A track winding back

A look at leadership approval poll trends, and my new facility for tracking them.

BludgerTrack is back, sort of – you can find a permanent link on the sidebar along with a miniature version of its main attraction, namely polling trends for leader approval and preferred prime minister. These go back to the onset of Scott Morrison’s prime ministership in August last year, and thus encompass distinct Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese epochs.

As you can see, Morrison has mostly gravitated around neutral on his net rating (i.e. approval minus disapproval), barring a post-election surge that has now run its course. Shorten’s position appeared to improve during the election campaign, which was also picked up in Labor’s internal polling, though clearly not far enough. Albanese has mostly been around neutral, but as a newcomer he has a high uncommitted rating, which doesn’t come through when you reduce it to a net measure. This is how he manages to do worse than Shorten on preferred prime minister (although a narrowing trend kicked in here a few months ago) despite doing better on net approval.

I haven’t included the most recent Newspoll result at this stage, as this is clearly a distinct new series for which I will require a few more results before I can standardise it against the other polls. On the basis of this limited evidence, the new-look Newspoll’s leader rating scores can be expected to behave somewhat differently from the old. As Kevin Bonham notes, the new poll has markedly worse net ratings for both leaders, as uncommitted rates are lower and disapproval higher.

Needless to say, what’s missing in all this is voting intention, for which I am going to need a good deal more data before I reckon it worth my while. If you’re really keen though, Mark the Ballot has gone to the trouble of running a trendline through all six of the Newspoll results post-election. If nothing else, my BludgerTrack page features a “poll data” tab on which voting intention polls will be catalogued, which for the time being is wall-to-wall Newspoll. And while I have your attention, please note as per the post above that I’ve got the begging bowl out – donations gratefully received through the link at the top of the page.

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.

1,119 comments on “A track winding back”

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  3. Mrs Morrison is the best electoral asset Mr Morrison has now his adman persona is revealed. The ALP should avoid mentioning her.

  5. Confessions

    Too much inside the bubble stuff happening here. Of course that’s the point of the show.

    The lesson is clear. The government is my way or the highway.
    It’s failed.

    Exactly as it did when Labor did on the CPRS. Media regulation etc.
    federal Labor politicians should take some lessons from ACT Labor on getting out of that mindset.

    I don’t expect the LNP to change. Their behaviour with Morrison is crystal clear as Savva is now outlining.

  8. BW,

    1. The MDB Plan is mostly a good policy framework but there are structural problems with the Plan itself. Of these, embedded assumptions about the amount of water available are, IMO, the key. Another big one is that the states are still playing funny buggers. Anothery is that there has never been a big enough environmental water allocation. The bastardization of a significant $13 billion of taxpayer funds for water savings and irrigation efficiencies is another.

    We may be in furious ageement, but:

    The MDBP structure itself is sound.

    Unbundling land leases from water allocations is only a good thing.

    Moving towards standardised water allocation contracts is only a good thing.

    Enabling trading along watercourses and limited trading across catchments, so that downstream flows are maintained., is all very good in theory.

    The failures – and they are massive – are mainly in the plan’s parameters and its implementation (i.e. the pointy end) although the treatment of overland flows has been botched too.

    Clearly the environmental allocations are well below where they need to be to support a functional river system.

    Clearly some serious water auditing resources and commensurate penalties need to be instituted to stop water theft.

  11. Dandy Murray @ #358 Sunday, December 1st, 2019 – 9:58 am

    Unbundling land leases from water allocations is only a good thing.

    I would be interested in hearing why you think this is the case. I would have thought this is exactly the problem, since it leads to concentration of water rights in a small number of hands, and encourages – one could almost say facilitates – water theft and corruption 🙁

  12. Nice sarcasm here?

    @noplaceforsheep
    Just imagine, while her husband is destroying refugees, disabled ppl, Indigenous people, & poor people Mrs Morrison is out & about shopping at all the high end stores.

    I think Jenny Morrison personified the dress of modest old-fashioned religious, until ScoMo urged her to make herself appealing to Trump.

  13. C@tmomma @ #326 Sunday, December 1st, 2019 – 9:15 am

    Dr Martin Parkinson finally bells the cat on the CPRS and Climate Change policy in this country over the last decade. That we have no functioning policy is the fault of the Coalition AND The Greens!

    If the Gillard/Milne/Indy minority Govt hadn’t been undermined and torn down by vengeful Labor operatives and the fossil fuel mining industry, the Clean Energy Package laws, in their entirety, would have dramatically lowered both emissions and energy prices by now.

  15. Okay, can we settle the Jeremy Corbyn allows Antisemitism in the Labour Party, argument, once and for all!?! This is an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. I think you will have to admit, they have skin in the game and are essentially telling the truth:

    Opinion The Contract on Corbyn

    Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. His real sin is to fight against injustice in the world, including the version Israel perpetrates

    Gideon Levy Nov 28, 2019 1:27 PM

    The Jewish establishment in Britain and the Israeli propaganda machine have taken out a contract on the leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. The contract was taken out a long time ago, and it was and it was clear that the closer Corbyn came to being elected prime minister, the harsher the conflict would get.

    On Tuesday it reached its climax in an article by the chief rabbi of Britain, Ephraim Mirvis, in an article in The Times. Mirvis has decided that the anxiety of British Jews over Corbyn is justified and he is not fit to be prime minister. He called on Jews not to vote for Labour in the election on December 12.

    Born in South Africa and a graduate of Har Etzion Yeshiva in the settlement of Alon Shvut, Mirvis is the voice of British Jewry. In Capetown, Johannesburg and Har Etzion, he should have learned what apartheid was and why one should fight it. His parents did so, but one doubts that he learned the moral lesson from the regions of disenfranchisement in which he lived in South Africa and the West Bank.

    As opposed to the horrid Corbyn, Mirvis sees nothing wrong with the continued occupation; he does not identify with the struggle for Palestinian freedom, and he doesn’t sense the similarity between the South Africa of his childhood, Har Etzion of his youth and Israel of 2019. That is the real reason that he rejects Corbyn. The Jews of Britain also want a prime minister who supports Israel – that is, supports the occupation. A prime minister who is critical of Israel is to them an exemplar of the new anti-Semitism.

    Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. He never was. His real sin is his staunch position against injustice in the world, including the version Israel perpetrates. Today this is anti-Semitism. The Hungarian Viktor Orban, the Austrian Freedom Party and the extreme right in Europe are not the danger to Jews. Corbyn is the enemy. The new and efficient strategy of Israel and the Zionist establishment brands every seeker of justice as an anti-Semite, and any criticism of Israel as hatred of Jews. Corbyn is a victim of this strategy, which threatens to paralyze and silence Europe with regard to Israel.

    https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-contract-on-corbyn-1.8192769

    I’d quote the whole article if I could, but I can’t, so all I’ll say is that if you want to read it you’ll have to go Incognito. 🙂

  22. C@t

    IMO, Haaretz is doing what Mirvis did: conflating a position on Israel/Palestine with anti-semitism/not anti-semitism. Both are, in rational terms, nonsensical constructs.

    It is possible to regard Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the treatment of the Gaza Strip as being evil, as I do, without also necessarily being anti-semitic or neutral-semitic or pro-semitic.

  23. It was good that ScoMo’s angry stare to Albo was shown. He can’t conceal his anger and that’s not clever for a PM. Makes it too personal.

  25. Warners innings has spoiled the whole summer of cricket for me. The commentators will be talking him up non-stop. Can’t stand him.

  29. “Okay, can we settle the Jeremy Corbyn allows Antisemitism in the Labour Party, argument, once and for all!?! This is an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. I think you will have to admit, they have skin in the game and are essentially telling the truth:”

    ***

    Yup. Well said, Cat.

    Just as criticising the policies of the Trump/Obama/Bush/Clinton/etc Administrations isn’t the same as being racist towards Americans, critising the Israeli government doesn’t mean you’re being racist towards Jews either. After all, we want them – both Israelis and Palestinians – to live in peace and happiness in their own countries.

  30. “It is possible to regard Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the treatment of the Gaza Strip as being evil, as I do, without also necessarily being anti-semitic or neutral-semitic or pro-semitic.”

    ***

    Couldn’t agree more. Well said.

  32. Channel Stokes News last night was once again pouring petrol on the anti Murray Darling plan pyre.
    How dare water make it’s way out of the mouth of the Murray River.
    How dare the risible environmental flows be used to protect red gums stands.

  34. P1,

    Allocative efficiency: if water allocations are tightly tied to land holdings, there is no way to move water to higher-value land for use there. E.g. in case of water shortages, opportunistic croppers can sell their water allocations to irrigated tree crops, which have much higher fixed costs (they need to keep trees alive, and re-establising trees is very expensive). Free transfers of water licences allow different types of producers to better manage actual production, and water-shortage and price risk.

    Also, periodic re-auctioning of water licences by the State prevents the market from being cornered – this is where there may be a problem with the market design. Quiggin would know the answer to that.

  35. Rex Douglas @ #377 Sunday, December 1st, 2019 – 10:25 am

    lizzie @ #373 Sunday, December 1st, 2019 – 10:22 am

    Rex D

    No, what did the interview contribute to Insiders? Not to the gov.

    The audience now knows Lambie’s position on the bill, which is a sensible position.

    I thought Savva made it pretty clear that the problem is her position is unclear, other than she’ll support it if something something national security something something. This audience member only learnt that she had to have a straightforward question asked three times, as I counted. The question being that having declared the bill as it stands not to be a threat to national security, why is she available to negotiate its repeal.

    She could have said there’s merit in the NZ solution. She could have explained the problem with the bill as she sees it and why it needs to be, conditionally in her case, repealed.

  36. ———————
    Warners innings has spoiled the whole summer of cricket for me. The commentators will be talking him up non-stop. Can’t stand him.
    ———————
    No one is asking you to have dinner with him and then walk along the beach, hand in hand, looking into his eyes with glowing admiration.

    If someone scoring 335* in a pink ball test match puts you off the summer of cricket (just because you don’t like him) then you clearly aren’t in it for the cricket. Try lingerie gridiron.

    Peeps didn’t like Bradman much either.

  37. …I had my suspicions, so I’m not surprised to see that Denise Allen has been told to take down her tweet alleging Angus Taylor’s wife was planning to run for Sydney Lord Mayor.

    The information can’t be verified.

  38. Itza:

    I thought Lambie did herself no favours being interviewed on Insiders. She obviously doesn’t have a clear position one way or the other, other than LOOK AT ME!!! attention seeking, and this was exposed through her non answers and dissembling.

  40. Fess

    I agree. Lambie is never clear, and has so many speech habits to ignore that I find myself fascinated by the botox lips and the painted eyebrows.

    Having said that, it’s not her fault that I become impatient with her way of speaking, it’s mine for being intolerant.

  41. I think it’s clear that the coalition took Hanson and Lambie for granted and didn’t do any of the work across the aisles (so to speak) to cultivate their support. When I first heard on the news the other day Cormann saying he was “blindsided” by the vote told me that he’d had no discussions with the cross bench.

    One thing Lambie did confirm this morning is that the govt haven’t made contact with her, despite saying the union bill will go back to the parliament again this week.

  42. lizzie:

    I too find Lambie’s voice annoying. I’m tempted to think she’s bunging it on to appear more ‘real’, but then I remember she’s from Tasmania after all.

  43. The real question is, therefore, not Corbyn’s position on the behaviour of Israel.
    The real question is whether Corbyn’s personal behaviour and his behaviour as a Party Leader are or have been anti-semitic.
    Further, whether there is a pattern of these behaviours.
    Here, IMO, several things appear to me to be clear:

    1. Corbyn has had a pattern of association with organisations that routinely conflate anti-Israel positions with anti-semitism. Heshbollah, whom Corbyn has called ‘friends’, is one such. It simultaneously seeks to redress wrong in the West Bank with rank anti-semitic commentary. Heshbollah’s state sponsor, Iran, has erupted from time-to-time, at government level, with genocidal anti-semitic commentary. Heshbollah itself has been one of the military mainstays of Assad in the Syrian conflicts. IMO, for what it is worth, in this space quite a few opponents of Israel’s behaviour in the West Bank and Gaza have been far too careless in (a) not clearly separating state behaviour from Jewish behaviour and in (b) not separating assessments of the complexity of the positions of Hamas and Heshbollah.

    2. Corbyn has had a history of being part of Facebook groups where antis-semitic tropes were quite common. These were not posted by Corbyn himself but the question remains. Why did he stick around these groups while he did? Some of Corbyn’s associates have been less than concise in their commentary on the Holocaust on the one hand and various other examples of genocide on the other.

    3. It is clear that Corbyn, de facto, tolerated significant levels of significant anti-semitic behaviours in the Labour Party. It is not clear whether he actually fully understood what was happening. The Chakrabaty Report findings should have been a massive alarm call for Corbyn.

    4. But, Corbyn appears to have given small priority in terms of speed, to addressing anti-semitism in the British Labour Party. The initial responses to the Chakrabaty Report were very, very slow and poorly resourced. Arguably, the torpid speed of the response and the rather scattered ways in which they were implemented, reinforced initial concerns about anti-semitism.

    5. Belatedly, Corbyn has appeared to realize that he has a large political issue as well as a racism issue on his hands. He has made clear general and unexceptional statements about racism and anti-semitism. He has put some energy into speeding up the responses to the Chakrabaty Report.

  44. DM
    One reason there is an absolute shit fight in the Murray Irrigation area is because water use is moving to best return. Thus irrigation dairy farmers are going broke and around 30,000 milkers have been slaughtered. But not all dairy farmers! The ones who have invested in efficiencies and who have also got their capital management right are doing well.The losers will be in Canberra this week tooting their horns, revving their utes, and venting spleen.
    The crazy thing about the recent Morrison emergency response was that it went back to tying a small temporary allocation on a per farm basis to each irrigation farm while ALSO stipulating the crop to be grown while ALSO paying through the nose for SA to desalinate water.
    Crazy, as.
    I assume that there is/will intense political pressure to shift environment allocations to farmers as a consequence of the Can the Plan Convoy’s sound and light show.

  45. Looks like Vic Planning Minister Richard Wynne got spooked from going through with the quid quo pro:

    Through the latter half of 2018, The Sunday Age investigated the meeting of money, politics and planning in Melbourne’s sprawling south-east, including a proposal by developers Leighton to rezone land in Cranbourne West from industrial to residential.
    In an elaborate strategy involving alleged bribes to Casey councillors and showering state MPs with donations, Mr Woodman steered the rezoning as far as Planning Minister Richard Wynne’s desk.
    Evidence tendered at the corruption hearings show Mr Woodman was adamant Mr Wynne was on the cusp of approving the rezoning in October 2018, before The Sunday Age’s stories ran.
    Documents seized by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission’s investigators include a December 2018 memo from Mr Woodman to Leighton, now known as CIMIC. In it, he complains that the stories derailed the Cranbourne West plan.

    “After five years and lots of dollars,” Mr Wynne was about to approve the rezoning, Mr Woodman’s memo says. “A phone call from a journalist at The Age newspaper … frightened the minister”, who then deferred his decision.
    In a separate IBAC phone tap, Woodman’s consultant lawyer and planner, Megan Schutz, tells the developer: “This whole media thing … has f—ed Cranbourne West.”

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/tapes-reveal-developer-s-legal-threat-to-sue-sunday-age-into-silence-20191130-p53fo0.html

  47. Ms Lambie is doing what the Constitution sort of intended for the Senate: looking after the interests of the small states in the face of predatory behaviour by the larger states.
    This is one reason why the Senate exists at all and the resulting inefficiencies are the price of Federation.

  49. BW.

    Of course Corbyn has not done a BoJo.

    Muslim women are letter boxes or “bum boys” regarding gay men.
    He is Tory so media accepts walking by the Islamaphobia and homophobic comments.

  50. Dandy Murray @ #384 Sunday, December 1st, 2019 – 10:34 am

    Allocative efficiency: if water allocations are tightly tied to land holdings, there is no way to move water to higher-value land for use there. E.g. in case of water shortages, opportunistic croppers can sell their water allocations to irrigated tree crops, which have much higher fixed costs (they need to keep trees alive, and re-establising trees is very expensive). Free transfers of water licences allow different types of producers to better manage actual production, and water-shortage and price risk.

    Also, periodic re-auctioning of water licences by the State prevents the market from being cornered – this is where there may be a problem with the market design. Quiggin would know the answer to that.

    I have my doubts that such a market can ever be “designed” to work correctly.

    It is hard to believe this was written by the Australian National Water Commissioner only 8 years ago …

    Today, our water markets are internationally recognised as Australia’s water reform success story. A market now boasting an average turnover of $2.4 billion is allowing water to be put to its most productive uses, for a price determined by water users. Trading generates economic benefits valued in hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

    https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2011/12/apo-nid27438-1224671.pdf

    To me, this kind of statement should have rung warning bells loud and clear. Water is not a commodity whose value can be determined by the price “determined by water users” – not when not all water users are able to participate in the market to buy it. That is just neo-liberalism gone mad.

    But, as I am now fond of quoting … “”It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” *

    To me, it is obvious that water and land rights can only be separated in very limited (and possibly, in Australia, unachievable) circumstances – i.e. when there is a consistent and reliable excess of water.

    But we are not alone in not being able to make this work – the USA has a completely different water market to ours, and they have not been able to make theirs work either.

    * Upton Sinclair

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