I’m afraid in depth analysis of the result will have to wait until I’ve slept for just about the first time in 48 hours. I’ll just observe that that BludgerTrack thing on the sidebar isn’t looking too flash right now, to which the best defence I can offer is that aggregators gonna aggregate. Basically every poll at the end of the campaign showed Labor with a lead of 51.5-48.5, and so therefore did BludgerTrack – whereas it looks like the final result will end up being more like the other way around. The much maligned seat polling actually wound up looking better than the national ones, though it was all too tempting at the time to relate their pecularities to a past record of leaning in favour of the Coalition. However, even the seat polls likely overstated Labor’s position, though the number crunching required to measure how much by will have to wait for later.
Probably the sharpest piece of polling analysis to emerge before the event was provided by Mark the Ballot, who offered a prescient look at the all too obvious fact that the polling industry was guilty of herding – and, in this case, it was herding to the wrong place. In this the result carries echoes of the 2015 election in Britain, when polling spoke in one voice of an even money bet between the Conservatives and Labour, when the latter’s vote share on the day proved to be fully 6% higher. This resulted in a period of soul-searching in the British polling industry that will hopefully be reflected in Australia, where pollsters are far too secretive about their methods and provide none of the breakdowns and weighting information that are standard for the more respected pollsters internationally. More on that at a later time.
AngoraFish @ #534 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:42 am
Angry Labor partisan should look no further for blame than to the many Queensland Labor voters who deserted to PHON and Clive.
Confessions: “He will junk the Shorten/Bowen reform agenda.”
Go Albo! Although there’s also this:
“He will NOT do deals with a ‘right’ candidate for deputy.”
That effectively means Plib staying on, which means that we will have a leader and deputy from the NSW Hard Left faction. Not great feng shui IMO..
Another long-time visitor here to pollbludger who dropped off due to that minority of rabid hardcore delusional prolific posters here that on one hand give so much energy to this place but on the other have a rigid smothering effect. Genius is so close to madness sometimes.
We talk about the danger of being caught in our own echo chambers but I value pollbludger for giving me a glimpse into the alp echo chamber. I really get the sense of comradeship and the passion and dedication and generational purpose that I think is unique to labour parties. It’s a beautiful thing.
But I also get the sense that it is completely impenetrable and insular and up its own arse. Everyone that is not alp is the enemy, we’re surrounded by enemies, we’re 100% behind the current labor talking point no-questions-allowed until we aren’t then how dare you question our new talking point. Every criticism of the alp is a lie. The other parties are stealing our votes! Young people don’t know any better, old people are just selfish. Anyone that doesn’t vote for us is a murderer.
It sounds miserable to be an alp true believer. I feel like you’re in a cage of your own making.
The ALP has paid a massive price for having a man with grandiose ambitions and little talent or real political nous, outside of the factions that is. Shorten not only brought down 2 ALP PM’s, his refusal to let anyone but himself be leader cost the ALP government this time because without Shorten, Albo might well have won, and won fairly well.
meher baba @ #538 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:45 am
Oh meher! 😆
Though Christensen does seem a lot like an old DLP Man.
Angorafish
1. The Greens spent six years killing Bill. They were active on this blog doing so.
2. The Greens played a large spoiler role against Labor in this campaign.
3. The 20% of the Greens’ second prefs that did not go to Labor may well have gone to the Liberals. In other words, the Greens drift is not just a simple loss of 20% to Labor. It may well have offset some of the 80% that DID go to Labor.
It there were no Greens Party Labor would be forming government right now.
You guys own that.
Enjoy.
I think there is now something fundamentally wrong with opinion polling that permanently renders them ineffective as a forecasting tool for election outcomes. There is a large chunk of the electorate that now does not want to participate in the polling game. I see this as another example of the electorate responding to the political class gaming the system (pushing back by hanging up on pollsters).
Not being able to sample this chunk effectively makes the remaining portion of the electorate you can sample unrepresentative. In other words, the polling is no longer a random sample of the whole population of voters. Instead, the polls are sampling from a biased sample with a huge unknown from the voters who refuse to participate in polling. This makes the margin of error meaningless, as we saw from last night’s result, particularly on the primary votes.
I’m speculating without evidence here, but my gut feeling is that a large proportion of the non-participants in polling are the “shy conservatives”; those who are aware and sensitive to being publicly exposed for voting for their own self-interest.
asanque says:
Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 11:46 am
….
I have no issue with fixing rorts, but what the ALP proposed went well beyond that (and it would be disingenuous to say otherwise).
Out of interest asnaque, what part of Labors policy did you consider unacceptable?
It does not matter who leads the ALP. It is just moving pieces on the chessboard sitting on a table on the Titanic.
Sop distracting yourselves with petty concerns. At least for today, mourn the destruction of our home, our nation, our planet. If Australia could not buck the rise of the murderous Right, the planet-destroying religious fanatics and ‘greed is good’ set, there is no hope left in the world.
Take your time to mourn all we have lost and will lose. I will be dead when the worst hits, but I have a Grand-daughter. I love her more than I love money. I hope she has the wit and luck to survive.
It is a shame the Right do not love their own in the same way.
Boerwar @ #546 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:46 am
Tell me the percentage of Queensland Labor voters who took the CFMMEU’s advice and deserted to PHON and Clive ..?
People seem to be saying Labor lost the battle of ideas, I dispute this and say that debate never happened.
Labor tried to have it, but in also releasing an extensive suite of policies, it allowed the Liberals to ignore that debate and focus on certain policies in isolation, rather than how they the fit into the bigger picture.
I applaud Labor and Shorten for what they were trying to do, but on reflection it seems that Labor needs to step back and win the the battle of ideas first and then progress to policy once it has convinced enough of the electorate of the need to change.
Howard did this with the GST, change comes first from being in Government.
Shorten cost Labor some newly attained voters in knifing Rudd and then Gillard, remembering Rudd created an enthusiasm, at the time he bought on stalwart Lib voters to vote Rudd.
The disappointment of those voters saw them swear off labor, and shorten still being visible hardly helped.
Whoever came up with “Labor. It’s the Bill Australia can’t afford” should be getting a lot of kudos on the Conservative side of things. It’s about the only slogan I can remember from the whole campaign.
Asanque – this is your lucky day, we are all piling in
The Greens policy on tax is similar to Labor
▲ Introduce a super profits tax on the oil, gas and mining giants that operate in uncompetitive markets and with huge tax advantages ·
▲ End the billions in corporate handouts from government · More »
▲ Make big corporations pay for their pollution, instead of getting government handouts · More »
▲ Close the tax avoidance system, to stop giant multinationals dodging their tax bill · More »
▲ Reverse the big tax cuts to shareholders and the super wealthy
https://greens.org.au/platform/redistribution
The Climate Change activists have been almost indistinguishable from Greens. They have dogged Bill Shorten’s press conferences and I think their actions have cost labor 4 seats in Queensland.
They made the difference between a government acting to mitigate against climate change and cabal of miners and business men stealing water from the food bowl and building gigantic new mines. I think that the UN will have to step in to protect Australia’s natural environment
C@tmomma
Labor did not and what little they did was late and in response and so on the back foot. From the first moment it should have been introduced as “Stopping a tax rort” . “Closing a loophole” . KISS and start on the front foot. Make the ‘tax rorters’ try and prove it is not a rort “taking money away from hard working Australians ” .
PuffyTMD,
And you are wasting time mourning the death of a planet that no one in the government, who we have now got for another 3 years, gives a flying fig about!
What we, and Labor, need to do is expend ALL our energies on defeating them!
“Climate change ain’t the electoral panacea that some on the left think it is, especially in outer metropolitan and rural Australia.”
FFS how do people still not get this? We care about climate change because we don’t want the world to be a fucking hell hole, not as a political strategy. It’s not some idea workshopped up by ‘the left’, it’s a grim, meat hook reality. The question is not “are we going to deal with it?” but “how are we going to deal with it?”
Yesterday Australia voted to pretend a civilisation threatening fact does not exist. We are a nation of cowards, ruled by cowards at the moment.
pithicus @ #399 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 10:52 am
You reckon.
The Liberal party are already working on one.
It’ll use the word ‘tax’ somewhere.
Hell it’s worked 3 elections in a row now.
“A progressive policy would be to invest in infrastructure, services, and direct job creation in regional areas to make coal mining jobs redundant and to help those communities have a better, greener quality of life.
The ALP doesn’t advocate progressive policies for regional areas.”
Nicholas. If you read my posts overnight you should be able to discern that I’m coming from the same direction. Me, a centrist. Who would have thought that. Im just arguing two additional points:
1. Telling regional people that their jobs are redundant, just because of some United Nations Experts and Melbournian lefties say so, if the equivalent of demanding that they vote against you and that they do everything within their power to defeat you. A better way is to emphasis the hope that positive policies addressing the issues you rightly raise will have in mitigating the risk that the world will say sometime in the next 30-50 years: ‘we are no longer buying your coal’. That’s the difference between merely positioning yourself in a debate and actual persuasion through advocacy.
2. Re: Point 1, needs someone who is relatable to sell it. Bob Brown and Pepe are as unrelatable as Shorten proved to be. Alas. A pop leftist, never worked a job in his life wiz like Bernie or Corbyn would be even worse. What we are actually looking for in an antipodean context is a ‘knockabout intellectual’, a Bob Hawke. Or at lead someone who looks and sounds relatable. In my view, even though they are acquaintances and friends of mine that is not Albo, Tanya, Chris or Tony, or at least not outside the inner and centre suburbs. But I reckon that Chalmers looks quite a bit like that though. Especially for Queenslanders. He’s also a generational change from the RGR era as well.
Boerwar says:
Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 11:49 am
..
3. The 20% of the Greens’ second prefs that did not go to Labor may well have gone to the Liberals. In other words, the Greens drift is not just a simple loss of 20% to Labor. It may well have offset some of the 80% that DID go to Labor.
..
In the seats where it was between Liberal and Labor ; the preference that did not go to Labor want to the Liberals, that is the way the system works.
Zali Steggall for the next Labor leader. You know it makes sense! 😀
FTR I feel like there is zero proof to say that the 20% that voted Greens-Liberals would’ve voted Labor if the Greens didn’t exist. And very likely wouldn’t as most of them are Liberals with environmental concerns.
Remember Greens did put Labor ahead of Liberals in the HTV cards…..
“there was a substantial largely invisible campaign – by sections of christian church – remember heads of several main denominations made press announcement together two weeks ago in favour of religious freedom – that was a whistle to vote liberal – 150 christian school advised parents to vote liberal (in effect). how many congregations were involved – start with assemblies of god of morrison affiliation and go from there – the combined audience for campaign could be 250,000 or more – impact on voting ??
it all happened in recent weeks – and was quiet in part to not compromise PM one might think who undoubtedly was aware and part of”
Interesting point, but mightn’t that cut both ways, not everybody of faith is a Christian, and as such the above could also work as a turn off
Madcyril
Yep, only two slogans I can remember are that one and “Change the rules” , even if I still do not know what rules or to what 🙂 .
Nath:
I found much of your commentary amusing, but as a Pesphological Colossus, you let yourself down with your recent comment that you had no idea what would happen. Your theory re Mr Shorten doesn’t really fit the facts:
– Victoria swung to the ALP off a an already high base, notwithstanding the fact that Vics know Mr Shorten best of all, so wold be expected to amplify your proposed anti-Shorten effect
– Queensland swung strongly against the ALP, and your theory has no explanation for that
Now if you had predicted that “Queensland will swing against the ALP to punsish Mr Shorten for his (supposed) role in knifing their favourite son Mr Rudd” that would be far more persuasive, and may well have some validity (it would also have the merit of explaining the difference between state and federal voting in Queensland). However I read the majority of what you have written, and I don’t recall anythng like that
“Labor tried to have it, but in also releasing an extensive suite of policies, it allowed the Liberals to ignore that debate and focus on certain policies in isolation, rather than how they the fit into the bigger picture.”
Agree.
C@tmoaner I’ll unblock you so you can send through all those posts of mine you were going to throw back in my face after our glorious victory….can’t wait to be reminded of just how right I was.
WB
Briefly was very downbeat about the outcome in the first few weeks. I assumed he’d met more than his share of unpleasant Lib supports on the hustings. He chirped up in the end.
BW
Quite a few Greens voters prefer Libs to Labor.
Luke
says:
Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 11:49 am
Another long-time visitor here to pollbludger who dropped off due to that minority of rabid hardcore delusional prolific posters here that on one hand give so much energy to this place but on the other have a rigid smothering effect. Genius is so close to madness sometimes.
We talk about the danger of being caught in our own echo chambers but I value pollbludger for giving me a glimpse into the alp echo chamber. I really get the sense of comradeship and the passion and dedication and generational purpose that I think is unique to labour parties. It’s a beautiful thing.
But I also get the sense that it is completely impenetrable and insular and up its own arse. Everyone that is not alp is the enemy, we’re surrounded by enemies, we’re 100% behind the current labor talking point no-questions-allowed until we aren’t then how dare you question our new talking point. Every criticism of the alp is a lie. The other parties are stealing our votes! Young people don’t know any better, old people are just selfish. Anyone that doesn’t vote for us is a murderer.
It sounds miserable to be an alp true believer. I feel like you’re in a cage of your own making.
Absolutely!!! read this Poll bludgers then read it again.
I saw with my very own eyes last night votes that went: Green, Liberal, Labor.
E. G. Theodore
says:
Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 11:54 am
Nath:
Now if you had predicted that “Queensland will swing against the ALP to punsish Mr Shorten for his (supposed) role in knifing their favourite son Mr Rudd (their favourite son)” that would be far more persuasive, and may well have some validity (it would also have the merit of explaining the difference between state and federal voting in Queensland). However I read the majority of what you have written, and I don’t recall anythng like that
________________________________
I did actually say that a couple of days ago. I said that despite the 50/50 polls in Qld I would be surprised that Morrison doesn’t do better in Qld than Turnbull. Colossus status confirmed.
asanque @ #537 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:12 am
I do not give a fuck about whether I inspire you or not. I want those to blame for this pivotable election win by the Coalition to realise what utter bastards they really are. It is time to confront people with their choices. You are either for the ALP or you are a bottom-feeding p.o.s.
Simples.
If Labor ever wants to hold government again it needs to ditch everyone who holds views similar to Boer.
Apparently instead of looking at Labor’s 33% or the huge loss of votes to a fat man who stole $70M from workers, it’s all the Greens’ fault because 10-20% of their vote comes from people who would otherwise vote Liberal regardless.
nath @ #554 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:49 am
—
Bollocks. The ELECTORATE decided that self interest is more palatable than giving a chit about the environment, refugees, DV victims, migrants, Muslims, the vulnerable, education, affordable housing, NOT Bill Shorten. You cant blame Bill for what became a selfish election Nath. Albo would have got the same result you ignorant moron.
nath: “Oh please meher. Shorten was in it from the get go. Feeney was acting as his emissary so that it wouldn’t appear he had blood on his hands. That’s why Rudd made Shorten front the media in 2013 before he would challenge Gillard. Rudd wanted Shorten to do it publicly this time.”
I can understand how you might think that’s how it played out, and I’m certain that Rudd is convinced that it was: so you might be right that Rudd pushed Shorten into making a public statement in 2013.
But, FWIW, I have spoken to someone with inside knowledge who told me that Shorten really didn’t have much to do with the events of 2010 and really was talking to someone from his childrens’ school when he was filmed outside the Chinese restaurant in Kingston. That doesn’t mean that Shorten was in any way opposed to the removal of Rudd: very few ALP members were, which is why Albo persuaded Rudd not to take it to a vote the next day.
What happened in 2010 was that, once Rudd ‘s removal had become a sure thing, lots of ambitious people wanted to thrust themselves forward as being the incredibly clever person who made it happen: Paul Howes, David Feeney Sam Dastyari and a number of others. As Feeney was very close to Shorten, there was a clear implication that Bill was behind it all.
But what would Shorten expect to have gained from the removal of Rudd? The wildly-held assumption at the time was that Gillard would prove to be very popular as PM and possibly hold power for a decade or more. I don’t think that would have helped Bill’s cause all that much. I doubt that he was greatly enthused one way or the other. 2013 was a different matter: it looked highly likely that either Gillard or Rudd would lose. Bringing Rudd back meant that he would be out of the picture in opposition, clearing the way for Bill to take over.
Morning all. I hope everyone is OK. I’m a bit hungover, myself.
I am not going to write a tedious screed about “why Labor lost” where I try to dress my ideological hang-ups and personal feelings as objective analysis. There’s been enough of that.
I can’t say what the next change of government will look like. I daresay it’s not that far away (i.e. probably next election.) Morrison won but he still scraped over the line. I know it was said about 2019 as well but he still won’t have much to work with.
However, if there’s one thing to take away, it’s this: meta-think more often. Don’t just embrace things that tell you want to hear and ignore/downplay those that don’t. And don’t overrely on heuristics. They’re a good starting point but a very weak conclusion.
I know, people will say, “Oh but the polls had Labor winning and I responded to that” and that’s fine. We all get things wrong, no matter how we think getting there. I was wrong. However, I saw people also rubbishing polls because “there is no way that Labor’s primary is that low!” (Spoiler: it was) and people arbitrarily adding another percent because, y’know, it feels right.
I guess the TL;DR of this is just be more open to perspectives you don’t want to hear and, if you were the type of person who angrily tried to silence those perspectives (you know who you are), maybe it’s time to self-evaluate and change because you were the biggest loser here.
Boerwar, if you are still lurking, I’d like to catch up. Either online or in person, if you are in the same neighbourhood. I’m about to send my email to William.
That’s also an open invitation to all other Bludgers as well. Otherwise, i’ll check ya in about 6 months time.
Cheers A
Madcyril @ #558 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:51 am
Labor Can’t Manage Money’ was a killer. It played to all those decades old perceptions about Labor buggering up the economy all the time……Labor sadly has never even attempted to disavow the punters of this myth…Labor lacks the killer instinct. (except under H & K)
C@tmomma says:
Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 11:56 am
I saw with my very own eyes last night votes that went: Green, Liberal, Labor.
But it wasn’t a lot; it was the campaign that did the damage.
“Self indulgent rot. It was not the how to vote, it was not the voters ( asanque being an exception) it was the anti labor campaign.”
I would suggest that it is instead much more likely that the the last decade of the ALP demonising The Greens in fact actively undermined the ALP’s own progressive policies by tarring those policies with the taint of extremism, policies further undermined by the ALP’s own prevarication on some of the core implications of Labor’s policies, like stopping Adani, and the obvious contradiction of pledging to open up a massive fracking industry in the Northern Territory (and we know how well that policy played there – hint – there were big swings against the ALP there as well).
The core business of parties to the left and right of the centre is criticising those parties in the centre. The core business of parties of the centre is to fight for the centre, not to get distracted in fights over parties on the more extreme end of their own side of politics. It’s a lesson that the conservatives accepted this election, the results of which are self evident.
meher baba
says:
But what would Shorten expect to have gained from the removal of Rudd? The wildly-held assumption at the time was that Gillard would prove to be very popular as PM and possibly hold power for a decade or more.
_________________________
Gillard made Shorten a minister asap. It’s a big step up for someone on the backbench for 1 term.
“I saw with my very own eyes last night votes that went: Green, Liberal, Labor.”
A certain percentage of people are provLibs or anti Labor but worried about the environment, and want to send a message to the Libs.
I’m not sure how this is confusing. Funny how you are all ok with people who want to vote for racists first so long as they put Labor second.
Any Labor person blaming the Greens for this is delusional and a huge part of the problem.
The reality is that Labor needs to be in the mid to high 30s on its own merits. It was miles off that last night.
frednk @ #558 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:20 am
The bit that might have cost him some coin?
EB @ #579 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:58 am
EB you just don’t get it.
But hey, let’s go with Bill. Maybe by 2022 the voters will have grown to love him?
It’s worth a try.
mundo @ #588 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:29 am
And if the voters can’t get off their lazy arses and learn to think for themselves, if they would rather watch Master (not Mistress) Chef and Real Housewives of Fuckville, then they deserve to fry in 45 degree weeks of heat.
mundo @ #569 Sunday, May 19th, 2019 – 11:55 am
Yep. Still an arrogant prick.
You also have to understand that Gillard held her seat at the behest of the Right, not the Left. The AWU owned the numbers in her seat. Shorten in effect was her patron factionally, guaranteeing that she became Shorten’s patron in parliament.
Oh I forgot EB;
Bill will have learnt some communications skills and won’t sound like a year 10 drama student auditioning for the role of Churchill in the school play.
billie: “The Greens policy on tax is similar to Labor”
Actually – and this is coming from someone who is not any sort of fan of the contemporary Greens – I found their tax policy far more coherent than Labor’s, in that it was truly targeting the big corporations and the wealthiest 1 per cent of the population. The Greens expressed a cautious opposition to Labor’s dividend imputation policy, suggesting that it would be unfair to retirees who had planned their lives around the current rules, and should therefore be modified to include grandfathering.
If implemented, the Greens’ policies would raise far less revenue than those of Labor, but that’s how any policy genuinely targeting “tall poppies” tends to play out. The numbers of genuinely super-wealthy people in Australia are relatively small. Labor’s policies were designed to impact on large numbers of people who would be horrified at the suggestion that they came from the “top end of town”. And that’s why they were so stupid IMO.
A warm breeze blows through the pre-winter Adelaide Hills. The air is slightly sticky. A storm brews.
I walked down into my patch of bush to listen to the frogs, and watch the morning twitching of red finches and thornbills, and the resident golden whistler. And admired the tree creeper bird as it jumped, upside down, up one of the many dead and dying trees. I pondered their fate. I recall the times I have comes across native bushland that has been illegally cleared or imported fill dumped over once wooded bush, and neighbours devastated that the the culprit is not fined or ordered to make good. The agency responsible just do not have the staff to inspect or enforce.
So what is already a severely depleted natural ecosystem is reduced further. What is protected is opened up to ‘ecotourism’ – often exclusive. National parks are no longer about conservation – they are for recreation and private profit according to the head of the Department of Environment.
And while this goes on, the trees continue to die. Species diminish and go extinct. The change in the climate marches on. And somehow, so many people think this will not effect them. Or they do know this and refuse to shift their entrenched vote. The later are not ‘rusted on’ – for rust flakes and falls when shaken. Instead, these people are proof that humans are just animals after all. A fact that ad men have known for decades.