BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Labor

‘Tis the season for readjusting preference allocations – but for which the BludgerTrack poll aggregate reading would have gone all but unchanged this week.

BludgerTrack records a movement to the Coalition this week, but in keeping with the zeitgeist, this is more about changes in preference assumptions rather than voting intention. Specifically, I’ve decided to apply a crude 60-40 split in favour of the Coalition on One Nation preferences, as Newspoll has been doing since the start of last year.

A while back I came up with an elaborate mechanism to allocate One Nation preferences based on respondent-allocated two-party polling data, the true purpose of which was to produce a figure more favourable to the Coalition than the 50-50 split recorded in the 15 seats the party contested in 2016, which only partisan optimists (hello to you all) expect to be repeated this time. However, this has been increasingly ineffective due to the paucity of respondent-allocated results since ReachTEL’s national polling stopped around a year ago. It seemed to me that something needed to be done though, and I have been persuaded by the position of David Briggs at YouGov Galaxy that 60-40 is a conservative approximation (albeit an arbitrary one) given the preference flows at the last two state elections at which One Nation made a serious effort in lower house seats, namely Queensland (65.2% of preferences to the Liberal National Party) and Western Australia (60.6% to the Liberals).

I am not, however, convinced that the same thing should be done with the United Australia Party, as Newspoll has now started doing. The Palmer United Party had Labor last on every how-to-vote card in 2013, yet 46.3% of their voters still put Labor ahead of the Coalition. In addition to the impact of the heavily publicised preference deal, Briggs points to the fact that UAP voters in the latest Newspoll sample strongly favoured Scott Morrison over Bill Shorten on the question of trust, but this strikes me as thin gruel given the small sample size. Kevin Bonham makes the point that the Sinophobic bent of Palmer’s current campaign might be capturing a more right-wing audience than last time, which may well be so. However, he also makes the very good point that Palmer “may be taking Coalition-friendly voters from the Others pile, so the remaining Others may on balance be slightly Labor-leaning”.

All things considered, I don’t see enough reason to stop treating the UAP as part of the amorphous collection of “others” and to continue allocating its collective preferences as per the 2016 result, which was basically 50-50 – particularly not in the context of an election at which anti-government sentiment is harder than it was last time, based on all available evidence. In any case, I will not for the time being be making the effort to produce a trend measure from the UAP, whose primary vote will remain locked up in BludgerTrack’s aggregated “others” measure.

The upshot of all this is that the dial has moved 0.5% in favour of the Coalition on two-party preferred, but only 0.2% of this is due to the addition of the new polls this week from YouGov Galaxy, Newspoll and Essential Research. The Coalition has gained three on the seat projection, consisting of one each in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia. The addition of new state data has smoothed off what hitherto seemed excessive movement in the Coalition’s favour in New South Wales, although it’s had the opposite effect in Western Australia. Labor continues to be credited with eight gains in Queensland, which seems rather a lot, but elsewhere the projections seem in line with what the major parties are expecting.

Full results can be accessed through the link below, which is permanently available on the sidebar.

And while you’re about, don’t miss the latest edition of Seat du Jour in the post below this one, covering Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson.

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.

790 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.9-48.1 to Labor”

Comments Page 9 of 16
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  1. “Scotty’s trip to Tasmania not totally wasted – he got a woodcarving..”

    The photo is him and Erica discussing woodcarving as a possible hobby for their retirement in the near future.

  2. C@tmomma @ #395 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 3:38 pm

    enjaybee @ #391 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 4:01 pm

    Have the ALP been using the sale of the ABC as approved at the last federal conference of the Liberals as a vote winner in the eastern states.
    Seen nothing of it in SA. Do bludgers think that it could be a winner for the ALP (similar to the Mediscare campaign last election)? I would have thought that it will be.

    As far as I know, Labor have been leaving it up to the Friends of the ABC.

    Well I think they should be doing a great deal more than just leaving it to the Friends of the ABC. Some hard hitting TV adverts are required.

  4. Can’t get into this article – but as I said, Jessica Whelan’s problem is not just all the years of Facebook posts on her own site that she has deleted (but others had already copied), it’s that she has also posted on other people’s sites.

    WHITE CERTAIN OF WHELAN COMMENTS
    Tasmanian Opposition leader Rebecca White says she is happy to testify about the veracity of offensive Facebook comments made by Liberal candidate Jessica Whelan.     (The Mercury)

  6. Creasey has been found to make more disgraceful online posts. Keep standing behind Billy. This is only getting worse.

  7. Poor ScoFo – just when he was trying to beat up Fisher’s fallacious farrago of fictitious figures, he has another knuckle-dragging candidate blow up in his face.

    That’s karma, sunshine. Reap what you sow. You think Fraser had this particular problem? Nup – it’s reflection of the gutter the LNP has gone into.

  8. Here is a portion of the Hobert mercury article

    Ms White claimed Ms Whelan made the comments on Ms White’s Facebook page two years ago.

    “I am absolutely 100-per-cent sure that those comments made by Jessica Whelan on my Facebook page, those racist, intolerable comments, are true and accurate and are reflective of a pattern of behaviour by her that shows she has views that are intolerable and she can not continue on as an endorsed Liberal candidate in Lyons,” she said.

    “The comments that were left on my Facebook page were quite clearly left by Jessica Whelan.

  11. Did I misread earlier quotes or was the name omitted from some reporting of the Whelan Facebook post “Round them up Donald…”?

    Maybe I glanced over it but I don’t recall the Trump reference from previous reports?

  12. Bingo,

    Butler raising the inevitability of EVs and how 50% is more than likely under selling what will happen.

    Question: If you’re not getting to that target, though, would you be prepared to intervene with subsidies for…?

    Mark Butler: Well, obviously a government at that point is gonna have to think about this.

    But over the last few days we’ve seen reports from the Academy of Technology and Engineering, from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Transurban and a range of other groups that I can’t even remember over the last few days, all confirming that the ticket price of an electric vehicle will drop below the petrol and diesel equivalent by about 2025.

    And, frankly, after that happens, you are gonna have a boom in new purchase of electric vehicles. And I think, in retrospect, the 50% target of the new sales, if that estimate by everyone in the industry is right, will be seen as modest in retrospect.

    The Guardian blog

  13. Creasey has questions to answer
    “The Labor candidate also attacked [Tony] Abbott for claiming boat people were acting in an un-Christian matter.

    “I beg to differ, Tony. Coming in the back door is very Christian, or at least catholic. How else do you avoid perpetual pregnancy when your faith condemns conception (sic)?” Mr Creasey posted.”

  15. The Government has had a lot of misfortune with their social media accounts being hacked.

    Or have they?

    You may remember that Greg Hunt claimed his Twitter account had been hacked when it was found to have liked a porn tweet.

    The Australian federal police commissioner, Andrew Colvin, told Senate estimates that it had investigated and found no hacking.

    “I will say though, senator, that I think social media hygiene is an issue that we all need to be conscious of,” Colvin said at the time. “And that is about who has access to your Twitter account, how many people have access, do you know who has access to your account? I will leave it at that.”

    Jessica Whelan’s candidate social media presence is only from this year, with all previous social media accounts having been deleted. The posts which have been called into question were all in the last few years, purportedly from previous accounts.

    The Guardian blog

    Note: Pyne made a similar claim which, IIRC, was dismissed after an investigation. 🙂


  17. Diogenes says:
    Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 4:47 pm

    Creasey has questions to answer
    “The Labor candidate also attacked [Tony] Abbott for claiming boat people were acting in an un-Christian matter.

    “I beg to differ, Tony. Coming in the back door is very Christian, or at least catholic. How else do you avoid perpetual pregnancy when your faith condemns conception (sic)?” Mr Creasey posted.”

    Not as funny as Kevin Bonham’s effort, but pretty good.

  20. michael says:
    Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 4:24 pm

    Creasey has been found to make more disgraceful online posts. Keep standing behind Billy. This is only getting worse.

    Actually I think he’s improving, this ones almost funny, unlike Whelan’s comments.

    Does anyone here find threats of genital mutilation funny?

  21. Embattled Liberal candidate Jessica Whelan repeatedly refused to answer questions about her social media posts.

    It’s official

  22. Question: how can someone remove their candidacy once nominations have closed and their names are on the ballot paper?

    This is how Pauline Hanson was elected as an “independent” candidate, despite still being badged as a Liberal on the ballot paper.

    I guess what I’m asking is, have these people really been stood down/resigned or are they legally still candidates and potential MPs, depending on the outcome of the election?

  23. Once they are on the ballot they stay on the ballot. All a party can do is dis-endorse them and stop supporting their campaign.

  25. “Scotty’s trip to Tasmania not totally wasted – he got a woodcarving…”

    What on earth is ScoMo going to do with a wood carving portrait of Doc Evatt?

    Did Abetz steal this momento from Evatt collection at Leuralla on some recent visit to the Toy and Railway museum in the Blue Mountains?

  27. Judging from the Guardian blog Abbott is making a bit of a fool of himself at the Sky News debate between him and Steggall.

  28. Fred read all the posts on the Herald Sun. I agree I hope Creasy goes nowhere, and Billy fully backs him. Plus now he also has S44 issues.

  30. Chinda63 says:
    Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 5:03 pm

    Question: how can someone remove their candidacy once nominations have closed and their names are on the ballot paper?

    This is how Pauline Hanson was elected as an “independent” candidate, despite still being badged as a Liberal on the ballot paper.

    I guess what I’m asking is, have these people really been stood down/resigned or are they legally still candidates and potential MPs, depending on the outcome of the election?

    They can’t, all the Party can do is withdraw their support and publicise that they are no longer connected or endorsed by them.

  31. michael @ #405 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 4:24 pm

    Creasey has been found to make more disgraceful online posts. Keep standing behind Billy. This is only getting worst.

    Funny how a Lib troll pops up with something about a Labor candidate’s past posts on the very same day that the Liberals are trying to distract from Jessica Whelan.

    Nice try, michael, but no cigar from Matty Cormann for you! 😆

  32. Tristo @ #428 Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 – 5:10 pm

    https://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/embattled-liberal-candidate-jessica-whelan-flees-from-media-at-event-with-scott-morrison/news-story/6b50a33f310a69db62482304fd5c3745

    It looks like she is a White supremacist, given she made the OK sign on that Facebook comment shown. I wonder how many White supremacists are in the Liberal and National Parties.

    Lots.

    I’m sure someone, somewhere has that photo archived of Sarah ‘Corangamite’ Henderson and her White Supremacy campaign volunteers. 🙂

  35. Billy and Tanya stormed from a press conference today when they would not answer questions about whether Creasey should be disendorsed. The Left and Right of Labor are at war in Victoria on whether they dump Creasey. Obviously the Right want him gone.

  36. Qld bludgers; are Labor running hard on the Clive preference deal up there? I’ve seen a few posts from Queensland Labor on Facebook, is there anything else? Personally, I’m surprised I haven’t seen more attacks around that deal here in SA, as I think it will drive voters away from the Liberals, but also drive some vote away from the UAP.

  39. GG

    It seems the confidence level has sagged a bit around here over the past week or so. How are you reading the situation at the moment? Steady as she goes?

  40. From KB on twitter:

    Candidates known to have been disendorsed/resigned/withdrawn since election called:

    Liberal 8
    National 1
    Labor 3
    One Nation 1

  44. Abbott: “As you all know, Independents tend to sit on the fence.”
    Cue raucous laughter from the audience. 🙂

  45. Oh dear. When you have to resort to using the comments section on the Herald Sun to make a case, to put it mildly, you’re stuffed!

  46. Legendary Football Commentator from Victori, Mike Wiliamson has passed. One of the great influencers of the broadcast coverage of VFL and now AFL.

    “Jesaulenko you beauty” is a famous as the mark.

    Here’s another cracker piece of coverage.

    https://youtu.be/MyppV6iYojQ

  47. BK
    Abbott looks and sounds so passe. Zalli Steggall is fresh and enthusiastic. Of course she’ll vote more as a Lib but she’d be better than Abbott. Excellent on cli ate change and EV policy.

    @catmomma Thanks re Central Coast thoughts. Can you put a plug in to someone for better ads. Ours are as lousey as the State election ads.

  49. By the sounds of it – Labor ads not “cutting through” according to some pessimists, it has been another bad day for the Libs. Bluster only gets you so far I guess…………………I note the Sales-Shorten thing last night has not raised one iota of dust anywhere.

  50. in around 20 seats odds have shortened for LNP according to Sportsbet since the Newspoll.
    Sportsbet odds
    overall 1.30 3.50 1.33 3.30
    Seat odds 2-May 29-Apr
    labour Coalition labour Coalition
    NSW Gilmore 1.20 4.00 1.14 5.00
    NSW Robertson 1.28 3.35 1.20 4.00
    QLD Bonner 1.34 3.00 1.38 2.70
    QLD Brisbane 2.50 1.50 2.20 1.65
    QLD Dawson 1.88 1.82 1.42 2.65
    QLD Herbert 2.10 1.65 1.92 1.82
    QLD Hinkler 6.00 1.12 3.25 1.33
    QLD Leichhardt 2.00 1.80 1.70 2.50
    QLD Ryan 4.00 1.18 3.00 1.30
    SA Sturt 3.75 1.25 2.20 1.55
    TAS Braddon 1.90 1.85 1.55 2.20
    VIC Aston 3.40 1.30 3.10 1.36
    VIC Casey 2.40 1.55 2.15 1.68
    VIC Chisholm 1.21 4.25 1.28 3.60
    VIC Corangamite 1.38 2.80 1.38 2.75
    VIC Goldstein 8.00 1.07 6.00 1.12
    VIC Higgins 7.00 1.15 4.00 1.30
    VIC Indi 16.00 1.75 12.00 1.80
    VIC Isaacs 1.01 11.00 1.08 7.50
    VIC Kooyong 18.00 1.16 16.00 1.22
    WA Canning 3.80 1.25 2.85 1.40
    WA Curtin 14.00 1.05 14.00 1.09

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