The Sunday News Corp tabloids have published the first national poll of voting intention in nearly two weeks, and it’s consistent with the last Newspoll result (conducted by the same organisation) in showing Labor with a lead of 52-48. This compares with 53-47 at the last such poll in March. The primary votes are Coalition 37% (up two), Labor 37% (steady), Greens 9% (down one), United Australia Party 4% (steady, which is interesting) and One Nation 4% (down four, ditto).
It may perhaps be more instructive to compare the changes with last fortnight’s Newspoll result – both major parties are down two, probably making way for the UAP, who were not a response option in Newspoll. Presumably they will be in the Newspoll we can expect tomorrow evening, as they were in its marginal seat polls a week ago. Peter Brent at Inside Story smells a conspiracy, but I imagine the pollster’s position would be that the party merits such consideration because it is contesting all 151 seats.
Respondents were also asked if they were impressed or unimpressed with the campaign performances of six party leaders, all of whom perform poorly. Listed from best result to worst, Scott Morrison is on 38% impressed and 54% not impressed; Bill Shorten, 31% and 60%; Pauline Hanson, 20% and 67%; Richard Di Natale, 13% and 44%: Clive Palmer, 17% and 69%; and Michael McCormack, 8% and 38%. They were also asked if nine specific issues could potentially change their vote, with cost of living well ahead out of a somewhat arbitrary field on 58%. It seems they were also asked which party they trusted on this issues, since the report says there was nothing to separate them on cost of living, which at Holt Street qualifies as a “positive sign for the Prime Minister”. The poll was conducted Tuesday to Thursday from a sample of 1012.
New campaign updates for the federal election guide, including a seat poll result:
Curtin (Liberal 20.7%): Independent candidate Louise Stewart has provided The West Australian with results of a ReachTEL poll crediting her with a 23.9% primary vote. Liberal candidate Celia Hammond is on 42.5%, compared with the 65.5% Julie Bishop achieved in 2016, with Labor on 12.6% and the Greens on 11.3%. It is also stated that the polls show preferences dividing evenly between Stewart and Hammond, which seems rather unlikely, since Labor and Greens preferences will assuredly flow overwhelmingly to Stewart. The sample for the poll was 819, but the field work date is unspecified. UPDATE (29/4): The West Australian today brings the remarkable news that ReachTEL denies having conducted any such poll.
Gilmore (Liberal 0.7%): Katrina Hodgkinson, Nationals candidate and former O’Farrell-Baird government minister, has been endorsed by the outgoing Liberal member, Ann Sudmalis, and her predecessor, Joanna Gash. This amounts to a snub to the endorsed Liberal, Warren Mundine, who is facing a tough fight against Labor’s Fiona Phillips.
Solomon (Labor 6.1%) and Lingiari (Labor 8.2%): The Northern Territory has been commanding considerable attention from the two leaders, with Scott Morrison visiting on Wednesday and Bill Shorten having done so twice, most recently when he attended a dawn service in Darwin on Anzac Day. In the Financial Review, Phillip Coorey reports the seats are “deemed vulnerable principally because the NT Labor government is unpopular”, and in Solomon, “there is a very high rate of voters, mainly military personnel, with negatively geared properties”.
Warringah (Liberal 11.6%): Tony Abbott received an increasingly rare dose of useful publicity after GetUp! pulled an ill-advised online ad that mocked his surf lifesaving activities. The next day, a Daily Telegraph report appeared to relate what Liberal internal polling might say about the matter, but could only back it up by sprinkling fairy dust on a month-old finding that two-thirds of those considering voting independent would have “serious concerns” if such a candidate was “likely to support Labor or the Greens”.
Mayo (Centre Alliance 2.9%): A volunteer for Rebekha Sharkie’s campaign, and a now-suspended member of GetUp!, was charged on Wednesday for stalking Liberal candidate Georgina Downer.
Herbert (Labor 0.0%): Labor member Cathy O’Toole has signed a pledge being circulated by business groups to support the Adani coal mine, making life difficult for Bill Shorten, who is prepared to offer only that Labor has “no plans” to review environmental approvals. Labor’s candidates for the Coalition-held central Queensland seats of Dawson, Flynn and Capricornia have all signed a similar pledge circulated by the CFMEU, and Shorten has likewise refused to follow suit.
Senate developments:
• The third candidate on Labor’s New South Wales Senate ticket, Mary Ross, was a late withdrawal before the closure of nominations over what was described only as a personal decision, although it probably related to concerns that Section 44 complications might arise from her receipt of government payments as a medical practitioner. Her replacement is Jason Yat-sen Li, an Australian-Chinese lawyer for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal, and the candidate for Bennelong in 2013.
• New South Wales Liberal Senator and conservative favourite Jim Molan is running a “parallel campaign” to encourage Liberal voters to vote below the line, so he might circumvent a preselection defeat that has reduced him to the unwinnable fourth position on the party’s ticket. Such a feat was achieved in Tasmania in 2016 by Labor’s Lisa Singh, elected from number six ahead of Labor’s fifth candidate, but New South Wales has none of Tasmania’s experience with the candidate-oriented Hare-Clark system, and a great many more voters needing to be corralled.
• Craig Garland, who polled 10.6% at the Braddon by-election last July, is running for a Tasmanian Senate seat as an independent. An authentically crusty looking professional fisherman who has campaigned on the locally contentious matter of salmon farming, Garland told the Burnie Advocate he had knocked back an offer of $1 million campaign funding if he ran for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party. Matthew Denholm of The Australian notes Garland’s potential to leech votes from Jacqui Lambie, who is seeking a comeback 18 months after being disqualified on Section 44 grounds.
“It shows clearly as a complete detachment from society and a parliamentary duopoly so wrapped up in their bubble.”
What it actually shows is the Quinoa bubble that Pegarex and Greentaur have wrapped themselves in. Fossil fuel and environmentally damaging agribusinesses have a python squeeze on the sectors of Australian economy that employ real human voters in vast swaths of the country containing the electorates that determine elections.
A quick list:
Solomon
Lingerie
Leichhardt
Dawson
Herbert
Flynn
Capricornia
Longman
Pitrie
Forde (those last three are where all the allied mining and construction industries are based in Queensland)
Richmond
Paige (yes, I know there are Quinoa eaters there in those two seats as well)
Cowper
Parkes
Lindsay
Many of the WA seats up for grabs (say 3+) have fly in fly out miners and also have many allied and construction industry workers.
I’m sure I’ve missed some seats, but you get the drift.
The majors are very much attached to that reality and the challenge for progressive politics is to big those folk with the rest of the country as we attempt to pull off the next to impossible – a transition to a cleaner and more sustainable economy and National life. Somehow I don’t think virtues signalling is very relatable to the folk we need to persuade. As evidenced by the reception the locals are giving the dynamic green duo on arrival in central Queensland. In fact Laundy, Big George, Clive etc are laughing their arses off because their re-election is nearly assured.
I hope that bathing in your righteous purity feels good Pegarex and Greentaur from your trendy and woke inner city vantage point. Pity about achieving actual progress though – something that won’t be achieved until a way is found to bring the folk you despise along with you …
Tanya is ensuring that Barrie doesn’t gets away with the Coalition lies. Good to see.
Doyley
Ben O Quist summed today up on ABC News Breakfast.
The LNP looking to the past with John Howard good political operator as he is.
Labor looking to the future
I think Tanya won the day on the $14billion cut to education, so Barry tries the ‘negotiation with UAP’ line.
Rex
I’ll say it for everyone else except Antonbruckner11 you are making things up and asking questions about making things up
‘python squeeze’ – isn’t that an Abbott-ism ?
You’re using Abbott-isms , AE ..?? 😆
Dog’s Breakfast @ #151 Sunday, April 28th, 2019 – 7:24 am
Great to see her not allowing him to talk over and interrupt her.
What Bill is thinking: Little baby you are a prop to me being PM.
Baby thinking: Please leave me alone.
Ouch a dig at Melissa Price. ‘She’s not even allowed to do press conferences.’
Goll @ #153 Sunday, April 28th, 2019 – 9:25 am
Again… how so ?
Grimace – Not meaning to cause you bother, so don’t change my prediction, please.
I know Tanya is married to a guy who I was not a fan of as my Departmet Head in Education, but I like the way she operates. Cool, calm and professional.
Malcolm Farr nails the Nationals to the mast.
Middleton demonstrates you can’t trust either the L/NP or Labor with water management.
Woke up in my mountain refuge to a glorious sunrise, looking down on mist filled valleys.
Life’s tough!
https://www.google.com/maps/@11.4930867,108.3381838,12z
Grimace
83 seats please
Rex
Exactly
Andrew Earlwood,
Must say I like the idea of living in Lingerie.
Middleton skewering the CFMMEU.
Gee I hope you don’t step on a claymore Barney! 🙂
RD
Yep. Labor keeps thinking it can compromise on the science.
The whole incremental argument.
You have all the angst and burning of political capital for a half way solution
Grimace,
87 seats.
Insiders panelists laughing at the Adani caravan.
Rex
Middleton demonstrates you can’t trust either the L/NP or Labor with water management.
Total misrepresentation of Liberal announcement.
They are looking at deals done back to 2008 NOT the policy underlying the deal which is what Middleton said.
That’s her policy
Confessions
The media laughed at the Franklin Dam protests too.
So nothing new there.
Not surprising that Labor is trying to desperately avoid primetime television debates, they know that Shorten would be destroyed in a live debate. Shorten and Labor are running away from scrutiny but they won’t be able to run away from the voters who will reject Shorten and Labor on May 18.
There is nothing in the national or seat polls which is dissuading from my current prediction of Labor winning 52% of the two party preferred vote and winning between 82-83 seats on election.
Although the cross-bench could be a sizable one come in the election. If there is, then they will likely form the seeds of a New Liberal Party. I believe we could be witnessing the beginnings of a split in the Liberal Party.
The Insiders giving it to Morrison for his pathetically weak response to Palmers shortcomings.
PvO says he hopes Morrison is asked over and over about Clive not paying his workers.
I hope so too.
Lincoln
I’m over 60 my wife is over 60 my mother is over 60, guess what….
I think someone’s been telling you fibs..
Fraser Anning keeps exposing the Hard Right that is the LNP
As I mentioned, Clive not paying the workers out of his own pocket is a mystery. But I do wonder if it would be regarded as corruption (since he does not have a personal liability for the debt). Has he explained why he does not pay now?
ScoMo telling the world how wonderful Leigh Sales is as a debate moderator.
Says a lot.
Leigh Sales is Scotty’s preferred debate moderator.
FFS Middleton just can’t work out Scott is shouting because the Liberal & Country Party don’t have any policy.
Penny Wong is an absolute gem as a nodding head. I’m not a fan of nodding heads but Penny brings a new approach and it works so well……Bill bats away the question in all seriousness but behind him we have PW’s face telling us all what Bill really thinks but can’t say. Love it!
“‘python squeeze’ – isn’t that an Abbott-ism ?
You’re using Abbott-isms , AE ..?? ”
Yes. That was a deliberate reference back to Abbott and the true python squeeze.
Adani is a totem issue. Most locals know full well that the mine will be largely automated. But they also know that Adani opens up the Galilee and surrounds fully to more mines and most crucially to more cattle grazing. One only has to look at the anti Brown-Wiggle protest signs from yesterday to realise that: the cattle industry was as referenced as much as Adani.
Take the CFMMEU – each Queensland division that provides a capital letter to the union’s title has real members that have a stake in Adani opening up the Galilee.
There are real jobs involved – ones that will provide a lifeline to a whole heap of local towns that would otherwise face closure. Local cattlemen will are not ignorant of ‘the truth’ Guytaur – you are.
“Andrew Earlwood,
Must say I like the idea of living in Lingerie.”
Thank you autocorrect lol
No wonder Labor are rolling out Albanese and Plibersek more in recent days, one of them will be replacing Shorten as the new leader of the opposition after May 18.
AE
Wrong you are.
Queensland Labor turned its back on Adani in the middle of an election campaign.
They won. That’s political reality. Not your support of the LNP voters.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #186 Sunday, April 28th, 2019 – 9:51 am
not one reference to the catastrophic environmental damage of more thermal coal mining/exporting/burning …?
How shallow can Barry get?
If he is one of the best , what about the rest
Yep, all we need is more cattle grazing. What a great way to root the landscape without much economic benefit.
Bree says:
Sunday, April 28, 2019 at 9:40 am
Actually an early debate will mean it gets reported on the evening news, which will give it more exposure than a later time. 🙂
C@tmomma @ #66 Sunday, April 28th, 2019 – 8:13 am
How entirely appropriate for ScuMo.
The #watergate debacle is an interesting metaphor for the Ruperts. News Corpse has built levees (like the IPA & the Toilet Tabloids like the Australian) to store the floodwaters of entitlement that used to run freely across the parched settler soul of Stale Pale Male Australia. Unfortunately they’re on the wrong side the political Goyder line – they thought the golden seasons of Hancock, Howard & Fucking Keith Windschuttle were the norm. Now they’re stuck in the drying mudhole of their own greed. The Rupertspawn will offshore their profits (like the $30m for “women’s sports”) through a different tax haven (Delaware not the Caymans), but political climate change will leave them all gasping on the edge of a dead lake, like the Beetroot CARP.
Queensland labor did no such thing Guytaur. Stop rewriting history to fit your imagination.
NRDC
Verified account @NRDC
6s6 seconds ago
It’s official! 50% of Nevada’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2030.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/dylan-sullivan/earth-day-remember-gov-sisolak-signs-50-rps-nv?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=tweet&utm_campaign=Energy
Tanya smilingly reminded Barrie that most watching is now streamed when convenient to the audience. Barrie behind the times?
Sceptic @ #191 Sunday, April 28th, 2019 – 9:55 am
Just another race-caller, political courtier. Wouldn’t know a policy if it tried to mug him. Everything that is absolutely wrong with the Canberra Press Gallery. Nice hair though.
Grimace
Could you put me down for 91 seats to Labor.
Cheers