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 17 of 20
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  1. Yes I’m particularly concerned about Victoria’s cases increasing, OC.
    Numbers are now as they were at lockdown.

  2. Victoriasays: Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 2:33 pm

    Fess

    The rats are jumping off the Trump sinking ship

    **************************************************************

  3. PhoenixRed

    Perhaps trump will steer the ship himself and run away to Israel. Since Netanyahu is besties with the Kushner clan.

  4. poroti says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 2:37 pm
    C@tmomma

    Suspicion should be raised by the weaselly words and phrases used in the NYT. You should be asking cui bono from the story. Who benefits are those who think the US should remain in Afghanistan. Now who would they?

    _____________________________________

    Certainly a question worth asking. But it doesn’t mean that it’s not true and that Trump is persistently putting Russia’s interest ahead of his country’s (though behind his own).

  6. porotisays: Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 2:37 pm

    C@tmomma

    Suspicion should be raised by the weaselly words and phrases used in the NYT. You should be asking cui bono from the story. Who benefits are those who think the US should remain in Afghanistan. Now who would they be ?

    *******************************************************

    I am unsure whether the original story is true ( although the NYT story has been backed by the Washington Post and WSJ ) – and what Trump did or did not know

    BUT as Bill Palmer says – The silence is DEAFENING – He still hasn’t said anything. It’s been a day and a half, and Donald Trump still hasn’t said anything.

    Donald Trump clearly has no idea what to do about this bombshell revelation that he’s known for months that Russia was paying the Taliban to murder U.S. soldiers. If he had any confidence in his ‘nobody told me’ defense, he’d have gone to the podium and delivered it himself. Instead it’s clear that he’s afraid to stake himself too directly to that claim, because it’ll very likely be proven in the coming days that he did know.

    Yet Trump says nothing. This isn’t the kind of scandal that the President of the United States can say nothing about. Whatever defense or argument or lie he wants to go with, he has to be out there pounding his fist and forcefully trying to sell the American people on the notion that this scandal isn’t the ugly traitorous and murderous shame that it appears to be.

    https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-silence-is-deafening/30123/

  7. What I don’t get about the Russian bounty thing is that is has been known for more than two years that Russian government has been paying mercenaries to go into Afghanistan.

    What did people think they were doing there? Helping out at an Afghan Tea Ceremony?

  8. Confessions @ #794 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 2:36 pm

    Pence is still planning his trip to Dallas where he’s speaking at some church gig. Why on earth is he insisting on travelling to Texas at a time their coronavirus cases are skyrocketing through the roof?!

    ” rel=”nofollow”>

    Because he likely truly believes he is bathed in Jesus’ blood and protected from COVID-19.

  9. TPOF
    When it comes to “US Intelligence says” stories 😆 😆 😆 . What an age we live in when the ‘left’ take what the CIA says as gospel.

  10. E. G. Theodore
    OMG ya means the Taliban needed “cash incentivisation’ to kill US infidel invaders ? 😆 ………..Oh by the way the ‘alleged’ bounty was for ‘Coalition forces’ so not so fussy.

  13. poroti @ #793 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 1:01 pm

    TPOF
    When it comes to “US Intelligence says” stories 😆 😆 😆 . What an age we live in when the ‘left’ take what the CIA says as gospel.

    Well it’s been corroborated by another Country.

    Also why would they make it up?

    What purpose would it serve?

  16. https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/06/27/weekend-miscellany-morgan-victorian-labor-latest-new-zealand-poll/comment-page-14/#comment-3434424

    I don’t get some of this, in them days territory could legally, if not morally or ethically, be acquired through empty occupation, treaty or conquest.
    Obviously the HCoA ruled it wasn’t empty.
    Unlike New Zealand or America there wasn’t some form of treaty.
    It was settled/ colonised. As in crown radical title.
    Given the whole native title (already)/ Mabo and Wik cases, and Australia Act(s) 1986 before it, how would it be anything but some form of recognition? (Not that I am intimately familiar with the statement of the heart etc.)
    IMnotsoHO the colonial Union Jack definitely needs to come of the flag?
    Would the crown or Australia negotiate a treaty?
    It sounds like restitution, reparation etc claims are next?

  17. John.

    legally

    By the legal system of (i.e. the social contracts and agreements between) the invaders. Convenient, no?

    It was settled/ colonised.

    Conquered.

  20. Cheryl Kernot
    @cheryl_kernot
    · 6h
    The ABC is NOT equivalent to commercial media companies @PaulFletcherMP It is a public broadcaster with responsibilities to the public for which “efficiency dividends” are a rubbish ideological concept. #insiders

    Abul Rizvi
    @RizviAbul
    ·
    2h
    Concept of efficiency dividend was developed in 1980s by Dept of Finance as a temporary means for the budget bottom line to realise benefits from freeing up rules for how agency budgets could be managed. 40 years later, that quid pro quo has long evaporated.

    Paul Barratt
    @phbarratt
    · 51m
    Replying to @RizviAbul
    Staff ceilings were introduced by PM John Gorton to avoid size of APS bring open-ended. Well intended but paved the way for “efficiency dividends” – cut everyone’s ceiling by 1.5% irrespective of the organisation’s circumstances and whether efficiencies were available.

    Abul Rizvi
    @RizviAbul
    19m
    Efficiency dividend idea was developed under John Dawkins and largely implemented under Peter Walsh. But that was at a time the economy (and wages/inflation adjustments to APS budgets) was growing strongly after the early 1980s recession.

  21. John

    is this where this is heading

    Surely it heads where we choose? We could make certain (collective) choices today, if we wanted. We appear not to want to. What are we afraid of?

  23. Mean and tricky Fletcher. Refer to Cheryl Kernor etc at 3.50pm.

    @InsidersABC
    ·
    6h
    Asked about the National Gallery’s losing 30 staff this week, @PaulFletcherMP
    says he’s not going to suggest any change to the general principle of having an efficiency dividend even if Australia is in a recession. #insiders #auspol

  24. lizzie @ #818 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 3:50 pm

    Cheryl Kernot
    @cheryl_kernot
    · 6h
    The ABC is NOT equivalent to commercial media companies @PaulFletcherMP It is a public broadcaster with responsibilities to the public for which “efficiency dividends” are a rubbish ideological concept. #insiders

    Abul Rizvi
    @RizviAbul
    ·
    2h
    Concept of efficiency dividend was developed in 1980s by Dept of Finance as a temporary means for the budget bottom line to realise benefits from freeing up rules for how agency budgets could be managed. 40 years later, that quid pro quo has long evaporated.

    Paul Barratt
    @phbarratt
    · 51m
    Replying to @RizviAbul
    Staff ceilings were introduced by PM John Gorton to avoid size of APS bring open-ended. Well intended but paved the way for “efficiency dividends” – cut everyone’s ceiling by 1.5% irrespective of the organisation’s circumstances and whether efficiencies were available.

    Abul Rizvi
    @RizviAbul
    19m
    Efficiency dividend idea was developed under John Dawkins and largely implemented under Peter Walsh. But that was at a time the economy (and wages/inflation adjustments to APS budgets) was growing strongly after the early 1980s recession.

    Or, iow, the Coalition has never seen a good idea pioneered by Labor that they couldn’t hide their malign intent behind.

  26. John

    I can’t see the present right of centre fed gov wanting to do a treaty, barely recognition

    Neither can I.

    left of centre of pollyTICs

    Why should it be, though? Why does right-of-centre politics always seem to require drawing such dividing lines? Why are they choosing to make these issues their battlefields?

  27. The most corrupt government since Federation is saying that it is all about jobs, jobs, and jobs while cutting jobs in CSIRO, the National Gallery and the ABC.

  30. Barney in Tanjung Bunga

    Feck off with the “stolen” bulldust. For all of human history it has been ‘conquest’. No different here. What was the ‘traditional’ set up when Aboriginal group A took over Aboriginal group B’s land ? I dare say no different to everyone else. Everyone in Australia has an ancestry full of those who have “stolen” land and whose land has been ‘stolen’ and they have been on both sides multiple times.

  31. C@tmommas

    Because I’m not reflexively anti the arms of government who, mostly, serve to keep us safe.

    Bullshit. You only accept what they say because it aligns with your point of view.

  33. Could 2020 get more weird

    Steve Schmidt
    @SteveSchmidtSES
    ·
    1h
    Ok. BS, but I’ll bite. I hope you won’t mind that the question is asked in the language of my native land, New Jersey, and you won’t be offended by the colorful colloquialisms of my people. Why the Fuck not ? Why the Fuck wasn’t POTUS and VPOTUS briefed on this? They were BTW.
    Quote Tweet

    Office of the DNI
    @ODNIgov
    · 3h
    Statement by DNI Ratcliffe: “I have confirmed that neither the President nor the Vice President were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting yesterday.” (1/2)
    Show this thread

  35. GG

    According to Director of intelligence who was appointed at end of May 2020. Neither Trump nor Pence was briefed 0n this back in March.
    It truly defies belief.

  38. Lidia Thorpe in October 2019

    Victoria has chosen spin over substance in its Indigenous treaty whitewash

    The impending sell-off of public land and the attempted destruction of our sacred birthing trees was the final straw

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/09/victoria-has-chosen-spin-over-substance-in-its-indigenous-treaty-whitewash
    —-

    June 25, 2020

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/without-treaty-incoming-senator-can-t-feel-part-of-team-australia-20200625-p55649.html

    “If I didn’t have my family and my community backing me I wouldn’t be doing this at all. It is my people that have put me here. The Greens just stamped it. The Greens members stamped what my people have been asking for and calling for.”
    :::
    She argued then and believes now that the Uluru process was hijacked by Aboriginal corporations and establishment appointments and did not reflect the aspirations of ordinary Indigenous people. She refused to sign the convention’s final report, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which makes no mention of a treaty.
    :::
    This week, a campaign to abolish the Uluru statement was launched online, bringing into the open growing divisions between the Aboriginal establishment who supported the statement and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement over how best to achieve reconciliation.

    The Morrison government has pledged to hold a referendum on constitutional recognition within this term of Parliament but does not support enshrining the “Voice” in the constitution. Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt is seeking to build consensus for an advisory body that does not require constitutional change. Labor backs the full Uluru agenda. The Greens want a treaty.
    :::
    Thorpe is not opposed to constitutional recognition but says this should happen through a broader treaty process which addresses the historical dispossession of Aboriginal people.

    She supports the views of Mansell, who argues that a treaty, including the recognition of First Nations sovereignty, the return of vacant crown land to traditional owners and the establishment of standalone senate seats for First Nations representatives, can be achieved without resorting to a referendum.”
    ————

    “We need a Treaty that needs to be internationally scrutinised under the Geneva Convention of treaties so not just a bureaucratic treaty, a real treaty that will end the injustice that Aboriginal people in this country face.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/lidia-thorpe-to-be-next-greens-senator-for-victoria-20200620-p554i2.html

  39. Antony Green’s thread on the NT election: https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/nt/2020/guide/preview

    Yet victory for Labor cannot be assumed. The return of full preferential voting removes the exhausted option that worked in Labor’s favour at the 2016 election. Whether the Country Liberals and Territory Alliance co-operate on preferences, or use preferences to wipe each other out, will also impact on Labor’s prospects.

    Labor’s grip on government is weaker than it appears. The vote that put Labor in office at the 2016 election was less imposing than the tally of seats the party accumulated.

    Understanding the 2016 result means looking back to the Country Liberal’s victory in 2012, only the second change of party government in Northern Territory history.

    While the Country Liberal’s defeat in 2016 was mostly due to its performance in office, the party’s internal divisions were stoked by the peculiar composition of the party room elected in 2012.
    :::
    Defections and a redistribution have cost Labor two seats since the 2016 election. The crossbench has also been re-arranged with the formation of the Territory Alliance.
    :::
    Uniform swings are irrelevant given the tiny size of Northern Territory seats, but a rough guide is that a swing of 3% would deprive the Gunner government of its majority. A swing large enough to prevent Labor forming a minority government courtesy of the crossbench cannot be calculated.

  40. Getting more complicated now. What a shame.

    This week, a campaign to abolish the Uluru statement was launched online, bringing into the open growing divisions between the Aboriginal establishment who supported the statement and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement over how best to achieve reconciliation.

    The Morrison government has pledged to hold a referendum on constitutional recognition within this term of Parliament but does not support enshrining the “Voice” in the constitution. Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt is seeking to build consensus for an advisory body that does not require constitutional change. Labor backs the full Uluru agenda. The Greens want a treaty.

  41. Interesting analysis in ‘The New Yorker’ about shifting senior voters and Trump.

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/donald-trumps-big-problem-with-senior-voters?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_062720&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5ed60b3a66c27c43be0bcf2d&cndid=61297898&hasha=23febb58de071af5250f47b5e00fc12f&hashb=552e5802f5e6a0cba1437fd7d4c7c83c5acbff0c&hashc=0c31d238cbc5b292421e16c501677d97b72dcbbe70f330c54b624dced18935d8&esrc=bouncexmulti_first&utm_term=TNY_Daily

  42. poroti says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 3:01 pm
    TPOF
    When it comes to “US Intelligence says” stories . What an age we live in when the ‘left’ take what the CIA says as gospel.

    __________________________________________

    Of course, you totally missed my point – which was that the issue of who benefits from the claim is totally separate from whether it is true or not. Frankly, I would have regarded it as far-fetched if it had not been corroborated by another country.

  43. poroti @ #814 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 2:13 pm

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga

    Feck off with the “stolen” bulldust. For all of human history it has been ‘conquest’. No different here. What was the ‘traditional’ set up when Aboriginal group A took over Aboriginal group B’s land ? I dare say no different to everyone else. Everyone in Australia has an ancestry full of those who have “stolen” land and whose land has been ‘stolen’ and they have been on both sides multiple times.

    So it’s all right because everyone has done it throughout history.

    steal /stil/ verb [ I or T ] stole , stolen TAKE

    1. to take something without the permission or knowledge of the owner and keep it

  44. The New Yorker
    @NewYorker
    ·
    7m
    Despite an onslaught of confirmed COVID-19 cases in mid-March, Iceland never imposed a lockdown. And yet, by mid-May, the virus had virtually been eliminated in the country. How did they do it?

    They all moved to Iceland.

  45. https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/06/27/weekend-miscellany-morgan-victorian-labor-latest-new-zealand-poll/comment-page-17/#comment-3434579

    With Trump lite/ Shouty in the Lodge, and Albo as LOTO, given the whole prioritisation i/c Wuflu in terms of industry assistance, JobKeeper/ JobSeeker/ HomeBuilder/ JobMaker …, I’d be very surprised if the centre right – which seem to have no trouble finding dollars for Captain Cook ‘re-enactments’, subs from France, JSFs from America, CC&S …, lotsa ‘worthy’ electoral causes i/c staying put, will do anything drastically i/c Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders Australians, just more tokenism (I note Shouty’s generally added veterans to welcoming at events) and closing the gap.
    Casuals, arts, CSIRO, unis, ABC etc and so on were specifically excluded from various forms of support or consideration.
    And that’d be the same across a range of policy areas from opportunity to cost of living to education to environment to healthcare to human rights to infrastructure, especially those outside of public safety and security (Fear, not hope, the money/ pollyTICs/ media spin cycle, not advancing Australia, fair).
    Presently a federal ICAC, campaign finance reform, useful FoI (rather than GAFW or kill switch/ ban on encryption) or mandatory and binding referendums wouldn’t fly, let alone a republic or even just removing the colonial Union Jack from the flag.
    Washminster-style repressive democracy in the FIFO that is Canberra ACT, or Versailles on Lake Blwxyz Griffin , just isn’t going for less Anglosaxony and more Northwestern Europe, as in more social/ direct democracy, or the next normal.
    I just can’t see the centre right move on sorting multi-culturalism/ white/ black redistribution (presumably some pigs are more equal than others).
    Sell out to some foreign shield or party, be it China, America, Poms (atomic/ nuclear testing downunder), throw $800K at Qantas Group and another $300+K in JobKeeper whilst using Singapore Airlines for fresh freight exports, sure, resolving 1781/ 1788, yah nah!

  46. I just had the privilege of signing a very strong Executive Order protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues – and combatting recent Criminal Violence. Long prison terms for these lawless acts against our Great Country!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2020

    People who insult or slander heroes and martyrs may receive criminal sanctions, according to draft Amendment XI to China’s Criminal Law. The draft decision was submitted on Sunday to the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress, China's top legislature. pic.twitter.com/wV1yq8Xnci— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) June 28, 2020

    Trump and Xi on the same symbolic wavelength, one day apart. https://t.co/NL34BzBJEn https://t.co/RaVsAF8AKL— George Megalogenis (@GMegalogenis) June 28, 2020

  48. Rex Douglas says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 5:23 pm
    …………………………………………………….
    Trump and Xi on the same symbolic wavelength, one day apart. https://t.co/NL34BzBJEn https://t.co/RaVsAF8AKL— George Megalogenis (@GMegalogenis) June 28, 2020
    ___________________________
    I suspect we will hear and see on 60 minutes tonight just which wavelength the ALP has been tuning into as well.

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