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 19 of 20
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  1. Is the Potato asleep at the wheel? Another cohort at risk from indolence at the top..

    “Families who use au pairs are scrambling for alternative childcare as about 10,000 backpackers leave Australia every month and new ones are barred from entry because of border restrictions.

    Wendi Aylward, an executive for the Cultural Au Pair Association of Australia (CAPAA), said the nation hosts 4000-7000 au pairs a year but there was a severe shortage because of coronavirus and it was about to get worse.

    “Au pairs are the only option for a growing number of working families,” Ms Aylward said. “The government needs to take action now to ensure that option continues. The crisis is worsening by the day.”

    Au pairs are young people from abroad, often from Europe, who stay with a host family for cultural exchange and contribute babysitting in return for room and board and an allowance. Au pairs are usually on a working holiday visa but can stay with one host family for 12 months.

    https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/take-action-now-call-to-open-borders-to-au-pairs-20200626-p556qx.html

  2. 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.

    COVID-19 doesn’t “bubble around”. It spreads like wildfire.

    One case in America in January is now 2 million. This is not a disease that simmers. It boils over.

    Continuo wants everyone to believe it originated… where is his latest guess?… in Spain. This is because he has some kind of desperate constipated necessity, born of misplaced guilt over the White Australia Policy, to “prove” that it originated anywhere but in China in late 2019.

  3. nath:

    [‘perhaps, but wouldn’t that be something I’ve got in common with every ALP parliamentarian?’]

    Over the top. Might you do better?

  5. Bushfire Bill @ #902 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 7:25 pm

    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.

    COVID-19 doesn’t “bubble around”. It spreads like wildfire.

    One case in America in January is now 2 million. This is not a disease that simmers. It boils over.

    Continuo wants everyone to believe it originated… where is his latest guess?… in Spain. This is because he has some kind of desperate constipated necessity, born of misplaced guilt over the White Australia Policy, to “prove” that it originated anywhere but in China in late 2019.

    Yes, I note that he mentions the presence of COVID-19 in every other country BUT China.

    Oops! Incoming Sinophobe fire! 😆

  6. continuo @ #599 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 6:50 pm

    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 Hreens 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.

    Labor is the lifeblood of the Greens.

  7. sprocket_ @ #901 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 5:24 pm

    Is the Potato asleep at the wheel? Another cohort at risk from indolence at the top..

    “Families who use au pairs are scrambling for alternative childcare as about 10,000 backpackers leave Australia every month and new ones are barred from entry because of border restrictions.

    Wendi Aylward, an executive for the Cultural Au Pair Association of Australia (CAPAA), said the nation hosts 4000-7000 au pairs a year but there was a severe shortage because of coronavirus and it was about to get worse.

    “Au pairs are the only option for a growing number of working families,” Ms Aylward said. “The government needs to take action now to ensure that option continues. The crisis is worsening by the day.”

    Au pairs are young people from abroad, often from Europe, who stay with a host family for cultural exchange and contribute babysitting in return for room and board and an allowance. Au pairs are usually on a working holiday visa but can stay with one host family for 12 months.

    https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/take-action-now-call-to-open-borders-to-au-pairs-20200626-p556qx.html

    Why can’t Australians be au pairs?

  8. I’m not on a mission to prove the virus originated in any particular location or time. Far from it. I think the evidence is incomplete and needs to come in before any conclusions could be formed, and I’m sure that I’m not the one who would be in a position to form any conclusions.

    But equally, I’ve managed to desist from launching baseless, demented, nasty phobic rants about Chinese people or about other bludgers.

  9. Rex Douglas says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:29 pm
    ….
    Labor is the lifeblood of the Greens.
    _____________________
    The old gives birth to the new.

  11. nath @ #880 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 6:34 pm

    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.

    Bob Hawke was an avid supporter of the Kibbutz system in Israel. 🙂

  12. C@tmomma says:
    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:30 pm
    nath @ #880 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 6:34 pm

    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.
    Bob Hawke was an avid supporter of the Kibbutz system in Israel.
    _________________________________________
    He also left an estate of $40m

  13. It’s NOT ‘phobic’ about the Chinese to suggest that, based upon ALL the available evidence, which is NOT being disputed by the Chinese themselves, that COVID-19 originated in China!

  14. But equally, I’ve managed to desist from launching baseless, demented, nasty phobic rants about Chinese people or about other bludgers.

    I am sure we all bow before your perfection, Briefly. Your political correctness – and your selfless willingness to share it – is impressive.

    And you still haven’t provided that link to the claims you made up-thread about the link between Spanish sewers and the REAL origins of COVID-19.

  15. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #434 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 7:29 pm

    sprocket_ @ #901 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 5:24 pm

    Is the Potato asleep at the wheel? Another cohort at risk from indolence at the top..

    “Families who use au pairs are scrambling for alternative childcare as about 10,000 backpackers leave Australia every month and new ones are barred from entry because of border restrictions.

    Wendi Aylward, an executive for the Cultural Au Pair Association of Australia (CAPAA), said the nation hosts 4000-7000 au pairs a year but there was a severe shortage because of coronavirus and it was about to get worse.

    “Au pairs are the only option for a growing number of working families,” Ms Aylward said. “The government needs to take action now to ensure that option continues. The crisis is worsening by the day.”

    Au pairs are young people from abroad, often from Europe, who stay with a host family for cultural exchange and contribute babysitting in return for room and board and an allowance. Au pairs are usually on a working holiday visa but can stay with one host family for 12 months.

    https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/take-action-now-call-to-open-borders-to-au-pairs-20200626-p556qx.html

    Why can’t Australians be au pairs?

    They can. My niece was one in Nova Scotia. Marvellous. Taken on fancy family holidays. Given use of a car. Delighted with the experience.

  18. There was mention earlier of Tim Smith, Victorian Opposition Leader in waiting, responding to Alex Turnbull on Twitter.

  19. Yabba @ #915 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 5:37 pm

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #434 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 7:29 pm

    sprocket_ @ #901 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 5:24 pm

    Is the Potato asleep at the wheel? Another cohort at risk from indolence at the top..

    “Families who use au pairs are scrambling for alternative childcare as about 10,000 backpackers leave Australia every month and new ones are barred from entry because of border restrictions.

    Wendi Aylward, an executive for the Cultural Au Pair Association of Australia (CAPAA), said the nation hosts 4000-7000 au pairs a year but there was a severe shortage because of coronavirus and it was about to get worse.

    “Au pairs are the only option for a growing number of working families,” Ms Aylward said. “The government needs to take action now to ensure that option continues. The crisis is worsening by the day.”

    Au pairs are young people from abroad, often from Europe, who stay with a host family for cultural exchange and contribute babysitting in return for room and board and an allowance. Au pairs are usually on a working holiday visa but can stay with one host family for 12 months.

    https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/take-action-now-call-to-open-borders-to-au-pairs-20200626-p556qx.html

    Why can’t Australians be au pairs?

    They can. My niece was one in Nova Scotia. Marvellous. Taken on fancy family holidays. Given use of a car. Delighted with the experience.

    WOW!!! Really!

    The article is talking about au pairs in Australia.

  21. Bushfire Bill:

    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:25 pm

    Please stop the verbiage, in the wake of the absence of a number of posters reticent to put up with your BS on said subject; you knowing scant of nothing. Leave it to the expert opinion.

  22. C@tmomma @ #913 Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – 5:32 pm

    It’s NOT ‘phobic’ about the Chinese to suggest that, based upon ALL the available evidence, which is NOT being disputed by the Chinese themselves, that COVID-19 originated in China!

    But we don’t have all the evidence, so it’s idle speculation.

  24. Ah, right.

    Found a link, from the Global Times “dot cn”.

    The presence of COVID-19 in Spain’s sewage offers a clue on the virus’ existence, either in people or animals, before China reported its first COVID-19 patient in December 2019, Chinese experts said, after Spain detected the presence of the novel coronavirus in March last year, and Italy made similar findings.

    Research led by the University of Barcelona showed the presence of the virus in samples of wastewater in Barcelona in March 2019, and infections were present before knowing of any case of COVID-19 in any part of the world.
    …
    The presence of the virus in the sewage offers us a clue about the existence of the virus in Spain, either among people or animals, before China reported its first COVID-19 patient in December 2019, Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital, told the Global Times on Saturday.

    {and so on}

    https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1192756.shtml

    And this, on the Global Times …

    China’s most belligerent tabloid, the Global Times, is certainly a one-of-a-kind publication. The Chinese- and English-language news outlet is published by the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) paramount mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, but it goes much further than China’s typically stodgy state news.

    The Global Times is best known for its hawkish, insulting editorials—aggressive attacks that get it noticed, and quoted, by foreign media around the world as the “voice” of Beijing, even as the party’s official statements are more circumspect.

    https://qz.com/745577/inside-the-global-times-chinas-hawkish-belligerent-state-tabloid/

    No wonder you didn’t want to supply a link, Briefly. Even the Global Times doesn’t claim “Spain, 2018” as a starting point for COVID-19.

    Seriously, please try harder. You give Labor a bad name with rubbish like that.

  26. continuo:

    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 7:39 pm

    [‘BB and C@t….you deserve each other. I hope you enjoy everything that passes between you.’]

    You can be cruel from time to time.

  29. [‘Seriously, please try harder. You give Labor a bad name with rubbish like that’]

    A typically aggressive response from a man in his mid-sixties, who refers to wife as “HI”, the meaning of manic is not in my lexicon?

  31. BB and C@t….you deserve each other. I hope you enjoy everything that passes between you.

    No Briefly.

    If you’re going to post unreferenced bullshit, propaganda from the Chinese version of The Daily Telegraph and Fox News rolled into one, which in any case does not back up the information you offered – you were out by at least 12 months – then expect others to look into the matter and correct you.

    There’s been quite a lot of publicity recently into Chinese government infiltration into Australian politics, particularly Labor politics, and you do the party to which you claim fealty no favours by posting the kind of rubbish you have posted.

    Pathetic attempts at changing the subject to an ad hominem attack don’t cut the mustard either.

  33. We can probably be confident Covid-19 didn’t originate in Australia.

    And pretty confident it wasn’t “bubbling along” in Spain, for 15 months before it got to Wuhan, either, as was reported by the editor of our very own Western Australian People’s Daily, either.

  34. Yet another conflict for bushfire bill i see.

    No conflict L’arse. Just a necessary correction to the record.

  38. @Bushfire Bill

    Just a rather large correction on your claim that COVID19 was from China.

    You’re links are linking to Chinese propaganda sites, but it is quiet easy to search properly, with ease.

    https://www.9news.com.au/world/coronavirus-spain-found-march-2019-sewage/121be54b-e41d-4826-9e04-4e2e7abd1d29

    “Spanish virologists have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China, the University of Barcelona says. “

  39. Sprocket

    Sky with the likes of PETA Credlin, Andrew Bolt, Rita Panahi, Rowan Dean etc give Fox a run for their money.

  40. The senior army officer in charge of Australia’s special forces has admitted some elite soldiers committed war crimes in Afghanistan and blamed the atrocities on “poor moral leadership” in an extraordinary confidential briefing to dozens of troops at SAS headquarters.

    In a private briefing delivered in late March, Major-General Adam Findlay also made the stunning admission that war crimes may have been covered up and that Australia’s special forces will take a decade to recover from the long running investigation overseen by senior NSW judge Paul Brereton.

    Multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting revealed General Findlay, the Australian Special Operations Commander, briefed dozens of Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) soldiers at Perth’s Campbell Barracks, telling them, “Brereton knows more about this command than anybody.” General Findlay said Justice Brereton had interviewed hundreds of SAS personnel under oath and he had a “very strong evidential basis of what is fact”.

    “There are guys who criminally did something. But can you tell me, why was that?” General Findlay asked the soldiers present at the briefing. He then said Justice Brereton had identified “trigger pullers” and “names that come up beyond the trigger pullers” who enabled war crimes. General Findlay went on to blame the war crimes on what he described as “one common cause”.

    “It is poor leadership,” he said. “In fact, it is poor moral leadership.”

  41. BB:

    […and you do the party to which you claim fealty no favours by posting the kind of rubbish you have posted.’]

    So typical, you attack the person rather than the message, a message of which you’re so dumb about – I meanly dumb – which is, everyone loves your posts, including, but not limited to another. Quite pathetic!

  42. From what I understand, the most likely case is that the Virus mutated some time in 2019 in China, maybe after a less harmful version was mixing around with seasonal cold and flu viruses for years. It got to Wuhan in late 2019 where it exploded, being recognised as a new virulent strain at the very end of the year.

    All that may or not be accurate – I’ll believe what the science says.

  43. This is interesting, from Katy Adler BBC..

    ‘Most EU members have now approved an initial list of “safe” countries whose citizens will be allowed to travel to the EU/Schengen area as of 1 July. US not on list. Australia and Canada are. China would be, I’m told if granted access for EU travellors #COVID19 /1

  45. Lars Von Trier:

    Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 8:14 pm

    [‘Yet another conflict for bushfire bill i see.’]

    Dear BB likes conflict like diabetics like a pavlova.

  47. The feature of the first wave was how quick the peak was. 450 cases on 28 March then a rapid decline to 12 April whereafter there were levels that were not surpassed until the last few days.

  49. It appears 60minutes is a nothing burger, rehashing what is already been in the news about Moselmane.

    The only useful revelation would be who tipped off the 60 min crew to be outside Moselmane’s house at 6am in the morning.

  50. HoldenHillbilly,
    Called it like a week ago about the special forces. I think on twitter the speculation was why scomo was rattled.
    Anyway, I look forward for the charges to drop. About time the spcial forces were shattered.

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