Bellwether forecast

More Labor MP departure scuttlebutt; Morrison down and Albanese up on Essential’s monthly leadership ratings; and a YouGov Galaxy poll gives a thumbs up for drug tests for welfare recipients.

Plenty of fascinating electoral/political action going down at the moment – in Britain. Adrian Beaumont has the latest on that in the post below. Back home though, just the following:

• Following last week’s chatter surrounding Mark Dreyfus, another round of “speculation” concerning the future of a federal Labor MP: this time Mike Kelly, who has a precarious hold on the former bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro. According to Renee Viellaris of the Courier-Mail ($), Kelly is “frustrated he is not opposition defence spokesman”, and has been telling colleagues he has been “offered a job based in Australia for a Silicon Valley firm”. Even more strikingly, unidentified Nationals have put it to Viellaris that John Barilaro, who leads the state Nationals and holds the corresponding seat of Monaro, is hoping to contest the seat with a view to deposing Michael McCormack as federal leader, and that Kelly is more than comfortable with the idea.

• The Guardian reports the latest Essential Research poll once again has nothing to say on voting intention, but does feature the pollster’s monthly leadership ratings. These record negative movement for Scott Morrison, who is up down two on approval to 47% and up two on disapproval to 38%, and positive movement for Anthony Albanese, who is respectively up four to 40% and down two to 29%. Similarly, Morrison’s lead on preferred prime minister is at 42-28, narrowing from 46-25. The poll also features a semi-regular question on the attributes of the major parties, which are discussed in general terms in the report – hopefully Essential will publish full results later today. Essential’s website has further results on attitudes to family violence, which are of sociological interest (older respondents were considerably more likely to take a broad view of what constituted family violence) but have little to offer the party politics obsessive.

• The Daily Telegraph ($) had a YouGov Galaxy poll last week showing 70% support for “a federal government trial for unemployed people newly claiming Newstart or Youth Allowance to undergo drug testing and for those who test positive being put on an income management program involving a cashless welfare card”, with only 24% opposed. The poll was conducted last Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1075.

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.

1,774 comments on “Bellwether forecast”

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  1. Confessions says:
    Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 8:14 pm
    Boerwar:

    I’m simply saying that the current situation isn’t really anything to do with the genius of Hunt et al, they simply made hay with the circumstances they were given by Rudd and Labor.

    The Greens and the LNP together cruelled Rudd. He responded from weakness. Instead of choosing a DD – which he would probably have lost – he thought he’d try the RSPT….an idiotic move that cost him the leadership and destroyed the Government.

    The lived experience of most voters is that Labor cannot and do not govern. They are the natural party of Opposition at a Federal level. The Scullin Government collapsed in 2 years. Whitlam was destroyed in 3 years. Rudd imploded in less than 3 years. The only exception to this was Hawke/Keating….and Keating tore that Government to pieces as well. The most powerful social, economic and political opinion-leaders in Australia campaign against Labor. They always have. 43 years passed between the election from opposition of Scullin and the election from opposition of Gough. We should expect a similar interval ourselves.

    The LNP are the default Government and necessarily Labor are the default Opposition. This is the sad but true story of Australian politics. If this is to change, it will be because people want it to change. There is no evidence at all that enough people seriously want such change badly enough to procure it.

  4. Cheika will hopefully quit and the Randwick hegemony over Australian rugby of 40 years can end too.

    He has overseen a complete breakdown of skills which can be restored by sending the old guard overseas and tapping into the u20s and their coaches.

  5. Boerwar:

    I think it was rather politically astute of Hunt to link life-saving medications(?) to a well-run economy(?). Those who follow politics in depth would no doubt have other ideas. That said, it was not a bad line: the government can afford drugs as only the Tories can deliver same. I must admit, even I was impressed, on a drug that cost some $50K a year, extending my life.

  7. Mavis
    I was referring to the Hunt, Frydenberg, Price and Ley line of environment ministers. Price was the worst environment minister we ever had. Hunt, Frydenberg and Ley basically had do nothing jobs as environment ministers and they exceeded expectations. They did less than nothing.

  9. Diogenes:

    [‘I thought Cheika said he’d quit if Australia didn’t win the World Cup?]

    That he did, Dio. But Cheika being Cheika…? – not knowing the term of his contract. Interestingly, it appears that Eddie Jones or even Ricky Stewart may be coveting his job.

  10. Confessions
    I am sick of Coalition and Greens hacks who blame Labor for the actions of the Coalition.
    Both Morrison and Di Natale cynically plough this furrow.

  11. Boer….the LNP use the environment to campaign on jobs. The ministers you refer to have performed very well by LNP standards. They sublimated decisions on the environment to jobs-at-any-cost. This works for the LNP.

  12. Wilkie, Joyce and Christensen trying to get Assange back to Australia. It says some Labor support as well. Interesting to see who.

  15. Boerwar:

    1. I am not a coalition or Greens hack, but a member of the ALP.

    2. I am not blaming Labor for the actions of the coalition. I am blaming Labor for the actions of Labor.

  18. Boerwar:

    [‘There are some similarities.
    But.
    Trump’s gut instincts are isolationist and avoidance of war.
    Hitler was the opposite.’]

    Trump reminds of Lindbergh.

  22. Labor is not in power. Nor will they come to power as things now stand. There is no point in ‘asking more’ of Labor. Nor is there any point in ‘asking for less’. These demands are just distractions. They are excuses for evasions and betrayals. Power rests in Liberal hands, as it has for most of the time since the Great War.

  23. Hillary Clinton has copped a bit of flak for her comments about Tulsi Gabbard. But from what I’ve heard of her actual words, I don’t see what the problem is, apart from giving the woman much-needed oxygen for her going-nowhere campaign for the Democrat nomination.

    I’ve said for a while now that I fully expect Gabbard to run as an independent and do the same thing Jill Stein did in 2016 by sucking away votes from the Democrats in key states, enabling Trump to win those states. Gabbard has already done the rounds of Fox News, speaking directly to Trump voters who all hate Hillary Clinton with a passion and so will automatically be inclined towards Gabbard’s views of the matter. And we already know Trump voters aren’t bothered by their guy being owned by the Russians.

  24. RI @ #1372 Saturday, October 19th, 2019 – 9:05 pm

    Labor is not in power. Nor will they come to power as things now stand. There is no point in ‘asking more’ of Labor. Nor is there any point in ‘asking for less’. These demands are just distractions. They are excuses for evasions and betrayals. Power rests in Liberal hands, as it has for most of the time since the Great War.

    One has to wonder why you bother posting here 🙁

  26. RI @ #1372 Saturday, October 19th, 2019 – 6:05 pm

    Labor is not in power. Nor will they come to power as things now stand. There is no point in ‘asking more’ of Labor. Nor is there any point in ‘asking for less’. These demands are just distractions. They are excuses for evasions and betrayals. Power rests in Liberal hands, as it has for most of the time since the Great War.

    I don’t buy into the constant demands of Labor from the usual suspects for this very reason. We are not in govt. But this shouldn’t preclude honest discussion of our failures in the past.

  27. The LNP or its forebears held power in Australia during the 1920s, 1930s, 1950s, 1960s. They dominated the 1970s too despite the glories of Gough. They dominated the 1990s and the 2000s. They are in power now, dominating the 20-teens.

    If punters of any hue want to disrupt this pattern they have to come together. Unless they do, the LNP will continue to win. If they do not first change themselves, they will never change the Government.

  29. Boerwar:

    [‘Oh? Did Lindbergh have spurs?’]

    That’s where they parted. Lindberg was a brave man, though he was a prominent nationalist, understandable post WWI. Thank doG FDR had the gift of the gab.

  31. Once again the doom-sayers here are into cliches about “LNP natural government/Labor natural opposition”.
    The fact is that the conservative side of politics wins because, more often than not, 800,000 electors voting for the Nationals harvest 10 plus seats on most occasions for the Coalition before the ball is bounced in any election campaign as it were.
    Meanwhile, 1 million plus Green voters for the House of Reps – because these voters are spread far and wide, and not all clustered in hayseed-type seats, get what?, 1 House of Reps member in what would otherwise be a Labor seat.
    Apart from this, a growing number of the electorate are either not fronting up at all to vote, or voting informal. I would suggest it is Labor that loses most with this trend.
    There have been a number of elections when a seat or two has gone in favour of the LNP – Menzies way back when, Shorten first time around and possibly 1969 with Whitlam. Hardly the “All you are good at is Opposition” claim made by some.
    This is not to ignore the poor showing of Labor in Queensland and WA at the last election. However to suggest that there is something deterministic about it all, is just plain rubbish.
    Despite all the gloom and doom, and allowing for the shonk of opinion polls, Labor and the Greens still command the respect and support of 48% of the electorate – or more. And, as some have pointed out, a couple of nasty results at by-elections would make the LNP’s position look a lot more tenuous than some seem to think they are at the moment. And it should be noted, it is just as well the LNP vote is at about 42/43% because if it slips more, then they have some problems too.
    Miserable so-called Labor voters casting themselves as kind of all time losers here are no better than bloody Hanrahan…….

  33. Tricot….the Greens are an anti-Labor expression. They are an obstacle to Labor success. Unless they either change their strategy or can be overcome in some way, they will prevent Labor from winning again.

    The most important numbers are primary votes. 2/3 voters give their Primary expression to anti-Labor voices. Fact of electoral record. Labor will never win again unless their share is lifted substantially.

  34. Maude Lynne:

    [‘Watching Hitler’s last days (1943 – 45) on SBS

    The similarities with Trump are incredible.’]

    Tarred with the same brush, Maude. Thankfully the “Orange Blob” has at best another term?

  35. To win the next election Labor have to win 10 seats at least from the LNP or the Indies. There is not one likely target Lib-held seat where Green prefs will help Labor. Not one. These seats can only be taken from the LNP by drawing their voters to Labor. The conflation of Greens with Labor will make this exceedingly difficult to achieve.

  36. Confessions @ #1380 Saturday, October 19th, 2019 – 9:16 pm

    C@t:

    Even Mumble agrees!!

    Peter BrentVerified account@mumbletwits
    7h7 hours ago
    Hillary states the bleedin’ obvious.

    I’m still waiting for the CIA to catch up with Jill Stein, Tad Devine (Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager in 2016, and why I won’t even consider Sanders either), and Konstantin Kilimnik (if they can ever find him again! 😆

  37. RI:

    [‘The conflation of Greens with Labor will make this exceedingly difficult to achieve.’]

    One does trust you’re not a glass half empty type? Then, again, I just realised you’re a but a blast from the past. Cheer up, old cobber.

  38. The latest on the inevitable Trump Impeachment trial in the US Senate:

    WASHINGTON — It was only a few weeks ago that the top Senate Republican was hinting that his chamber would make short work of impeachment.

    But this week, Senator Mitch McConnell sat his colleagues down over lunch in the Capitol and warned them to prepare for an extended impeachment trial of President Trump.

    According to people who were there, he came equipped with a PowerPoint presentation, complete with quotes from the Constitution, as he schooled fellow senators on the intricacies of a process he portrayed as all but inevitable.

    Few Republicans are inclined to convict Mr. Trump on charges that he abused his power to enlist Ukraine in an effort to smear his political rivals. Instead, Mr. McConnell sees the proceedings as necessary to protect a half a dozen moderates in states like Maine, Colorado and North Carolina who face re-election next year and must show voters they are giving the House impeachment charges a serious review.

    …Mr. McConnell, his allies said, regards the impeachment fight in much the same way as he did the struggle last year to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, in which he was primarily concerned with protecting his Senate majority by insulating vulnerable incumbents. Then, as now, they said, Mr. McConnell is focused on keeping Republicans as united as possible, while allowing those with reservations about Mr. Trump’s conduct and their own political considerations to justify their decision to their constituents.

    …Mr. McConnell has told colleagues he expects the House to impeach Mr. Trump quickly, possibly by Thanksgiving, an educated hunch based on the pace of the inquiry so far and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to keep the inquiry narrowly focused on Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. He plans to move swiftly too, he told colleagues, using the approach of Christmas to force the Senate to complete its work before the beginning of 2020.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/us/politics/mcconnell-impeachment-senate.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_191019

  41. RI

    “Human greed is a phenomenon within nature. It is ‘natural’. It is treated as a ‘value’ in ethics. But ethics – which are a human construct – are part of nature too.”
    ————

    Well, what a statement of the bleeding obvious.

    Humans cannot do anything that is not in their “nature”.

    For example, they cannot fly without using external objects, so flying is not natural. (Strangely the LNP and the ALP right have never sought to ban flying).

    They can build extermination facilities and destroy other humans and set up an economic system that requires the destruction of other species, until they destroy themselves, which is all “natural”.

    Obviously, despite the pretend beliefs of our despicable politicians, attraction to a person of the same sex must be natural. 🙂

  43. C@t:

    Jill Stein will likely run again. She too has benefited from much-coveted oxygen thanks to Hillary’s remarks, and has popped up into the fray.

  44. Instead, Mr. McConnell sees the proceedings as necessary to protect a half a dozen moderates in states like Maine, Colorado and North Carolina who face re-election next year and must show voters they are giving the House impeachment charges a serious review.

    LOL as I and others have said, Moscow Mitch only cares about keeping his Senate majority.

  45. Player One :

    [‘One does trust you’re not a glass half empty type?

    Briefly’s glass has a hole in the bottom ‘]

    You’re naughty but I think I like you.

  46. Mavis says:
    Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 9:27 pm
    Maude Lynne:

    [‘Watching Hitler’s last days (1943 – 45) on SBS

    The similarities with Trump are incredible.’]

    Tarred with the same brush, Maude. Thankfully the “Orange Blob” has at best another term?

    Yes, thankfully there are a lot of differences.

    It was the refusal by Hitler to accept any news that conflicted with his prejudices (he could have called it ‘fake news’ had the expression been in vogue) that made me think of Trump.
    The interference by Hitler in the Russian campaign, to such an extent that he directly caused its failure in Stalingrad, with major losses of his own troops. Trump’s interference in Syria, contrary to his generals’ advice, is not going well.

    Maybe it’s just a similarity of outcomes caused by interference by mad bastards.

  47. The number of informal votes in 2019 far exceeds the difference in 2pp. Some of those seats with highest informal were labor seats.

    Cynicism, complete disengagement with politics is the biggest problem facing labor and to a lesser extent all politics. Just winning over enough cynics to actually think voting would be worthwhile and worth doing correctly would easily be enough to win.

    S777s point above reinforces how cynical tactics and marginalisation of some sectors of the population serves reactionary and vested interests more.
    Never ending guff about how Greens destroy labor is self-fulfilling BS.

    The gutless fear of labor about the LNP is astounding and facilitates, imo, the sense that what is the fucking point for many.

  48. I see things as they are. It’s not matter of half-full or half-empty glasses. Labor does not get to fill its glass very often. This is the record. The greatest governments we’ve had – Curtin/Chifley and Gough – were destroyed despite their immense achievements. Those who purport to ardently hope to replace the Liberals direct their fire against Labor. This is not an empty glass. It is a broken glass.

  49. Quoll’s hostility is not unusual. It’s matched for vehemence by voters on the Right. Even the language – the justifications – are similar. These expressions are symptomatic of the times in which we live. Voters are forlorn. They have traded in their hope for contempt.

  50. Maude, you speak nothing but sense. But digressing, if you will, as a lad all most of my aunties went by the names of Pearl, Mavis, Maude, Ruby, etc – they making me into the man I once was. I trust your experience was similar to mine.

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