Since last week’s post dedicated to the current reading of BludgerTrack (which is being updated with new polling data as it becomes available), its measure of the situation is that Labor’s two-party preferred lead is effectively unchanged, but that it has gone backwards on the seat projection due to the distribution of the swing between the states. As ever, this reflects the intense electoral sensitivity of Queensland, which punches well above its weight in terms of marginal seats.
Last time I sounded a note of caution about its reading that Labor stood to gain eight seats there, which was quite out of line with the expectations of both major parties. Since then, we have had two pieces of state-level data that have taken the edge off – the Queensland-only poll by YouGov Galaxy for the Courier-Mail last week, which showed the Coalition leading 51-49, and the Newspoll state breakdowns that had the Queensland result at 50-50. This has moderated the situation to the extent that Labor is now credited with only five gains in the state. Nonetheless, this is almost single-handedly sufficient to get them to a majority.
The encouragement for Labor doesn’t end there, because the Newspoll numbers have further boosted their reading in Victoria, where they are now projected to gain three seats from the Coalition, together with the electoral gift of the new seat of Fraser in their western Melbourne heartland. However, BludgerTrack is now showing a remarkable recovery for the Coalition in New South Wales, where they are actually projected to pick up a swing on two-party preferred, though without gaining any new seats. This is a little more favourable for them than the general impression, which is that they are likely to lose Gilmore and Reid while perhaps gaining Lindsay.
BludgerTrack also suggests the worst danger for the Coalition has passed in Western Australia, where they are now projected to lose only one seat. It also suggests the Liberals should be able to maintain the status quo in South Australia – or arguably slightly improve it, given it is Labor who will be wearing the cut in the state’s representation from 11 seats to 10. This notion was further encouraged by yesterday’s YouGov Galaxy poll showing the Liberals maintaining a lead in Boothby, which is state’s strongest prospect of a gain for Labor.
However, it must be acknowledged here that there are a few holes in the BludgerTrack methodology, specifically relating to Tasmania and the territories, and non-major party contests. State-level data is only available for the five mainland states, so BludgerTrack has nothing to offer on the much-touted prospect of the Liberals gaining either or both of Bass and Braddon in the state’s north, where it is simply assumed that the swing will be in line with the overall national result. The same goes for the Darwin-based seat of Solomon, which has been the subject of optimistic noises from the Coalition throughout the campaign. Whether such noises are justified remains anyone’s guess.
As for minor parties and independents, BludgerTrack simply assumes a status quo result, with Wentworth and Clark (formerly Denison) to remain with their independent incumbents, Indi to go from one independent to another, and Melbourne, Kennedy and Mayo to respectively remain with the Greens, Katter’s Australian Party and the Centre Alliance. I had hoped that media-commissioned seat polling might offer guidance here, but only in the case of Mayo has such a poll emerged. The consensus seems to be that Wentworth will return to the Liberals, that Indi could either stay independent or go with one or other Coalition party, and that the other seats should remain as they are.
The full BludgerTrack results at state-level, together with leadership rating trends and a database of poll results, can be found through the following link:
Not featured in BludgerTrack is the Roy Morgan series, which I decided came to party too late for its form to be properly calibrated. However, its latest weekly result is interesting in being the first national poll of the campaign period to record a move in Labor’s favour on two-party preferred. The poll now has Labor leading 52-48, up from 51-49 last week, from primary votes of Coalition 38.5% (steady), Labor 35.5% (up 1.5%), Greens 10% (down one), One Nation 4% (steady) and the United Australia Party 3.5% (steady). The poll was conducted face-to-face on Saturday and Sunday from a sample of 1265, which is larger than its other recent polls, which have been around the 700 to 800 mark.
Also today: Seat du jour, covering the Queensland seat of Forde.
Tetsujin says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 11:35 am
WOW!!
Only at least 7 conditional elements that need to come together.
I worried! 😆
Polls tomorrow – Newscorp in 10 seats
Just days out from the election, News Corp is set to reveal the state of play in ten marginal seats that will decide whether Scott Morrison or Bill Shorten is Australia’s next prime minister.
The latest polling from ten crucial seats across the country will be revealed on Thursday.
Every hour, on the hour from 10am in the eastern states (9.30am Adelaide time), News Corp will publish the results of an exclusive YouGov Galaxy poll from one of the ten seats.
Both major parties say it’s going to be a “very close” election and Mr Morrison has called on independents to declare who they would support in the event of a hung parliament.
It’s also expected both sides will unleash a massive advertising campaign in the final frantic days to sway undecided voters.
The ten seats include:
NSW
Reid
Gilmore
Macquarie
VICTORIA
Deakin
Higgins
La Trobe
QUEENSLAND
Flynn
Herbert
Forde
Dickson
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/federal-election/election-2019-opinion-polls-in-ten-crucial-electorates-to-reveal-likely-election-winner/news-story/e42b7b35ca2e3a9a3af7dd2aaf381566
Yes testusjin, but that’s an awful lot of ifs. It’d be easier to just take a single assumption, that all the polls have been wrong or missed something.
On Abbott:
Yes – he was quoting Steggall. But also yes – it was a Freudian slip that he knows is correct. He knows and is openly proud of the Coalition not having a plan on Climate Change.
On AEC officials:
FFS how does this not get covered in training? I was told by a prepoll official in Frankston that it was *only* six above the line. She got pretty peeved when I pointed out that it was “at least” and showed her on the paper.
Her answer: well it won’t matter anyway, only Lib or Labor will win here.
The level of ignorance of how the senate voting works…
Seriously – the AEC needs to do better in training.
Tetsujin,
Your analysis shows just why the coalition is not expected to win. Every one of the steps you mentioned would have to happen for a bare minority coalition government, and none of them is very likely.
Macquarie? Really?
Tetsujin says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 11:35 am
It’s not too hard to see the path to a Morrison victory.
————–
With a libs/nats combined primary vote of under 40% in majority of the states
The libs/nats will be lucky to get over 53 seats in the house of reps
For the libs/nats to get a minority the combined primary vote needs be over 42%
For the libs/nats to get a majority the combined primary vote needs be over 45%
From my one-time experience working as an AEC temporary worker on the day of the 2010 election I can say that (a) it’s a bloody hard day’s work, but (b) the training was … not great. That’s a while ago now, of course, but the training basically consisted of a short online course with limited reinforcement or checking that I’d actually picked up/knew anything.
So, basically, the level of knowledge/competence seemed pretty much entirely down to how much effort I felt I should put in without any real assessment or feedback from the AEC.
Undoubtedly there is a core of regular workers who do the job every election, and who make sure they keep up to date and can provide good advice to voters. But there will be a fairly large set of less-than-ideally-informed workers whom the AEC has no real oversight of and who will say all sorts of dopey things.
I guess it’s the nature of having a large temporary workforce.
Looks like the odds have tightened a little on both Sportsbet ($1.16 / $5.00) and Ladbrokes (see side bar).
all ok with da bank
This
Dear Mr pithicus,
At CommBank your opinion matters to us. Listening to the feedback of people, businesses and communities ensures we continuously improve the experience for our customers.
That’s why we’re keen to hear about your recent visit to the ##### branch on Thursday 9 May, 2019.
I got a phone call from cba on the 9th that triggered the morgan survey.
The “recent visit to the ##### branch” part freaked me out.
Tetsujin, doesn’t add up to 151.
The betting markets are completely at the mercy of the polls so I’d expect they will close more up to the day, unless we get a poll that shows a different result than expected.
Lynchpin @ #303 Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 – 11:43 am
Coalition has also been coming in on Betfair. Now $1.20 Labor vs $6.00 Coalition. The Coalition was on $7+ a couple days ago.
I cannot understand why Morrison has not put any effort into Dunkley. I think it’s a good chance to remain liberal after suffering a 6% PV swing against the Libs last election. Crewther now has the incumbency factor. I would suggest that Morrison would go down better than MT, at least outside of Mt. Eliza. Although it’s nominally ALP after redistribution, I would have thought it would have been number 1 seat to protect in Vic, and it should have been given plenty of pork in the last 3 years. Not sure if this has happened or not. If not, then poorly played.
pithicus @ #310 Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 – 11:44 am
The rule with banks is to be a shareholder, not a customer.
Corollary: The rule with Telstra is to be neither.
Bushfire Bill says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 11:45 am
Maybe Cormann is posting here?
It’s not too hard to see the path to a Morrison victory – if you ignore Victoria…
About time the betting markets started being a little more realistic.
They haven’t ignored Victoria, they took the gains from Victoria allotted by Bludgertrack.
Tetsujin says:
Standing at Base Camp on Mt Everest it is not hard to see the path to the summit. It’s the actual “doing” where the problem lays 😉
8 of the 10 seats in the YouGov poll are Coalition.
So. I think the Liberals may win*.
Google Trends pretty accurately predicts offline behaviour. And not just in buying stuff online.
It’s also literally real time.
Look back at the Trump election, last NSW election for the few days before the election and you’ll see this is not an entirely a foolish method for election prediction.
Here are the Google Trends graphs for the last 7 days:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&geo=AU&q=labor,liberal,shorten,morrison
If you look at longer trends back over the last couple of months Labor have been constantly ahead, reflecting opinion polls over that time.
Labor are now behind. Sorry.
* caveat – this doesn’t account for weird stuff with preferences etc across multiple seats.
Barney in Saigon @ #310 Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 – 11:47 am
Maybe won a coveted eleventy calculator at a Lib fundraiser ?
I’ll predict YouGov will show the coalition narrowly ahead in every seat they currently hold and narrowly behind in seats they don’t hold.
poroti @ #313 Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 – 11:51 am
You beat me to it, but I’ll say it anyway. 🙂
It’s not hard to see the top of the mountain on a clear day if you’re far enough away.
Regarding the training of polling officials. I voted yesterday and noticed that the polling official hadn’t initialed my senate ballot. When I pointed this out, he initialed it but claimed that it wouldn’t matter anyhow as the ballot would still be counted regardless.
Having scruitineered many times in the past and contributed to excluding more than one ballot without initials I checked online to see if things had changed and it does appear that a lack of initials is no longer an automatic exclusion, although regardless the ballot is supposed to be pulled from the count and left to a determination from the RO.
Looks like a recipe for a very long count, and a court of disputed returns case or two to me. Not a good look at all.
Just voted pre poll. It was easy once I found the place – the “Old Waterboard Building Chatswood” is not in Google and I have no idea where the water board used to be.
The parties were well represented. It was pretty uncrowded and I was in and out quickly. Two mandatory questions: “Have you already voted?” (No) and “are you eligible to vote early?” Yes (sort of – visiting family on the Central Coast after lunch but it was a simple yes or no question).
The officer instructed me to number all squares on the green paper, and either 1 to 6 above the line or 1 to 12 below for the Senate. Didn’t seem to understand that you could number more squares.
Late Riser
Yours was much better in getting to the point as it were 🙂
Vogon Poet says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 11:56 am
Barney in Saigon @ #310 Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 – 11:47 am
Bushfire Bill says:
Wednesday, May 15, 2019 at 11:45 am
Nah, Hockey handed over his as a parting gift!
davidwh @ #1284 Tuesday, May 14th, 2019 – 11:21 pm
Labor doing their utmost best to lose the election.
2013-2016 The libs/nats combined primary vote decline 3.5% , from 46.5% (2013) – 42.1% (2016) = lost of 14 seats
2016-2019 – If the libs/nats combined primary vote decline greater than 3.5% from 2016
It is 100% certain the libs/nats will lose more than 14 seats
Lynchpin @ #309 Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 – 11:43 am
I count ALP with 69 certain and likely in 7.
LNP 45 certain and likely in 8.
4 to Independents.
Of the remaining 18 labor ahead in 5 LNP ahead in 8.
Any path to victory for the LNP is non-existent if you put any credence in betting odds.
Chris Kenny just now on Shorten re Hell: ‘this is straight out of American Politics. Weaponising moral and religious issues for political gain’. With a fucking straight face!
Asking for a friend.
If a person applies for a postal vote, and receives the forms and envelopes, can they change their mind and vote on the day instead?
I assume they can, but don’t know definitively.
Scott ‘Hyper Pork Barrel’ Morrison at work:
Just went past prepoll place in Main St Greensborough -signs out for the Jagajaga and Menzies candidates.
Very long line down the street – will probably take these people longer than voting on Saturday . But as long as Liberals like Kroger are against it I am all for more prepoll voting.
Looks to me like many people made up their minds long ago
Get rid of pork barrelling, introduce PR.
Shorten’s “Hell” line was said in passing on a discussion relating to same sex marriage. It’s the right wing media that “weaponised” it. Bill didn’t attack anyone, he ventured an opinion on a religious matter. Religious freedom anyone?
2013-2016 Labor’s primary vote increased by 1.3%,from 33.4% (2013) – 34.7% (2016) = Net gain of 14 seats
2016-2019 – If Labor’s primary vote increases greater than 1.3% from 2016
It is 100% certain Labor will win more than 14 seats (on top of 59 currently held)
I am still sticking with Labor 94 seats in the house of reps
Ante Meridian – yes they can vote at a polling place, and about 20% who receive postal vote packs don’t use them according to AEC figures
International PollBludgers:
How many different Countries have PBs cast their ballots in at this election?
From memory I can recall
Vietnam – HCMC
Thailand – Bangkok
The U.K. – London
Argentina – Buenos Aires
Germany – Bonn (?D&M)
I have received my postal vote in the mail and have been studying it, so that I have the order clear in my mind before filling in and posting it tomorrow (I always work out my votes before attending a booth).
After seeing all the misinformation on policy in the media, combined with large voting papers, I’m tending to think that there will be scores of informal votes and the winner will be a matter of luck.
Let’s hope that the force is with Labor on Saturday.
Prepoll next to Cash Converters! Funny
Higher informal vote tends to hinder Labor more, but thinking more about it and where swings might happen, that won’t necessarily be the case…
Ante Meridian @ #334 Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 – 12:06 pm
—
Yes they can
Shorten actually said he was disappointed with Morrison’s original non-answer.
Morrison was forced to answer it next day ( no doubt after consulting his minders, and perhaps even his church elders)
Lizzie – I’d post the thing today.
Thanks, Terminator.
And in case you were wondering, I think the person in question has been tempted by the delicious cuisine on offer at a local polling place as described in democracysausage.org.au.
Barney in Saigon says:
Some Bludgers are at times suspected of living on another planet. Does that count ? 🙂
Damn it Poroti, you got there first 🙂