BludgerTrack leadership trends

A small measure of historical perspective for this week’s leadership polling, on which Scott Morrison lost his lead as preferred prime minister from both Newspoll and Essential Research.

It’s not exactly news that I’ve got BludgerTrack going to the extent of running leadership trends, which I launched about a month ago, but under the circumstances (and for the want of much else to blog about, which I’ll get to shortly) I thought it worth drawing attention to again. Newspoll and Essential Research both provided new sets of numbers this week, and while some have questioned the value of polling in high summer while holidays are being had and fires are being fought, they were interesting in their consistency: Newspoll recorded a 19% drop in Scott Morrison’s net approval while Essential had it at 14%, and both found Anthony Albanese opening slight leads on preferred prime minister.

All of this comes through loud and clear in the trends you can see on the sidebar (or in closer detail at the link below). Morrison’s post-election bounce was already coming off before the fires, but the trend has now become a freefall he must hope will reverse in fairly short order. By my reckoning, out of 673 preferred prime minister results published by Newspoll as far back as 1987, the incumbent has led in 519 (77.2%) and the Opposition Leader in 140 (20.8%), with thirteen (1.9%) being tied. However, this hasn’t offered much of a guide for the leaders’ future prospects. Malcolm Turnbull had an unblemished record, as did Kevin Rudd in his first tenure (Tony Abbott took the lead in the first two polls before the 2013 election), while John Howard trailed in early 2001 and for much of the second half of his first term, as did Paul Keating more often than not before the 1993 election.

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.

2,599 comments on “BludgerTrack leadership trends”

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  3. lizzie @ #2038 Monday, January 20th, 2020 – 5:33 pm

    Now what will Morrison/Dutton do?

    Send them back anyways. They don’t care if they make Australia into an even bigger international pariah. And telling the UN to piss off plays to the base.

    Socrates @ #2051 Monday, January 20th, 2020 – 6:03 pm

    “ It is unlawful for governments to return people to countries where their lives might be threatened by the climate crisis, a landmark ruling by the United Nations human rights committee has found.”

    Does that mean Julian Assange may not be returned to Australia?

    It’ll never get that far. The U.S. is next in line after the UK. They’ll treat Assange about as well as they treated Epstein.

  4. Scout says:
    Monday, January 20, 2020 at 7:17 pm
    Think she will survive (McKenzie) Don t think she should

    __________________________________
    Goes back to a question asked earlier today: What is the involvement of Scotty From Marketing ™.

    What is the bet that she was doing exactly what she was told and did it how she was told to do it by SFM? If that’s the case she isn’t going to be the scapegoat for another party. Hell she probably wouldn’t do it for her own!

  5. Morrison purloining the pork for his own electorate..

    “On Monday Labor stepped up its attack on Morrison’s involvement, with the shadow small business minister, Brendan O’Connor, saying it “beggars belief” that the prime minister, the “campaigner in chief” at the 2019 election, did not know how funding was allocated.

    Later, Morrison conceded that his office had been involved, claiming they passed on representations from MPs about projects for consideration by McKenzie.

    Three clubs in Morrison’s electorate of Cook received funding under the community sport infrastructure grant program: Lilli Pilli Football Club, which got $200,000; Sans Souci Football Club ($50,000); and St George and Sutherland Shire Giants Baseball Club ($42,500).

    A Football NSW video posted to YouTube on 3 September 2019 shows Morrison officially opening the Lilli Pilli oval clubhouse and precinct upgrades funded in part through the program.

    Morrison outlines that he met the Lilli Pilli FC club president, Greg Storey, “even before I had become the member for Cook” and the club had raised $500,000 in 20 years.

    “So with the council and the local community coming together it was our great thrill as a commonwealth government to back that in with our further $200,000 in support through the sport infrastructure grants program,” Morrison said.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/20/scott-morrison-personally-announced-sports-grants-for-clubs-in-his-electorate?__twitter_impression=true

  7. lizzie
    Just back from a 4km walk through some of the worst hit areas in the ACT. Counted 46 dents in the bonnet of just one small car. Lots of smashed windscreens.
    Carpets of leaves and small branches everywhere.
    Lots of live birds.
    No dead or injured birds.

  8. Morrison involved, he will survive as well.

    “All the recipients of the grants deserved it”

    “this money went to provide facilities to assist access for women to be involved in sport’

  9. McKenzie will survive because the Noise Machine won’t be cranked up as it would be if it were Labor. The affair will be forgotten by most of the punters in a week or so as media attention moves onto whatever comes next – the Australia Days Wars unless the fires flare up again.

  10. Sydney’s also been beset by thunderstorms this afternoon. There have been reports of large hail but nothing like that in Canberra.

  14. Boerwar says:
    Monday, January 20, 2020 at 7:27 pm
    lizzie
    Just back from a 4km walk through some of the worst hit areas in the ACT. Counted 46 dents in the bonnet of just one small car. Lots of smashed windscreens.
    Carpets of leaves and small branches everywhere.
    Lots of live birds.
    No dead or injured birds.
    ___________________________________

    Looking at the map of reports to the ESA, the storm cut a very clearly defined swathe of destruction through Canberra and we were just outside (same suburb but a different part). We still had hail, but nothing like we had last Friday, which caused a big leak in our ceiling that now needs to be replaced.

    Went for a drive later to the local Bunnings, but it was closed till further notice because the roof was damaged and there was flooding everywhere. Bunnings elsewhere in Canberra were fine!

  17. Steve777 says:
    Monday, January 20, 2020 at 7:40 pm
    The Coalition parties are behaving corruptly.
    Labor has been out of office for over 6 years.

    Same-same is crap.
    _________________________________

    Not for the Bolsheviks. Other lefties more feared and hated than the Tsar.

  18. BW

    Thanks. Compared to what others have suffered in this extraordinary storm it’s small beer. Might be a while before its fixed, given the more urgent stuff elsewhere, but not affecting us at all at the moment.

    For what its worth I have seen any dead birds around either. Which is good news.

  20. Really glad to hear that dead birds are not commonly being spotted in Canberra. I just feel so sorry for the animals caught up in this human induced climate catastrophe.

  25. I know that Guardian readers do not necessarily represent the population at large but this list is interesting:

    most viewed in Australia

    Scott Morrison personally announced sports grants for clubs in his electorate

    I tried to warn Scott Morrison about the bushfire disaster. Adapting to climate change isn’t enough
    Greg Mullins

    Huge dust storms in Australia hit central New South Wales

    Huge hail batters Canberra as severe thunderstorms hit south-eastern Australia

    Scott Morrison says NSW minister Matt Kean ‘doesn’t know what he’s talking about’ on climate

  26. Aqualung:

    [‘The Lilli Pilli clubhouse to me looks like the original structure.’]

    Many moons ago I was dispatched to a Church of England camp in Lilli Pilli, known as Camp Howard, where we were indoctrinated with the Gospels. I attempted to escape but was found nearby. I attempted to escape again but was found again; in fact, I’m still trying to escape. I enjoyed the boating, though.

  27. Mavis says:
    Monday, January 20, 2020 at 8:23 pm
    Aqualung:

    [‘The Lilli Pilli clubhouse to me looks like the original structure.’]

    Many moons ago I was dispatched to a Church of England camp in Lilli Pilli, known as Camp Howard, where we were indoctrinated with the Gospels. I attempted to escape but was found nearby. I attempted to escape again but was found again; in fact, I’m still trying to escape. I enjoyed the boating, though.
    _________________________________________
    I am sorry to hear about – its brave of you to raise it in such a public forum.

  28. rhwombat…

    “Algal blooms do not produce mycotoxins – that’s fungi. There are algal toxins (like cigatura) but they have to be concentrated up a food chain to knock off large mammals like us. Algal blooms usually just die and deplete the oxygen in water – hence fish kills etc.”

    True, but algal blooms do have a toxic aspect in and of themselves. Peel / Harvey in W.A. would go toxic occasionally and kill dogs, make some people sick.

    ref: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984099/

    Its a problem in drought as you get a bloom, but filtering and boiling of little use to make such puddles potable. 🙁 And after the fires?? Lots of ash with nutrients washed into a creek all at once, algae bloom,,,everything dies and you cant drink the water. 🙁

    ” molluscum contagiosum – soon to be renamed morriscum getthefuckawayfromme in honour of the sterling performance of the Shire Scumsucker. ”

    Sounds very appropriate. 🙂 We should encourage more taxonomists to name revolting toxic or smelly things after Liberal personalities.

    Red tides? Not that bacteria couldn’t in the right conditions but my understanding is they are classically dinoflagellate blooms. Some toxic, some just really really thick in the water. Kills fish fer sure…which rot…de-oxygenate….smelly mess like the fwarking Libs but not as widely damaging. 🙁

    https://scripps.ucsd.edu/labs/mlatz/bioluminescence/dinoflagellates-and-red-tides/

  29. Federal ICAC would investigate sports grants affair, former NSW auditor-general says

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-20/call-for-federal-icac-sports-grants/11882828

    A federal independent commission against corruption would get to the bottom of the sports grants scandal, according to Tony Harris, who was the auditor-general of NSW for seven years.
    :::
    “We need a properly resourced body with powers of compulsion, just like there is currently in all states and territories.”

    “This is not a party political issue; it is the Coalition today, but it will be Labor tomorrow.”

  31. Can’t say I recall Camp Howard Mavis.
    I lived not far from Lilli Pilli. It wasn’t my favorite ground to play on. Sadly my old club, Caringbah Rangers has been subsumed into the Lilli Pilli Berries.
    😞

  32. Pegasus – the Federal Libs have used “probity auditors” pioneered by the NSW Labor Government of lamented memory to sanctify everything.

  36. sprocket_ says:
    Monday, January 20, 2020 at 8:46 pm
    ________________________________
    Why did no-one warn us about the effect of NSW Labor’s chronic underinvestment in infrastructure on urban congestion in Sydney ?

    Did you know?

  37. Lars Von Trier says:
    Monday, January 20, 2020 at 8:50 pm

    sprocket_ says:
    Monday, January 20, 2020 at 8:46 pm
    ________________________________
    Why did no-one warn us about the effect of NSW Labor’s chronic underinvestment in infrastructure on urban congestion in Sydney ?
    ________________________
    Bob Carr said Sydney was full in 1999. No need to spend any more on infrastructure clearly.

  38. In today’s Crikey Bernard Keane asks why rorting is so prevalent in the Nationals.

    The raison d’être of the Nationals is to support one section of Australia, specifically rural communities and primary industries, especially agriculture, though not if that affects the interests of mining companies. Other parties may favour one interest or another as a result of pressure from their memberships, from donations, from lobbying; but only the Nationals are designed, as a party, to serve a sectional interest.

    This has never confined itself to supporting economic policies that produce the most conducive environment for rural communities. Indeed, there’s a clear tension between economic efficiency and the interests of the National Party and its constituents: the more efficient and productive agriculture is, the fewer people it employs, and the more corporations (rather than family farmers) run farms. This adds to the demographic and economic pressure on smaller regional towns.

    Instead, the Nationals prefer to channel taxpayer funds to their constituents — which requires programs that favour constituents over non-constituents, and some constituents over others. Allocation of resources to sectional interests must automatically include an element of political thinking because not all sectional interests, and not all constituents, are equal.

    McKenzie, Keane concludes, was simply doing what she perceives her job to be as a Nationals minister: siphoning away public funding towards the party’s political priorities irrespective of good practice and probity.

  39. fess

    McKenzie, Keane concludes, was simply doing what she perceives her job to be as a Nationals minister: siphoning away public funding towards the party’s political priorities irrespective of good practice and probity.

    Was Keane basically defending McKenzie, saying she cannot be considered corrupt because she believes that what she is doing is the right thing?

  40. Dear Lars:

    [‘I am sorry to hear about – its brave of you to raise it in such a public forum.’]

    Thanks. I’m now in my seventies but still cannot forget the experience. For instance, we were instructed to lie on our backs attached to cotton wheel rolls so as to avoid masturbation. Imagine, if you will, how the Tykes managed. No wonder I turned to the booze – well that’s my excuse.

  41. shellbell

    The NSW government kids active scheme is a better investment that building change rooms for very few users

    The kids active scheme is very good.

    In fact, I could live with the current NSW Coalition government if they had not closed down so many homeless and domestic violence shelters. I presume the reason for doing this is just ideology, but I just do not get it.

  42. TPOF
    What type of roof do you have ? I have been to hell and back for the last 2 years over a dodgy roof, i might be able to help.

  43. Mavis says:
    Monday, January 20, 2020 at 9:08 pm
    _________________________
    Abuse is such a terrible thing – and often makes the victim feel ashamed.

    The truth is those who purport to “help” others often derive perverse gratification from their power over the weak and defenceless.

    Indigenous communities for instance are well versed in this abuse dynamic – knowing all about White folks who want to “help” for instance

  45. D&M:

    No, not defending McKenzie but pointing out that the culture within the party (such that it is) is that rorting public funding towards their own constituents and political priorities is so ingrained into their MPs over the decades that this is the inevitable result.

    He says this is why the Nats are so violently opposed to a national integrity commission because it is a direct threat to their entire reason for being.

  46. BoJo would be ‘burned at the stake” as a heretic by our Tories 😆 Watching him speak at some meeting and speaking of cranking renewables. “There is a huge myth about this. People say that you’ve got to choose between reducing emissions and raising economic growth….” .Also said the UK will no longer finance any overseas thermal coal mines or coal fired power stations.

  48. Taylormade says:
    Monday, January 20, 2020 at 9:11 pm
    TPOF
    What type of roof do you have ? I have been to hell and back for the last 2 years over a dodgy roof, i might be able to help.

    ____________________________

    Thanks.

    The roof is concrete tiles. But that wasn’t was was affected. There was a break or gap and the water backed up into the ceiling in one spot – gutters full of hail and leaves and came through and soaked the insulation. The insurance company got someone to come out and remove the drenched insulation before it did more damage and I’m now waiting for the assessor to deal with the water damage on the ceiling. Might take some time, given many in Canberra have now suffered far worse today (and nothing compared to people who have lost their homes and businesses). There is no hazard at the moment so I’ll just be patient.

    At this stage I’m quite happy to be patient and not look at the ceiling in the kitchen too often.

  49. Mavis

    Thanks. I’m now in my seventies but still cannot forget the experience. For instance, we were instructed to lie on our backs attached to cotton wheel rolls so as to avoid masturbation. Imagine, if you will, how the Tykes managed. No wonder I turned to the booze – well that’s my excuse.

    Jeebus!!! But I am not surprised.

    Today I came a cross a situation that makes me feel that parents who send their offspring to big C christian schools are running a small but significant risk of losing their children to destructive self-medicating behaviours and / or suicide. But I guess the parents believe all the “gender-bending left” tropes, and think if they isolate their children then they will obviously just become good big C Christians who are completely “normal”.

    I cannot believe what these poor kids (who are not plain straight heterosexual) go through during the last few years of high school, when they are trying to find their way educationally and professionally. They are tough people, if they survive. And some are incredibly talented, but sexual preference means more than anything else?

    God, the way my mother carried on when I told her I was not getting married in a Catholic Church, and the grief it caused me to tell her this, must be 0.0001% of the grief these kids go through.

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