to have been born in the 19th century (so also the last born pre-Federation).
With the MSM just being the Labor leader I think.
Victoria- the attitude of well off people to the ALP tax agenda is regrettable. But as Paul Keating said, WTTE – in the race of life always back self interest- at least it’s trying. So maybe it’s not that surprising. I tend to agree with Zoomster that the impact of those ALP policies is already baked into the polls. If the ALP doesn’t make it this time, and the tax and super policies are blamed, one of the worst results will be that the ALP will be likely to revert to small target policies in future elections- as the coalition did after 1993. If a party is elected on a small target platform and tries to broaden it once in office, it trashes its legitimacy (and amongst many conservatives a Labor government can never have legitimacy in any circumstances anyway). It faces a maelstrom of opposition from the media and corporate interests until it’s hounded out of office and the Senate blocks large parts of its agenda. I am hoping that times have changed and that the electorate will be receptive to a broader more progressive platform, as seems to be the case elsewhere in the West at the moment.
I think the moment the press uses the word “gaffe” in relation to a politician you can be guaranteed that the electorate doesn’t give a stuff.
a r @ #232 Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 – 11:37 am
Labor should re-calibrate their campaign of media appearances for the final 4 weeks by lessening Shorten pressers and increasing KK/Chalmers appearances.
KayJay @ #234 Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 – 11:38 am
Did you go into manage and see if the Orstralian is ticked?
nath @ #227 Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 – 11:30 am
The same union that dominates the Labor caucus ?
Psyclaw, I am not old enough to have used a serviced service station to buy fuel. I am just dealing with what I have seen changed in my life.
i would love to see a RC into climate science reporting in the australian media as well as the BoM. If you found a commissioner with a Science-Law degree it’d be great to see Bolt, Numan, Lloyd, etc and the editors of murdoch rags in the stand as well as letting the BoM explain the rationale/science behind standardisation of data to remove anomolies (both hot and cold -e.g if all neighbouring weather stations normally in the same isotherm showed temps of 30oC and one showed a 42oC, you have to suspect the 42oC isn’t right) and why some old temperature data cannot be trusted/used. The RWNJs would never accept a RC finding that data was not being manipulated, but at least they could be reminded of that finding everytime they opened their deceitful ignorant traps.
So many intriguing electoral contests to observe on election night.
Right at the top of my list is Dawson. Will the voters get rid of big George…. ?
Oh dear.
Breaking news
A deer has attacked and killed a man and seriously injured a woman in Victoria’s north-east.
antonbruckner11 says:
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 11:40 am
I think the moment the press uses the word “gaffe” in relation to a politician you can be guaranteed that the electorate doesn’t give a stuff.
Yep. Especially given that it now tends to mean “politician caught on the hop didn’t memorise obscure detail of policy”.
Grime
Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 – 11:41 am
Comment #240
Indeedy. That’s the one I look at regularly (plus NY times and Washington Post) – I’m obviously a masochist.
Edi_Mahin says:
Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at 11:42 am
One of the biggest ones was the Banks and ATMs.
It allowed them to cut teller and branch numbers and then they introduced fees for using them.