BludgerTrack: 52.5-47.5 to Labor

Not much doing in the one published poll to emerge since the start of the election campaign, reflected in a stable reading from the BludgerTrack poll aggregate.

Despite the onset of the election campaign, there is only one new data point to add to BludgerTrack this week, which is a status quo 52-48 result from Newspoll that has duly little effect on the national vote trends. Such movement as there is is away from One Nation and towards the Coalition on the primary vote, with next to no impact on two-party preferred or the seat projection, where the Coalition makes a single gain in Victoria.

Since there is no new state-level data this week, the breakdowns continue to record an unnatural looking lurch to the Coalition in New South Wales, which I would want to see corroborated by more data. The leadership trends are interesting in that an upswing in Scott Morrison’s net approval has returned him, just barely, to net positive territory. The effect on preferred prime minister is more modest, but there appears to be a slight trend in his favour there too.

However, the biggest news in BludgerTrack this week as far as I’m concerned is that a helpful reader has told me how to fix the bug that was preventing the state breakdown tabs from working much of the time. If this was causing you grief before, there is a very good chance it will not be doing so if you try again now, which you can do through the link below.

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.

1,586 comments on “BludgerTrack: 52.5-47.5 to Labor”

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  1. Late Riser & rhwombat
    I believe the book Zen and th Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance deals with the divide between Ths Arts and Sciences.
    Nath
    Are you okay?

  2. Zoidlord says:
    Friday, April 19, 2019 at 12:06 pm
    RE: $60B

    Shorten Suite

    ‏Verified account @Shorten_Suite
    27m27 minutes ago

    Shorten Suite

    Retweeted James O’Doherty

    This will be corrected in tomorrow’s @dailytelegraph

    Presumably any correction will be in a tiny piece on the bottom of page 22.

    Meanwhile the Libs get Howard to plead for donations:

    FUNDRAISING

    Howard joins Liberal campaign

    John Howard has written to Liberal supporters seeking donations as the first campaign week ends.
    By RICHARD FERGUSON (Oz headline)

  3. Sceptic @ #985 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 12:04 pm

    Would be nice if The Project gave credit to likely source for the water story

    https://www.docdroid.net/0rfQuKU/ronnie-salt-thread-money-for-nothing1.pdf#page=18

    Now that is interesting. The stinking corpse of the Beetrooting Barnyfish is floating to the surface again, along with his agrispiv mates like Taylor, just in time to penetrate the Great Wall of Rupert over the Easter Truce. CARP!
    From little things, big things grow.

  4. Barney

    Bottom line. Labor doesn’t like Di Natale. Still came to agreement though.

    That’s the point. Remember I said at the time I thought thecpublic grandstanding wasn’t necessary.

    Doesn’t change fact. Compromise reached. Medivac Bill passed.

  5. guytaur says:
    Friday, April 19, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    Barney

    Bottom line. Labor doesn’t like Di Natale. Still came to agreement though.

    I think you’ve chosen the wrong verb.

    It’s got little to do with like or dislike, change it to “trust” and I think you may have hit the bullseye.

  6. Re pragmatism, the Coalition do not go into election campaigns saying what they’re going to cut and what they’re going to sell off. They do this once they’re safely in office as political circumstance allows, pushing the ‘envelope’ out and dragging the Overton Window rightwards as they go. And, unlike Labor, if challenged, they’re happy to lie. More importantly, most of the media support the lies before an election and provide cover afterwards.

  7. Barney

    Nope it’s dislike. That’s whats led to the trust claims. That’s whats led to the narrative from Labor that Bandt had gone rogue.

  8. Does the MSM take these statements at face value and never question them? They may be ‘facts’, but the consequences are not necessarily beneficial for everyone. Scott likes to portray himself as a model of charity and benevolent protection.

    In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on the campaign trail, the Prime Minister said voters should trust him because he had a track record of achieving goals in the face of doubt – such as stopping the boats, getting the budget back in surplus and reducing the number of people on welfare.

    Just a taste.

    Stop the boats? Confine refugees in inhumane conditions that lead to illness and suicide.
    Get the budget back in surplus? Cut all essential services to the bone with ‘productivity dividends’ and outsource as much as possible.
    Reduce the number of people on welfare? Bear down on funding for any programs that provide a chance for happiness and patronise those who fail.

  9. “Another Greens’ partisan looking to give the Coalition government another scare campaign to run against a ‘Labor-Greens government’.”

    I don’t give a rats about the Coalition’s stupid scare campaigns. The Greens holding Labor to account in government is exactly what this country needs.

  10. ScoMo turned Trumpism.

    Sam Crosby
    ‏Verified account @SamPCrosby
    21h21 hours ago

    Here’s Scott Morrison supporting nuclear power TODAY. Remember today?

  11. Zoid

    There is no doubt Labor won on the climate war.

    The mendacious and stupid presser (Not forgetting it was about Indigenous issues).

    The LNP panicked and went nuclear. 😆

  12. “Trump is going nowhere. And will win in 2020. It will be the ultimate proof that America and Americans are completely fucked”

    They gave the lying mass murdering war criminal GW Bush a second term, so I think we’ve already well and truly had that proof. Around half of Americans who vote will blindly support far right nutters no matter what. Just look at how they remain totally obsessed with guns, even in the face of regular mass shootings.

    The hope for the Democrats is that enough people in the crucial states who didn’t vote at all last time will be convinced to actually get off their backsides and do it this time. A lot of people just assumed Clinton was going to win and, because she wasn’t a particularly inspiring candidate to say the least, weren’t motivated enough to vote for her. On the other hand, the nutty far right were highly motivated to vote against her, to vote against Obama’s legacy, and to vote for Trump. This time, hopefully Trump has motivated enough people to vote against him.

  13. Good news. Her lying is so blatant. 🙂

    news.com.au
    @newscomauHQ

    White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been singled out in the Mueller report for making misleading claims.

  14. Zoidlord @ #912 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 10:22 am

    Australia Institute
    ‏ @TheAusInstitute
    Replying to @TheAusInstitute @theprojecttv and

    The Australian Government bought 29 gigalitres of water for $80m in the Condamine-Balonne valley.
    The vendors originally insisted on $2,200 per megalitre. But the Government negotiated a HIGHER price – $2,745 per megalitre.

    Spotters Fees for Barnaby and Angus.

  15. “Laughing out loud at this.

    Greens hack pontificating about Labor supporters. From atop his little 9% soapbox.

    Plus ca change…

    Bless! ”

    You’d think that Labor losing (in your words) 9% of people who probably used to vote for them would be a wake up call for them. Apparently not.

    Of course, in the left leaning areas of Australia, the Greens vote is much higher than the ~10% national average. We don’t get high levels of support in conservative right wing parts of the country like Labor does.

  16. The question about Taylor and Joyce appears to be, “Why are they hiding?”
    Would it be reasonable to ask Morrison about Taylor?
    Would it be reasonable to ask McCormack about Joyce?
    Could Morrison be persuaded to answer that question about a number of his ministers?
    What is the best platform for that question?

  17. “The Gs are not worth negotiating with. They do not want to come to an agreement on anything. Their purposes are served by NOT agreeing. They profit from stand-off. It’s self-defeating for Labor to try to bargain with the Gs.”

    If Labor don’t want to negotiate with the Greens and instead choose to negotiate with the right then that’s entirely on them. The way it’s shaping up there may be three paths for Labor to pass legislation in the Senate.

    1. Labor can negotiate with the Greens and maybe a couple of others, such as Centre Alliance.

    2. Labor can negotiate with the far right members of the cross bench, such as Hanson, Bernardi, etc…

    3. Labor can negotiate with the other half of the two party establishment, the Coalition.

    Your choice Labor.

  18. Margo Kingston
    @margokingston1

    Goodbye Tweeted Times – Our Paper, #Pilliga Star & #Shenhua Boilover. Sorry folks, but Auto tweets are too dangerous legally.

  19. LR

    Channel Ten will follow up no doubt.

    Labor needs to respond in its own timing.
    The thing about electronic media now is that distraction works less.

    My twitter timeline this Good Friday is as active politically as it always is.

    It was a very good move by Labor to have social media run the narrative in the lead up to early voting by suspending the traditional campaigning.

  20. “Perhaps a green triangle in their avatars.”

    Yes please!!!! But you’d need to allow people to sign up for an account first though, which I would like to do if possible. Entering my name and email every time is slightly annoying lol

  21. zoomster says:
    Friday, April 19, 2019 at 12:09 pm

    beguiledagain

    Oh, I’m all for providing such wonderful health services that no one opts for private health. I’m the same with education.

    As I point out (so very often), I’m not ‘ra ra, everything Labor does is right’. I do accept that some decisions the party makes which I disagree with are on pragmatic grounds, and I assume that they’ve done the research to suggest the limits various envelopes can be pushed.

    After all, if Labor had adopted the climate change policy I had passed by State Conference back in about 2000, we wouldn’t have any brown coal fired stations now!
    ——————

    Good on you for the effort!

    As someone who has been in or around the political system for more than 60 years, I’m fully aware that politics is the art of the possible.

    And while there is a feeling in these parts that the Greens climate agenda, is, politically a bridge too far, I don’t understand why there should be such caution with Medicare.

    We saw how successful “Mediscare” was. The Tories are still talking about it. It almost won the election for Labor last time.

    How would it be pushing the envelope for Labor to go all out on a full-on single payer Medicare system. It’s extremely unlikely that the voters would be turned off when you tell them under Labor all medical and hospital costs will be bulk billed. The political success of the Bill’s brilliant cancer strategy is an example.

    Pursuing this objective piecemeal, incrementally, doesn’t make sense. It will never happen taking that approach because each step forward will be countered by the vested interests. Hey, I’m beginning to sound like a Greenie on this site.

  22. “Is it possible to have “Green contributors” on here identify their status in their posting names?”

    Seriously, why not do that for everyone? It’s actually a really good idea. If William could allow people to nominate a party of their choice on their profile it could display their name in green for Greens, red for Labor, blue for Libs, etc… Something like that.

  23. Firefox

    That wouldn’t work for me. I’m not a member of any Party and tend to make my final voting decisions (lower and upper house) in the week before the election.

  24. Firefox

    Anyone who has a gravatar account can do that. Its how my rainbow avatar shows up. It might help you with sign in to PB as well.

    I don’t know as I signed up during the Crikey era.

  25. “Firefox

    That wouldn’t work for me. I’m not a member of any Party and tend to make my final voting decisions (lower and upper house) in the week before the election.”

    There should definitely also be an option for unaligned/independent.

  26. A lot of people, not necessarily wealthy people, have forked out tens of thousands of dollars for health insurance over the years. I know I have and now getting to the age where I expect to start using it.

  27. “Firefox

    Anyone who has a gravatar account can do that. Its how my rainbow avatar shows up. It might help you with sign in to PB as well.”

    Ah ha! Thanks for that. Checking it out now.

  28. Zoidlord @ #912 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 10:22 am

    Australia Institute
    ‏ @TheAusInstitute
    Replying to @TheAusInstitute @theprojecttv and

    The Australian Government bought 29 gigalitres of water for $80m in the Condamine-Balonne valley.
    The vendors originally insisted on $2,200 per megalitre. But the Government negotiated a HIGHER price – $2,745 per megalitre.

    Sounds like a reverse Dobby.

    In Harry Potter, Dobby gets a job at Hogwarts.

    Dumbledore offers him 10 galleons a week and weekends off, but he beats him down to 1 galleon and 1 day off a month.

  29. Firefox @ #1031 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 1:25 pm

    “Is it possible to have “Green contributors” on here identify their status in their posting names?”

    Seriously, why not do that for everyone? It’s actually a really good idea. If William could allow people to nominate a party of their choice on their profile it could display their name in green for Greens, red for Labor, blue for Libs, etc… Something like that.

    What colour does a Russian bot get ?

  30. guytaur, I think your faith in social media is misplaced. SM amplifies distraction. It is a vehicle for anonymous disingenuous misdirection. It encourages fragmentation to the point of isolation.

  31. Firefox,

    I suspect WB was alluding to the Yellow Star badge that the Nazi’s forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust when he made the Green Triangle comment.

  32. William Bowe says:
    Friday, April 19, 2019 at 1:14 pm

    Is it possible to have “Green contributors” on here identify their status in their posting names?

    Perhaps a green triangle in their avatars.

    How about a woke warning! 🙂

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