Weekend miscellany: Morgan, Victorian Labor and latest New Zealand poll

Polls show a tight race in Australia and a rather less tight one in New Zealand; meanwhile, Victorian Labor’s factional players wonder what to do next.

Assorted developments from here and the near abroad:

• Roy Morgan has made one of its arbitrarily timed drops of its federal voting intention polling, which it conducts weekly but usually keeps to itself. This one has the Coalition with a 50.5-49.5 two-party lead, which based on the accompanying chart would appear to be its lowest point since the government’s coronavirus bounce. The primary votes are Coalition 42.5%, Labor 34.5%, Greens 10.5% and One Nation 4%. The poll was conducted online and by phone over the last two weekends from a sample of 2593.

• Greg Brown of The Australian ($) reports the alliance in Victorian Labor between the Industrial Left and much of the Right is set to survive the demise of Adem Somyurek, who was generally credited with welding it together. This is due to a shared concern to prevent the Socialist Left gaining advantage from the present disarray, and the Industrial Left’s determination to secure the new federal seat shortly to be created in Victoria. However, the report quotes an unidentified Labor skeptic saying such manoeuvres are redundant since the national executive’s three-year takeover of the state branch means they are “not going to have a vote in anything”.

• In a review of Victorian Labor’s increasingly complicated factional terrain, Aaron Patrick of the Financial Review ($) notes party convention dictates that the national executive allocates seats to each faction after disruptive redistributions, to whom it then falls to fill them through internal ballots. However, a less messy option under the circumstances would simply be to guarantee the preselections of all sitting members. The most likely beneficiary would be Senator Kim Carr, who at 64 and after nearly three decades in the Senate would otherwise have to reckon with “a younger generation of left-wing faction operators who want to replace him”.

• With New Zealand’s election less than three months, I will henceforth be making note here of poll results from that country, which come by at a rate of one or two a month. The latest is from Colmar Brunton for 1 News, one of three poll series that reports with any regularity, together with Reid Research for Newshub and Roy Morgan for reasons of its own. After all three showed an astonishing blowout in favour of Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government last month, the latest result finds a substantial correction with Labour down nine to 50% and National down up by the same amount to 38%. Between the two polls, the National Party ditched its leader and Health Minister David Clark blotted the government’s coronavirus copybook by humiliating the country’s chief medical officer at a press conference. With minor parties needing to either clear a 5% national vote threshold or win a constituency seat to qualify for a share of seats proportionate to their vote, the poll finds the Greens up one to 6%, ACT New Zealand up a point to 3% and New Zealand First down one to 2%. ACT New Zealand should be safe thanks to party leader David Seymour’s hold on the seat of Epsom, but New Zealand First would rely on the long shot of one-time Labour MP Shane Jones poaching the seat of Northland, which party leader Winston Peters failed to carry in 2017.

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.

986 comments on “Weekend miscellany: Morgan, Victorian Labor and latest New Zealand poll”

Comments Page 12 of 20
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  1. Lars Von Trier says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 8:12 am

    Country Liberal Party (CLP)
    —————–

    Why is this electoral fraud allowed , the country liberal party is actually a national party member

  2. Confessions @ #550 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 8:13 am

    C@t:

    Will Republicans in congress speak out or investigate?

    #RedundantQuestions

    They’ve got their talking point now, so I imagine they’ll try and bluff their way through with that. If they say anything at all.

    I just read this, and all I can say is that America has some deep soul searching to do:

    Opinion by Editorial Board

    GOVERNMENT PUBLIC health officials in normal times are entrusted with thankless duties — tracking down the source of food poisoning, monitoring the spread of influenza, keeping tabs on water quality. Now, the coronavirus pandemic, and President Trump’s perverse response to it, have thrown these public servants into a vortex of fury, exposing them to threats from an angry population and pressure from political leaders. They deserve better.

    Opponents of a mask order recently came to the house of Chris Farnitano, a public health officer in Contra Costa County, across the bay from San Francisco. On the sidewalk, they drew an arrow pointing to his residence, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Tyranny is not the answer,” someone wrote in chalk. In Orange County, in Southern California, late last month, an angry group spoke out at a county supervisors meeting against an order requiring face coverings. “One person suggested that the order might make it necessary to invoke Second Amendment rights to bear arms, while another read aloud the home address of the order’s author — the county’s chief health officer, Dr. Nichole Quick,” according to a report by Kaiser Health News. She was later given personal protection from the sheriff, and then, after another meeting that included criticism from the board of supervisors, resigned. Seven senior public health officials in California have quit since the pandemic began.

    Amy Acton, the Ohio health director, drew widespread praise for her calm demeanor and her participation in Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s decisive and rapid response to the pandemic. But as the lockdown stretched on, protesters demonstrated in front of her house. Outside the statehouse, a protester held up a sign saying, “Dr. Amy is Killing Ohio!” Ms. Acton resigned on June 11 but remains an adviser to Mr. DeWine.

    Ms. Acton’s experience is being repeated over and over across the country, even as the virus surges out of control in some places. Responsibility for public health falls predominantly on states and counties, and they have borne the brunt of frustration and confusion over the pandemic. At least 27 state and local health leaders have resigned, retired or been fired since April across 13 states, a review by Kaiser Health News and the Associated Press showed. Others have faced ugly death threats and been forced to ask for security protection.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-a-war-raging-against-health-officials-we-cant-afford-to-lose-their-expertise/2020/06/26/8d8f4580-b7d8-11ea-aca5-ebb63d27e1ff_story.html

  3. Oh c@t, if you have to attack me personally that’s fine – but I won’t be responding in kind. I turn the Other Cheek.

  5. Trump should resign in shame. But of course, he could do the resigning part, but it wont be in shame. He is shameless.

  6. If Labor or the greens members used another partys name in an election or by-election

    Just imagine the out cry by the media and Liberal/National party , that it is political fraud and deliberately misleading the public, claiming that they are a different political party to what they are a candidate for the seat

  7. Lars Von Trier @ #553 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 8:20 am

    Oh c@t, if you have to attack me personally that’s fine – but I won’t be responding in kind. I turn the Other Cheek.

    And keep attacking, attacking, attacking anything you can lay your hands on that besmirches the Labor Party. Well fine, if that’s your modus operandi, and you seem overly keen to flood the blog with things like that in partnership with others; and if you class that as an insult, then fine go ahead. I can’t stop you. Zealots are like that.

  8. Vic, this sums it up really well:

    It is difficult to maintain public trust in the teeth of widespread anxiety, harder when circumstances call for unpopular measures. But these inevitable challenges have been compounded by Mr. Trump’s instinct to politicize the pandemic response and drag it into the culture wars. The president eggs on anti-lockdown demonstrators with calls to “liberate” their states; he refuses to wear a mask; he spouts nonsense about the virus fading away; he endorses therapies that are useless or worse. The resulting hostility and disrespect for science and medicine is corrosive and counterproductive. The nation can ill afford to lose public health expertise. It needs the best advice that public health professionals can muster at this moment of extreme duress.

  9. Lars Von Trier

    When Bridget Mckenzie had to resign as the national party leader in the senate , senator scullion (county Liberal Party ) replaced her as the national party leader in the senate .

    How is that not political fraud , from the liberal and national partys , claiming they are seperate

  11. Well c@t, I’ve never hidden my opinion of the ALP, that’s true.

    Opinions vary but it does seem to me that increasingly people share my view that the 2 party duopoly is kaput!

    I understand your a party/ head office loyalist and that’s fine too!

  12. Walter Shaub (Former Director of the Office of Government Ethics in the USA)
    @waltshaub

    Let’s pretend for one minute that Trump is not lying when he says he didn’t know about the Russians putting a bounty on U.S. personnel. (He did.) If he only learned this week (he didn’t), why isn’t he announcing what action he’s taking in response? (He’s not taking any.)

  14. Scott I think state based parties with specific rules can choose with whom to caucus in Club Fed.

    So in QLD LNP members can caucus or identify as Liberal or National in Canberra.

    I’m sure somebody on here will have more detail.

  15. C@t

    I posted this tweet from Kellyanne Conways other half last night.

    George Conway
    @gtconway3d
    ·
    9h
    When will we finally learn why
    @realDonaldTrump
    is so loyal to Putin?

  16. Lars Von Trier says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 8:33 am
    Scott I think state based parties with specific rules can choose with whom to caucus in Club Fed.

    So in QLD LNP members can caucus or identify as Liberal or National in Canberra.

    ——————-

    QLD LNP are Merged into one party, got no problem with that because the voting public know they are one entity .

    By the country liberal party leader being the national party leader in the senate , exposes the lie that the liberal and national federally are not seperate entities, they are one entity

  17. Victoria @ #565 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 8:39 am

    C@t

    I posted this tweet from Kellyanne Conways other half last night.

    George Conway
    @gtconway3d
    ·
    9h
    When will we finally learn why
    @realDonaldTrump
    is so loyal to Putin?

    I wonder if he knows?

    I guess we’ll find out in some book or other, after Trump is gone.

  22. The coronavirus continued its surge across the South and West, threatening to quickly overwhelm areas that had until recently been spared the worst of the pandemic. Some Mississippi intensive care units are at capacity as coronavirus cases climb and residents of Texas’s largest county received an emergency alert of the highest level, urging residents to remain at home, wear a mask and cancel gatherings.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/world/coronavirus-updates.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

    This comes only the day after Pence congratulated state leaders for their work with the virus. This has happened on so many other issues with Pence so we should call the phenomenon whereby he says one thing and soon after the opposite happens The Pence Effect.

  29. Looks like a $150 per fortnight increase to Newstart after the temporary doubling..

    “The federal government won’t reduce the country’s dole payments to the amount that the unemployed were receiving in the pre-coronavirus era, a media report says. News Corp Australia newspapers cite senior ministers as saying the JobSeeker unemployment benefits formerly known as Newstart will increase from $565.70 a fortnight to $715.70. The government temporarily raised the welfare payment from a base rate of $565.70 a fortnight to $1115.70 during the pandemic, a change due to end in September. News Corp reports Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is likely to announce a permanent boost to unemployment benefit payments in the mini-budget in July.”

    Australian Associated Press

  30. Alan Clarke , the indigenous reporter on RN Background Briefing at the moment,
    about the harrowing cases of Police violence and our indifference.
    Just heart-breaking!!
    I for one will be joining BLM from now on!!
    Everyone should listen to this…seriously.

    Australia ,we must do better!!

  33. Sprocket

    Good news. Of course it should be more and mutual obligation needs to go.

    Still small steps in the right direction are welcome.

  34. Yeah nah.

    Julia Davis
    @JuliaDavisNews
    ·
    1h
    Everybody knew, except for Trump and Pence?
    Quote Tweet

    Ana Cabrera
    @AnaCabrera
    · 1h
    #BREAKING: A European intelligence official tells CNN that Russian intelligence officers for the military intelligence GRU had recently offered Taliban militants in Afghanistan money as rewards if they killed US or UK troops there.

  35. Victoria

    The pressure of the unemployment rate will see the LNP forced to become the Fraser government in relation to unemployment. There is just too many people affected.

  37. Still I don’t think per se parties having multiple brands is a problem – as long as the parentage or the ultimate brand owner is clear.

  38. Guytaur

    Its going to be a bumpy ride for the foreseeable future.

    I wonder if Morrison is still using language that “we are on the road to recovery”.

  39. Victoria @ #584 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 9:05 am

    Yeah nah.

    Julia Davis
    @JuliaDavisNews
    ·
    1h
    Everybody knew, except for Trump and Pence?
    Quote Tweet

    Ana Cabrera
    @AnaCabrera
    · 1h
    #BREAKING: A European intelligence official tells CNN that Russian intelligence officers for the military intelligence GRU had recently offered Taliban militants in Afghanistan money as rewards if they killed US or UK troops there.

    JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUΔL³³°¹
    @th3j35t3r
    ·
    23m
    22 U.S. servicemembers were killed in Afghanistan in 2019. Putin placed a bounty on their heads using Taliban hit men, & paid out.

    Trump has known at since March, & his response to Putin was to invite him to the G7 summit pull our troops out of Germany.

    Twenty-two American service members were killed in Afghanistan in 2019, the highest number since NATO combat operations in the country ended at the end of 2014.

    Since then, the United States has continued a separate counterterrorism mission.

    All but four of the military fatalities in Afghanistan in 2019 were combat-related.

    The deaths came as Washington held direct peace talks with the Taliban aimed at the ending the war, the U.S.’s longest, throughout most of the year. The talks are ongoing.

    https://www.stripes.com/news/afghanistan-remembering-the-fallen-of-2019-1.613124

  40. Scott @ #566 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 8:40 am

    Lars Von Trier says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 8:33 am
    Scott I think state based parties with specific rules can choose with whom to caucus in Club Fed.

    So in QLD LNP members can caucus or identify as Liberal or National in Canberra.

    ——————-

    QLD LNP are Merged into one party, got no problem with that because the voting public know they are one entity .

    By the country liberal party leader being the national party leader in the senate , exposes the lie that the liberal and national federally are not seperate entities, they are one entity

    The QLD LNP are officially a division of the Liberal Party of Australia, so it’s really just a mirror of the NT situation.

  41. The irony!
    A well known leader of a federal political party has this week, commenting on the spike in infections in Victoria, suggested some people think that they can do what they want!
    The core tenet of the same leader’s political party!

  44. To expand on my point to Victoria.

    The government is going to be forced to move to solutions offered by the left of politics. They are trying to keep their austerity.

    However to open up the economy they need the virus to be eliminated. On that Cud Chewer is right. (Cud if you are lurking. Hi and I hope you are well). The government support is going to be needed much longer than the government is anticipating.

    That’s just the virus in Australia. We have still not absorbed how badly the rest of the world is being affected. This is because we have a corporate media in whose interest it is to give the most promising outlook and gloss over the really grim reality facing us.

  45. Oakeshott Country says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 9:00 am
    Scott
    Where do “Country Labor Party” members caucus
    (Are we still doing that?)

    ——————-
    Labor and country Labor party belong in the same political party entity , the voters can see that

    Outside of QLD
    Liberal party , Country Liberal Party claim to be a seperate political party entity to the national party

    This is where the deliberate misleading and political fraud comes in , they are not seperate entity from each other ,example Country liberal party member can become the national party leader in the senate

    The liberal and national partys are fraudulent and deliberately misleading voters

  48. Victoria

    Yes Your state is going through what is the new normal until we get a vaccine.

    I am crossing my fingers that is sooner rather than later.

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