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”

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  1. The banner at the front says “Celebrate Freedom Sunday” with a stylised American flag. I’ll bet they’re not celebrating black slaves being freed.

  2. This sounds like an attempt by Porter to sideline complaints about Heydon rather than assist his victims. Victims will wisely reject Porter’s ‘generous’ offer and either remain anonymous if they wish, or pursue him in the company of others in the courts or in the court of public opinion.

    Christian Porter asks Attorney-General’s Department to look into new sexual harassment allegations levelled against Dyson Heydon…

    The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday reported claims Mr Heydon inappropriately touched a colleague when he was the royal commissioner investigating trade unions….

    The woman quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald said she did not make a complaint.

    “I never considered saying anything to management as I knew of a previous allegation that had been dismissed and covered up,” she reportedly said.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-28/dyson-heydon-investigation-assault-allegations-ag-department/12400508

  3. poroti @ #836 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 3:40 pm

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga

    So when ya going back to reclaim the land that was ‘stolen’ from your ancestors ?

    I’m not, but I can recognise that the ways of the past are not always good.

    Surely that’s the first step in trying to redress the situation we find ourselves in.

    There’s too much whitewashing of history and denying the reality of the past.

  4. The problem with going on about the past is it does next to nothing about today or tomorrow’s problems. Land ownership is important but we will not be going back to January 25 1788 any more than England can undo the Battle of Hastings and the Norman takeover.

  5. Isn’t that a stylised Liberian flag.
    Abolitionists established Liberia as a colony to send the slaves when free (some of them didn’t want them to hang around in the states)

  6. Barney and Poroti,
    “Learning from the Germans” , a book by Susan Neiman, deals with much of what you are discussing.

  7. MB

    Lidia Thorpe sounds a bit deluded if she thinks some European based entity will enforce a treaty.

    Except that is not what she is saying. This is what she is saying:

    “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.

  8. C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:14 pm

    nath @ #860 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 6:08 pm

    Don’t worry C@t. You have Kimberley Kitching to represent people like you.

    And from your statements recently, you seem to want Michael O’Brien to represent you instead of Dan Andrews.
    __________________
    If you can read that into what I said then nothing I say in response will penetrate either.

  9. I think nath is more a Tim Smith man.

    Post crap without thinking, blame others when it is shown up as crapola.

  10. Pegasus @ #577 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 6:07 pm

    MB

    Lidia Thorpe sounds a bit deluded if she thinks some European based entity will enforce a treaty.

    Except that is not what she is saying. This is what she is saying:

    “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.

    Thorpe is spot on.

  11. Tim Smith gives Trump a run for his money.

    You should see the latest stuff he tweeted to Turnbulls Son Alex.

    What an embarrassment.

  12. Those older people in Florida will give everyone over 4o y.o.a a bad name….! Wow, rashness of youth; folly of old age and all that stuff…..only in the good ol’ US of A………

  13. And Tim Smith together with other idiotic Liberal MPS,
    each and every day went for Andrews
    Giving him the moniker Dictator Dan for being too tough and conservative with re opening schools, etc. bitching about the strict enforcement by police of the lockdown and so forth.
    These same idiots are now demanding all sorts of enforcement because there are outbreaks.

    Seriously they are oxygen thieves, Get the f. Out the way. Useless buffoons.

  14. sprocket_ says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:23 pm

    I bet you’re looking forward to 9.30pm Monday night – expect a grovelling apology soon after
    _________
    you mean Bill’s Q&A maneuvering? I bet Albo will be tuning in.

  15. nath @ #863 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 6:16 pm

    C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:14 pm

    nath @ #860 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 6:08 pm

    Don’t worry C@t. You have Kimberley Kitching to represent people like you.

    And from your statements recently, you seem to want Michael O’Brien to represent you instead of Dan Andrews.
    __________________
    If you can read that into what I said then nothing I say in response will penetrate either.

    The point being, and as Pegasus loves to condescendingly sneer, as it seems to have gone over your head, I based my comment on historical statements made by you here that supported complaints made about Dan Andrews by Michael O’Brien and the Victorian Liberal Party. Merely, it seems, so that you could take a petulant poke, absent a sophisticated perspective. I don’t think that makes you a Liberal, although you are a committed capitalist, however, what it does make you, to my eyes is a recalcitrant Greens supporter, just like all the rest here, who would rather see a Labor government fall than continue to survive and prosper if it means that The Greens can’t take seats off them.

    Oh, and Kimberley Kitching can’t represent me, I live in NSW.

  16. nath @ #590 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 6:26 pm

    sprocket_ says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:23 pm

    I bet you’re looking forward to 9.30pm Monday night – expect a grovelling apology soon after
    _________
    you mean Bill’s Q&A maneuvering? I bet Albo will be tuning in.

    Bill’s re-building the Shorten brand.

  17. C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 6:27 pm
    I don’t think that makes you a Liberal, although you are a committed capitalist,
    _____________
    perhaps, but wouldn’t that be something I’ve got in common with every ALP parliamentarian? I can’t recall Bob Hawke or Paul Keating donating their millions to charity and living a simple life on an agricultural co-op.

  18. The Greens are doing their usual disgraceful trick of obstructing any reform effort, this time in relation to the rights and recognition of first peoples.

    The Greens have perfected the art and practice of political dysfunction. It’s reasonable to ask why they would use obstruction as a political strategy. The answer is because it benefits them. The derive ongoing political/polemical/campaigning advantages by thwarting reform. This is why they do it.

    The Greens deliberately put their own party interests ahead of the need for reform. And then they blame others for the failure to enact reform. This is a time-honoured technique for them. It has served the Greens exceptionally well for more than 20 years.

    By combining with the LNP at critical junctures the Greens have prevented significant reforms in the environment and climate/energy policy. They now seek to replicate this in policies relating to the further self-determination of first peoples.

    The Greens are an absolute blight on the chances for progress in this country.

  19. On a COVID note, apparently Spanish authorities have been conducting tests on their archive of sewage samples. Their analysis indicates the virus was in circulation in Spain in 2018 – fully a year before it appeared elsewhere. This analysis is to be confirmed, but does suggest that a form of the virus has been circulating in human populations for much longer than 6 or 7 months.

  20. continuo @ #884 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 4:55 pm

    On a COVID note, apparently Spanish authorities have been conducting tests on their archive of sewage samples. Their analysis indicates the virus was in circulation in Spain in 2018 – fully a year before it appeared elsewhere. This analysis is to be confirmed, but does suggest that a form of the virus has been circulating in human populations for much longer than 6 or 7 months.

    Do you have a link?

  21. Bob Sprocket – I think some posters will need vigorous what about therapy after 60 minutes tonight. Are you ready for the challenge?

  22. “Is Peter Dutton a risk to national security?“

    He’s far too stupid for the responsibilities he demanded from Turnbull and was given. In fact he’s far too stupid to run the preverbal pie stall. Persecuting the powerless is the extent of his abilities.

  23. Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane to be suspended over ASIO raid into Chinese interference

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/labor-mp-shaoquett-moselmane-to-be-suspended-over-asio-raid-into-chinese-interference/news-story/6974ccba3999ac0e0f8adcdd8b3951f5

    Ms McKay has told colleagues she accepts the importance of upholding the “integrity of the NSW parliament” and how it might have been placed at risk, as the basis for pressing ahead for Mr Moselmane’s parliamentary suspension.
    :::::
    The NSW Opposition leader said she had made the decision based on information received in a briefing from investigating agencies on Friday, and she reserved the right to make further decisions as required.

    She reiterated Mr Perrottet’s point that Mr Moselmaine had not been charged with any offence. But she said national security was above partisan politics. “This is an issue I need to fix as leader of the Labor Party,” she said.

    While Ms McKay stopped short of calling on Mr Moselmane to go the further step of resigning from parliament, she said such a decision was “up to him at this point” and she hoped he was actively considering it.

    The planned move to suspend him not only from the ALP but from parliament would mean he could no longer enter the parliamentary chamber or sit on upper house committees.

  24. Continuo

    The Spanish authorities tested a sample of their sewerage water in March 2019,.found low level traces. But it is not clear whether it is a false positive and more testing is required.

  25. Greensborough Growler:

    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 4:43 pm

    [‘New Lincoln project vid.’]

    Those vids are very cutting and I suspect highly effective, though I’d doubt they’d work here.

  26. boer….
    The Call from the Heart consultation process was not limited to a bunch of Nicholas’ pet class enemies. Notice, in passing, that Nicholas took the opportunity to insult the overwhelming majority of the Indigenous leadership in one go. Hanson could not have done better! Nicholas’ attempt to tear it down is a classic example of whitefellas tearing down Indigenous people. The bastards generally make some sort of play of being righteous about it. They do it on behalf of Indigenous people. But they actually help gut Indigenous people.

    The people who crafted the Call from the Heart aimed for three outcomes: a Makarrata process, an Indigenous voice, and a place in the body of the Constitution. These were all about legitimizing a set of mutually agreed- frameworks so that the next wave of deals could be sorted out – with real legitimacy.

    Who are the wreckers? Not the Indigenous people who are trying to sort a way through a bastard of a set of tangles.
    The real wreckers are whitefellas from the extreme Left and the extreme Right.

    Nailed it, as usual.

  27. I recall reading that forensic samples showed evidence of HIV from the 1950s. Maybe COVID was also bubbling around for a while before it broke out, maybe after a mutation.

  28. Watching ABC TV News… India now has a plague of locusts.

    So that’s drought, fire, flood, plague, and pestilence.

    All we need now is fire and brimstone.

  29. Victoria says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:07 pm
    Continuo

    The Spanish authorities tested a sample of their sewerage water in March 2019,.found low level traces. But it is not clear whether it is a false positive and more testing is required.

    Yes….further analysis required to confirm the finding wrt 2018.

    It’s already been confirmed the virus was circulating in Spain, France, Italy and Iran in December 2019.

  30. Pegasus @ #605 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 7:06 pm

    Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane to be suspended over ASIO raid into Chinese interference

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/labor-mp-shaoquett-moselmane-to-be-suspended-over-asio-raid-into-chinese-interference/news-story/6974ccba3999ac0e0f8adcdd8b3951f5

    Ms McKay has told colleagues she accepts the importance of upholding the “integrity of the NSW parliament” and how it might have been placed at risk, as the basis for pressing ahead for Mr Moselmane’s parliamentary suspension.
    :::::
    The NSW Opposition leader said she had made the decision based on information received in a briefing from investigating agencies on Friday, and she reserved the right to make further decisions as required.

    She reiterated Mr Perrottet’s point that Mr Moselmaine had not been charged with any offence. But she said national security was above partisan politics. “This is an issue I need to fix as leader of the Labor Party,” she said.

    While Ms McKay stopped short of calling on Mr Moselmane to go the further step of resigning from parliament, she said such a decision was “up to him at this point” and she hoped he was actively considering it.

    The planned move to suspend him not only from the ALP but from parliament would mean he could no longer enter the parliamentary chamber or sit on upper house committees.

    Barring a member who has not been charged with an unlawful offence isn’t right, IMO.

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