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.
AR
Of course you didn’t think using the words “Labor” “tanking” would elicit a reaction.
“Dickson
Labor 1.57; Coalition 2.5”
Yes. Get rid of that disgrace!
All this stuff regarding ‘tanking’. I just hope it is not the start of a trend, whereas, little by little, the Coal mob slowly get into a very competitive position.
I have lurked around this site for years. I remember the 2010 election, the site was agog with ‘Jules will win’, ‘Go Jules’ etc. for weeks on end. And then that last Newspoll – 50/50. Upon announcement, you could hear a pin drop across cyberspace.
And then that series of events leading to what we have now.
I do not think I could survive another round of this crew. It is said that you don’t deserve it, you have to earn it. Well, this mob neither deserve it or have earned it.
And to put up with Murdocracy, Jones, Smith, Hadley and any other number of paid circus acts crowing of conservative victory while this relentless destruction of the country’s institutions, economic viability and environment gets a hurry up, will be unbearable.
If there is a dog, please let let Rover seal it on behalf of the right team.
There it is.
I have said it.
I don’t feel any better for it.
I am afraid.
But I will have another rum and cola (no sugar), anyway.
…………
………..
And btw, I still think that Wayne is William Bowe.
New Zealand biodiversity is a basket case. You can go into a forest and not hear a bird.
The sandflies drowned them out. I’m serious.
New Zealand was a Garden Of Eden, so peaceful that many of the birds – even the parrots – were flightless, having no natural predators. There were but three species of native bats, and no other land mammals. No snakes. No spiders, either. Even leeches (in some of the wettest rainforests on Earth) had no place. Where grass would normally grow, ferns took over: tiny little ferns, no bigger than clover cover the ground.
This was all before homo sapiens arrived with dogs, cats, rats, sheep, cattle, deer, possums, rabbits, stoats, weasels, exotic plants, trees and grasses.
When we were coming through the pass above Queenstown we stopped to wonder at the view. Above us and up the mountain a little was a hovering helicopter, about 2 metres above the steep slope. I finally reached for my binoculars and saw what was happening: there was a council worker in a hi-viz vest, precariously hanging out the helo’s door with a long-handled weed spray, individually poisoning exotic pine tree shoots that within ten years are forecast to cover 20% of the New Zealand Alps. Weed spraying at around $800 per hour!
New Zealand is not as horrible as it’s made out to be… yet. But with all those millions of introduced mammals, the sandflies got organized. They make it close to unbearable for humans in some of the wetter, wilder places. A swarm of them can bite at literally 10,000 bites per hour.
Don’t wear shorts!
Confessions @10.13am
”I’ve never said I was sanguine about exorbitant fees for disability care”
That is an untruth or your memory is not intact.
Three nights ago at about midnight AEST you were arguing that $2400 was a fair charge for one overnight of respite for a person with a severe disability. You wrote at least 4 posts doing so.
The carer was complaining that the NDIS allocation to the person was being gouged by the respite provider agency.
Puff, Barney and I each wrote contrary responses
I have the same feeling Marcos.
Thats why I will go all out this campaign and put in as much effort as I can. Not that it might make much difference, but at least I will know I did all I can.
Oh dear.
I am not the only one.
Michael A says:
Friday, April 19, 2019 at 7:17 pm
Has the Government announced any new policies?
Id only be worried if the betting markets got down to $1.60 Lab $2.20 Lib territory.
Marcos De Feilittt
So which bit of legislation that Gillard got through after the 2010 election did you miss?
R. H. Wombat @7:03.
“If I had my druthers, I would like to see a Canadian (or Scandinavian)-like system that funded all parts of Medicine from a single central fund that paid public practice (including primary practice) by salary bands, and let the privateers squabble for the convenience of the worried wealthy.”
Couldn’t agree more. Private health should be a niche for the wealthy with no support from the public purse. The wealthy would be of course free to use the public system.
Ditto private education. I wouldn’t ban it, just leave it a a niche for the wealthy and the very religious, with not a cent of taxpayer money.
“Not going to happen though.” Sadly true.
E. G. Theodore, thank you for the reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce
Lots to read.
I think William has better things to do with his time rather than post under an alias on his own site.
Also that’s not my memory of the 2010 election, where the polls from very early in the campaign were showing obvious signs of difficulty.
This does not feel like 2007 or 2013 though. But who knows!
The only thing I really miss,
Is having a decent government in charge.
The rest is history
The polling markets are reactive rather than predictive. I’d pay more attention to the polling figures.
Betting markets? Surely the polls are more reliable indicators of voter sentiment.
Snap ltep!
With you there, it will happen.
Our great LNP are coming back and will the coming election by 14 seats
Peter Dutton will win his seat of Dickson by a landslide
Yes,
I will be pushing really, really hard on my pencil when I number my ballot papers.
After that, I will thrust them into the cardboard boxes with a force almost unimaginable.
Then, after that, the outcome is beyond my control.
Btw, William is on line again
Aside from people like David Crowe, the general tone of Nine/Fairfax articles this election campaign seems to be relatively fair to Shorten and Labor. Perhaps they see an opening to increase readership by providing an alternative to Murdoch media.
This article today is good:
Totally off topic but if you haven’t seen this you need to see it. Relax and watch the world go by. Literally. https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ESRS/HDEV/
Join the club, Bill.
I turned on News or whatever it was then, 45 years ago.
No Firey,
I don’t want to f**king relax.
I want this mob out.
This really is tiring. The betting markets are not perfect, nor in any way scientific. Not that I think polling is perfect either. Basically note the correlation between polls and the betting markets. Labor slipped behind in Bass after one (possibly) dodgy poll.
I think betting picks up the vibe, or reflects polling chatter, not some Machiavellian scheme by insiders.
Also on 2010 – that was a HORRIBLE campaign full of fuck ups and sabotage. Most of the commentary was, yes Gillard would win, but more
than that, that Abbott couldn’t. Which is what happened.
Labor blew a poll lead… a lost the campaign.
Long story short, the vibe is a misunderstood value in thinking about elections. Rather than freaking out about EVERY SINGLE data point, what does the vibe tell you?
Yes Wayne, and Meghan Duchess of wherever is about to have triplets – or she’s already had a bub and is keeping it secret. Those were “women’s mag” headlines in the last few weeks. Your “predictions” come from a similar source – it’s called a fevered imagination.
‘Hold Labor to Account’
We have established a several things beyond dispute:
1. We know that Di Natale has given great prominence to the intention of the Greens to ‘hold Labor accountable.’ Astute observers will notice the remarkable similarity to the to Ms Hansons ‘Please explain’. And we all know what difference that has made over the years.
2. We know that the Greens have not held the Liberals accountable for the past six years in any way shape or form.
3. We know that the sorts of things that the Greens did not hold the Liberals accountable for amounted to well over a billion dollars of horrible waste.
4. In fact, the Greens have never even mentioned keeping the Liberals and the Nationals to account. Why target Labor and why not the Liberals and the Nationals?
5. No-one seems to know why the Greens will hold Labor accountable and not the Liberals accountable. There has to be a reason.
6. When push comes to shove nobody in the Greens can actually say what they actually mean by ‘holding Labor to account’. Does ‘holding Labor to account’ mean ‘Whinging about Labor’? If so, the Greens have definitely uttered a credible threat. But why make a big deal out of it. They already do that all the time. And it is not as if that sort of threat would actually cause Labor to lose much sleep.
7. When questioned on these very issues the Greens start on personal abuse for which they will not hold themselves to account.
8. Following the last election Di Natale made specific and repeated references to the Greens moving onwards and upwards to becoming a government. Di Natale has not repeated this mantra during this election period. Instead, the vision splendid of the Greens government has sagged down to ‘Hold Labor to Account.’ Could it be that this is because Di Natale has led the Greens polling down from regular double figures to just below double figures?
9. Theoretically, there might be a connection between ‘holding Labor to account’ and forming the next Greens government but this possible connection appears to be rather tenuous. In this respect, I note in the side bar that the betting market does not appear to be buying the Greens forming the next government line: $301. Even the dreaded Ms Hanson is ahead of DiNatale as the next prime minister of Australia!
Please explain!
“No Firey,
I don’t want to f**king relax.
I want this mob out.”
Another 30 days or so more mate and then we can give them the boot. Can’t come quick enough.
Thanks mate.
Going to watch the footy now.
Bye all.
Especially you, Wayne/William.
Nath.
“anecdotal evidence, I have some”
Is this why you’ve move over to supporting Labor?
Take a walk on the wild side. All the way with WRS!
Marcos De Feilittt @ #1303 Friday, April 19th, 2019 – 7:28 pm
That 2010 campaign was about the worst I can remember.
Shorten and team are not going to repeat some of that foolishness.
“‘Hold Labor to Account’”
I’ve figured it out! Wayne is Boerwar!
Confessions says:
Friday, April 19, 2019 at 7:48 pm
Before this stint of Coalition Government’s the Liberals had always kept Water away from the Nats.
I think we have seen, MDP, and are seeing again exactly why this was the case. 🙁
What election does this feel like? Not 2007, not 2013. A bit like 2010 although better. The pre-campaign period felt a bit like mid 2001, Labor ahead but the gap narrowing with ‘policies overboard’ before the Tampa. Maybe 1980 might be a good analogy, although I was overseas and didn’t see that one up close. A big influence then was a big lie, capital gains of the family home, hammered in the last couple of weeks. The Coalition will be going hell for leather for a repeat.
Phoney wAr is almost over. The campaign really starts on the 26th. I’m sore there’s a reason the ALP has only focused on health for the first week, and I suspect the reason is they know people will down tools for nigh on ten days, so they’ve stuck to one message to burn it into voters’ minds. I’m hoping there’s a whole suite of announcements to come, and feel pretty comfortable there will be.
Boerwar:
IMO the distinction needs to be made between Greens voters in voterland, and Greens agitators on the internet. In my experience they are like chalk and cheese. The former being folks who give a shit about issues, the latter being rabble rousers who only care about partisan point scoring.
BB
Thanks. That story about the helicopter weed spraying was horrifying in cost terms. But at least they are having a go. The kiwis are world leaders in ecological restoration, endangered species survival management and eradicating feral pests from islands.
I would be very curious to know:
1. Were the midges as bad before the arrival of Maori?
2. Did the midge population numbers shift after Maori arrived?
3. Did the midge population numbers shift after non-Maori arrived?
4. Are midge population numbers altering now?
“Going to watch the footy now.”
NRL I hope! I have it on too. Watching footy and posting on PB lol multitasking ftw
Confessions
I have had over the years many, many conversations with Greens nearly all of whom I would rate as reasonable and good people.
What routinely staggers me is how very, very ignorant they often are about Greens policies.
Is Abbott becoming a happy clapper or is Morrison becoming a Catholic?
Barney:
Can the Nationals be trusted with anything though?
1980 springs to mind.
One shadow minster made a sketchy comment and next thing wall to wall ‘Labor will tax your home’ adds.
And BTW, I remember full newspaper adds featuring Haydens’s head with the caption – “We cannot afford Labor’s Bill”. Sounds familiar?
Then at the death, Fraser snuck back.
BIMN
The person who gave Joyce water was Turnbull, immediately after Turnbull knifed Abbott and wanted the Nationals on board.
Turnbull WAS in charge of water as Minister for the Environment in the last Howard Government. So Turnbull KNEW.
The nanosecond Turnbull buckled and gave Joyce water I knew Turnbull was rooted. No backbone. And sure enough, they got him in the end.
Hold to account: To require a person to explain or to accept responsibility for his or her actions; to blame or punish someone for what has occurred.
On this basis the Greens have never held anyone to account and are not likely to within the next few decades, except in the narrowest sense of “blaming”
In any case, surely the main game is to actually CHANGE the actions of government. The Greens do have the possibility of doing this to some extent by negotiation, but only in terms of applying a gloss to an initiative taken by a party of government.
“I have had over the years many, many conversations with Greens nearly all of whom I would rate as reasonable and good people.
What routinely staggers me is how very, very ignorant they often are about Greens policies.”
Considering you have proven to me over a number of weeks that you have very little knowledge of what the Greens actually stand for, I don’t think you’re the beat judge of that, Wayne.
Cit
Is Abbott becoming a happy clapper or is Morrison becoming a Catholic?
PM, Abbott pray at church
Scott Morrison crosses paths with Tony Abbott away from the official election campaign trail at a Good Friday church service.
By ROSIE LEWIS (Oz headline)
Don’t listen to them, Rover!!!!
Yes Firey,
Off to the NRL game on the box
Too much rum has kept me here.
“I have lurked around this site for years. I remember the 2010 election, the site was agog with ‘Jules will win’, ‘Go Jules’ etc. for weeks on end. And then that last Newspoll – 50/50. Upon announcement, you could hear a pin drop across cyberspace.”
I know exactly how you feel Marcos….
50/50 just around the corner. I’ve been saying it here for a while but get lulled back into the safe cocoon of PB Land where Bill is a dead cert and no one in their right mind would vote for Scrotty, and Labor is running a truly brilliant and cunning campaign…etc…etc…
Cue pin.