More coronavirus polling, more Eden-Monaro by-election wash-up

More evidence that Australians are heartily satisfied by the approaches taken by their governments in tackling COVID-19, even in Victoria, plus some concluding book-keeping from Eden-Monaro.

When too much of the above is barely enough:

• The Australian Electoral Commission has published preference flow data from the July 4 Eden-Monaro by-election, showing exactly how many of each candidate’s preferences ended up with Labor and Liberal. Of the 6.34% Nationals vote, 77.73% went to Liberal and 22.27% went to Labor, compared with an unusually polarised 87.16% and 12.84% in 2019, and 55.98% of preferences from the 5.34% Shooters Fishers and Farmers vote went to Labor and 44.02% to Liberal, after the party directed preferences to Labor on its how-to-vote cards. More on this from Kevin Bonham.

• Roy Morgan has published an SMS poll conducted in Victoria, which finds strong support for the state’s lockdown measures: 89-11 in favour of compulsory face masks, 76-24 against reopening schools and day care centres to all, 71-29 against relaxing the 5km travel restriction, 75-25 against allowing table service at pubs, restaurants and cafes, and 72-28 against lifting the curfew. The closest result to dissent was a relatively narrow 57-43 against allowing visits to immediate family members, currently allowed only for delivering care or essential services. The poll was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday from a sample of 2110.

• A Pew Research Centre survey global survey finds 94% of Australian respondents believing their country had done a good job of handling COVID-19 compared with 6% for bad, a shade behind Denmark as the best result out of 14 countries. The only two countries that failed to crack 50% positive ratings were the United States and United Kingdom, at 47% and 46% respectively. Australia’s performance on the question of whether the country was now more united than before the outbreak was more modest, at 54% for more united and 40% for more divided, compared with a 14-nation median of 46% and 48%. The United States was a serious outler at 18% for more united and 77% for more united. The Australian component was conducted by telephone from June 11 to July 25 from a sample of 1016.

• The West Australian reports that WA Liberal Party state director Sam Calabrese will not contest the preselection to fill Mathias Cormann’s Senate vacancy, after earlier being considered the front-runner. The list of prospective nominees now seems to consist of Joe Francis, a Barnett government minister who lost his seat of Jandakot in the 2017 state election landslide; Sherry Sufi, arch-conservative party policy committee chairman; and Julian Ambrose, a director at construction company BGC and the stepson of its late founder, Len Buckeridge.

• My coverage of the Northern Territory election count contains with daily updates and live results reporting here. Labor has 13 confirmed wins out of 25 and leads over the CLP in another two; the CLP with six confirmed wins and leads over Labor in one; and the Territory Alliance with a lead over CLP in another.

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.

1,001 comments on “More coronavirus polling, more Eden-Monaro by-election wash-up”

Comments Page 4 of 21
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  1. BB @ 11:55
    “Those trolling the Andrews government are hoping that condemning the over-severity of lockdowns, then whingeing they weren’t severe enough, then back to condemning them again won’t be noticed by their readers and viewers.”

    It won’t be notices by Newscorp and many (most?) of their readers.

  2. My thoughts on Morrisons plan to have ultimate control of foriegn investment decisions.
    The states have shown for months now that being Prime Minister doesn’t give you ultimate power. The Premiers have been doing their own thing in regards to borders and people might actually be noticing that to a large degree Morrison has been irrelevant except for the money.

    This must annoy him significantly so he is publicly reasserting control. This is very important to him at the moment because he has to divert attention away from the mistakes they have made in respect to aged care. People might also be starting to question why we still have no bespoke federal quarantine system for returned travellers. His Daddy’s in charge performance is starting to look as if it was all a sham and he needs something to reassert his position. If as an unfortunate side effect more farmers and exporters lose markets, well, it’s national security. The fact that large parts of the public are paranoid about China will win him public support which is ultimately all he is interested in.

  6. Listening to Ivanka Trump, her father should do the right thing and permanently work on the golf hcp. Ivanka would do better, but pretty much any candidate will do better than Donald. A young woman up against Biden may not be a lost cause.

  7. The arguement that the virus spread in Victoria due to poor control measures on the part of security workers takes a bit of a hit when you factor in that health workers, wearing PPE and following good practices, are also getting sick. One of the biggest mistakes that have been made is assuming that aerosol spread was not a vector for infection.
    I read a couple of weeks ago that the committee making decisions on health practices doesn’t actually have anyone with experience in managing community spread. They are all health experts, and they may know a lot about disease, but that doesn’t mean they know how it will spread through a community. That is a completely different area of public health knowledge.

    The decision to go for a minimalist approach in regards to mask wearing, types of masks were all based on previous outbreaks. The lack of knowledge specific to covid should have prompted a response based on better safe than sorry. Instead we have hospital workers, elderly and disabled suffering because those in charge of managing this crisis acted too slowly and relied on insufficient data to make informed decisions.

    Morrison prayed that we would knock this on the head and return to normal and so has made no significant plans for a future that involves years of disruption and when this virus is dealt with you can bet another on will occur much sooner than100 years.

  8. It’s all we needed. Sigh…….

    See new Tweets
    Conversation
    Prof. Peter Doherty
    @ProfPCDoherty
    Having lived in tornado-prone areas, what we saw as we looked out our windows in Melbourne yesterday was the twisting wind pattern of a tornado or, thinking in terms of a Queensland childhood, a ‘super wiily-willy’.
    12:19 PM · Aug 28, 2020

  9. Mundo,

    You’ve been predicting Scrooter’s imminent downfall for some time with all this psychobabble BB….any day now?

    It’s not psychobabble. It comes from a life of experience dealing with sociopaths like Morrison. You don’t have to be a psychologist to assess someone’s character and see what motivates them. That’s a myth put about by the Psychologists’ Union.

    And I didn’t predict anything imminent. I simply observed the circumstances have usually ended each facet of Morrison’s career. I did the same with Abbott and with Turnbull, pretty accurately it turns out.

    I don’t care whether Morrison gets kicked upstairs, as long as he’s gone.

    The virus has come along to save his arse. Thank God for the Premiers and their parishional concerns, or else we would have had a disaster on our hands, like America or Britain. It was a close-run thing, too. Some of the medical types reckon a couple of weeks more of “going to the footy” and “business as usual” would have locked in a catastrophe. These were the preferred Morrison tactics, remember?

    The polling in his favour, while a measure of Australia’s virus “rankings”, is also a measure of how the virus, as a rising tide, has lifted all boats, including the hapless Morrison floating aimlessly in his intellectual tinnie.

    They are additionally a measure of a natural human tendency towards confirmation bias: to have voted Morrison down would have meant all the suffering he made us go through (eventually, albeit under coercion) had been in vain.

    So, I don’t put too much stock in his personal ratings. They are subject to tidal action as well. Abbott had high personal ratings once, as did Turnbull, as did Gillard, and Rudd. Look how quickly they all fell.

    Each time we get a new PM we hear stories of how they could be “PM For Life” if they wanted to be. This is basically what you argue, Mundo. But they never are. Past performance is rarely an indicator of future success in politics, as in finance. The cult of success is a myth. Don’t get swept up in the hype (particularly of your own making).

    Morrison does not have the temperament, the intelligence, the empathy, the social skills, the sincerity or the ability to forge genuinely close friendships that a successful Prime Minister needs. By “successful” I mean for the nation he purports to govern, as well as personally.

    The best leaders during this pandemic have been the “accidental” leaders, the ones who had “greatness” thrust upon them: in our part of the world, Ardern, Andrews and Palaszczuk come to mind. There are light years between them and the scheming, backstabbing, bullshitting, excuse-making blathering Morrison.

    He’s always come crashing down. He will again. And for the same reasons as before.

  10. In case anyone is interested, Trump is now officially the Republican candidate.

    “I stand before you tonight honored by your support, proud of the extraordinary progress we have made together over the last four incredible years, and brimming with confidence in the bright future we will build for America over the next four years,” Trump said, walking to the podium alongside first lady Melania Trump.

    (CNN updates)

  11. ”Morrison prayed that we would knock this on the head and return to normal and so has made no significant plans for a future that involves years of disruption”

    The War will be over by Christmas…

  12. Kakuru @ #107 Friday, August 28th, 2020 – 8:45 am

    Victoria
    “Instead of going into hotel quarantine. They are transported to a commonwealth run quarantine facility.”

    Put them on a cruise ship. I’m not kidding. Transfer all international arrivals to a cruise ship off the coast, physically separated from the rest of the community. All security guards, ADF personnel, etc to enforce quarantine can be quartered on the ship. No one leaves the ship until they test negative.

    Repurpose an airforce base. In very remote Australia. Not Pearce.

    Arrange free flights from overseas to air force base, provide two weeks accommodation and food, free flight to nearest capital city at end, all tests being clear.

    Let self supporting people fly in business class extortion by the airlines, let the hotels extort them for 14 days and impose an automatic $50000 fine on any quarantine breach by anyone entering Australia other than through the free airforce base.

  13. Bushfire Bill says:
    Friday, August 28, 2020 at 12:37 pm

    A stopped clock is right once every 12 hours.

    Whitlam
    Fraser
    Hawke
    Keating
    Howard
    Rudd
    Gillard
    Abbott
    Turnbull

    All PMships came to an end. Took 11 years to defeat Howard but they did in the end.

    So, amazingly Morrison’s time will come. When? I don’t know but you are right- it will end.

    Anyone seen any verification of Hewson’s claim that the federal LNP is now on an election footing?

  15. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #149 Friday, August 28th, 2020 – 12:07 pm

    Victoria @ #149 Friday, August 28th, 2020 – 10:05 am

    Barney ITB

    Returned travellers have to quarantine in hotels at own cost

    All.

    Apparently you can apply for an exemption.

    Those who appear to get an exemption appear to all rich or connected or both. eg kerry stokes, nicole kidman & family, tony abbott, the son of lindsay fox the billionaire trucker etc

    The Fed Government holds details pretty close but when criticized just says people can ‘apply’ and then won’t comment further.

  19. Bucephalussays:
    Friday, August 28, 2020 at 1:10 pm
    “Victoria was just unlucky.”

    Well, that’s the Victorian Judicial Inquiry done then. Submit the Report.
    _________________________
    I did say many weeks ago that Victoria Police pushed for private security to handle quarantine and that has been revealed at the inquiry. Why the government folded on this is another matter.

  20. If it hasn’t been pointed out already, William you’ve got some typos in the slab of text above:

    The United States was a serious outler at 18% for more united and 77% for more united.

    That should surely read ‘outlier’ and ‘77% for more divided.’

  22. Bushfire Bill

    Albo’s time as Opposition Leader will come to an end. You know I’m right.

    Would you like a list of all the ALP Opposition Leaders since Bill Hayden who’s terms came to an end?

  23. A simple pub test I toss at some of my Liberal voting friends is to outline to me how the country and ourselves are any better off after 6 years of the LNP in power Canberra.
    Their first gambit is to respond by saying, “Things could have been a lot worse under Labor”…Their second gambit is usually, “Things are not as good as they could be and a lot of this is to do with events beyond the government’s control”. Their final gambit is along the lines of “Things will get better…”
    To date none of them have been able to come up with any actual ways in which we, as a community, are better or ………………………………..Most are unable to enunciate one policy that Morrison took to the last election other than ….”We can’t afford Bill Shorten…………….”

  24. Tricot says:
    Friday, August 28, 2020 at 1:43 pm

    “To date none of them have been able to come up with any actual ways in which we, as a community, are better or ………………………………..Most are unable to enunciate one policy that Morrison took to the last election other than ….”We can’t afford Bill Shorten…………….””

    Well, that’s it. Send Albo’s partner in the Lodge to measure the drapes. LNP may as well not campaign and just save the millions from the AEC for something else.

  25. What are you worried about Bucephalus?

    All that blather, bluster, back-stabbing, outright lying, arrogance, condescension and refusal to take responsibility that your hero ScoMo shows off in in public is only for show.

    Privately he’s warm, inclusive, quiet, modest, collaborative, amenable to reason and fiercely loyal. You can tell from the looks on his colleagues’ faces that he’s only ambitious for them.

    Just ask Malcolm Turnbull, or Mike Towkes. They’ll concur, I’m sure. So will Abbott when he wakes up and pulls the broomstick out of his arse that Morrison put there.

    Scott Morrison only lies to journalists, but maaattteee, he’d never lie to you.

  27. The most amazing thing about this story is that John Laws is still on the radio! I thought he had put the cue in the rack long ago.

    From Guardian blog…

    ‘One more thing from earlier. Prime minister Scott Morrison told John Laws this morning that the Oxford vaccine candidate does not use cells directly from foetuses – it uses cells that were cloned from those extracted as long ago as the 1970s.

    According to AAP, he told 2SM radio:

    So it’s not current cells that have been taken from abortions or anything like that, this is stuff going back 40 years.

    And there are many vaccines at the moment that are out there currently in widespread use which draw on that.

    It follows religious leaders from the Catholic, Anglican and Greek Orthodox church saying that they would not personally take the vaccine, because they understood it contained cells from terminated pregnancies. The heads of the Sydney arms of those churches sought assurance that the vaccine would not be mandatory and non one would be forced to prescribe it.

  28. Morrison would surely be mad to go to a snap election right now. If one was actually due this year, then, yeah, he would probably clean up on a “We protected you from Covid” platform, but the Australian public have a long history of punishing opportunistic early elections, and would likely take an even dimmer view of an unnecessary one being called in the midst of a pandemic.

    More likely, Morrison thinks he’s untouchable right now, and will be quite happy to wait out his full term. He won the unwinnable election, his stuff-ups during the bushfires have been all but forgotten, his approval is soaring, and – for whatever little polling is worth these days – his government has a relatively comfortable lead that appears to be rising. Why mess that up?

  29. I thought John Laws died. I can remember a huge fuss Sky News made about him around 10 years or so ago. Definite hagiography territory from memory.

  30. I was able to stomach less than 5 minutes of Dotard’s speech – my takeaway was lies and sop. And nastiness.

    I will have to wait for some more fulsome assessments from people who sat through the full tripe.

  32. Richard John Sinclair Laws, CBE (born 8 August 1935), also known as Lawsie, was from the 1970s until his retirement in 2007, the host of an Australian morning radio program combining music with interviews, opinion, live advertising readings and listener talkback. His distinctive voice earned him the nickname “the Golden Tonsils”.

    John Laws
    Born
    Richard John Sinclair Laws
    8 August 1935 (age 85)
    Wau, Territory of New Guinea

    Despite retiring in 2007, Laws’ management confirmed in November 2010 that he would be returning to radio in February 2011, as the host of a morning programme on 2SM and the Super Radio Network.

  33. A few bad memories of John Laws..

    ‘In November 2004, Laws and 2UE colleague Steve Price were found guilty of vilifying homosexuals after an on-air discussion about a gay couple appearing in the reality TV show The Block. They described the gay couple as “young poofs”.[21] Laws had previously apologised for another incident in which he called gay TV personality Carson Kressley, of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame, a “pillow-biter” and a “pompous little pansy prig”.[22]

    On 19 March 2013 Laws interviewed a female listener, who described a history of sexual abuse between the ages of six and sixteen.[26] Laws proceeded to ask the woman if the abuse was in some way her fault and whether she had been provocative.[27] The following day Laws said on air that women who dressed provocatively were once viewed as “rape bait”.[28]

    In 2015, Laws referred to a male victim of child sexual assault as a “wet blanket” and told him to “brighten up”.[29]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Laws

  37. Fess

    The last time I saw him, in some sort of “how good is Lawsie?” interview, he looked like a death’s head. Perhaps that’s what gave you the idea. 🙂

  38. Asha Leu @ #175 Friday, August 28th, 2020 – 2:15 pm

    Morrison would surely be mad to go to a snap election right now. If one was actually due this year, then, yeah, he would probably clean up on a “We protected you from Covid” platform, but the Australian public have a long history of punishing opportunistic early elections, and would likely take an even dimmer view of an unnecessary one being called in the midst of a pandemic.

    More likely, Morrison thinks he’s untouchable right now, and will be quite happy to wait out his full term. He won the unwinnable election, his stuff-ups during the bushfires have been all but forgotten, his approval is soaring, and – for whatever little polling is worth these days – his government has a relatively comfortable lead that appears to be rising. Why mess that up?

    ‘More likely, Morrison thinks he’s untouchable right now’
    He is.


  40. WeWantPaul says:
    Friday, August 28, 2020 at 12:43 pm

    Kakuru @ #107 Friday, August 28th, 2020 – 8:45 am

    Victoria
    “Instead of going into hotel quarantine. They are transported to a commonwealth run quarantine facility.”

    Put them on a cruise ship. I’m not kidding. Transfer all international arrivals to a cruise ship off the coast, physically separated from the rest of the community. All security guards, ADF personnel, etc to enforce quarantine can be quartered on the ship. No one leaves the ship until they test negative.

    Repurpose an airforce base. In very remote Australia. Not Pearce.

    Arrange free flights from overseas to air force base, provide two weeks accommodation and food, free flight to nearest capital city at end, all tests being clear.

    Let self supporting people fly in business class extortion by the airlines, let the hotels extort them for 14 days and impose an automatic $50000 fine on any quarantine breach by anyone entering Australia other than through the free airforce base.

    Instead of all this bullshit with Hotels why hasn’t this happen.

    Why not remote mining dongas , why this half assed hotel bullshit.

    Morrison has a lot to answer, why was it pushed onto the states.

  41. mundo says:
    Friday, August 28, 2020 at 2:41 pm

    Beasley
    Crean

    Reasonable blokes not captive to the inner city luvvies.

    Raffle the rest.

  42. I remember a Victorian election where everyone and all the pollsters expected the sitting premier, the wrecker Jeff Kennett to win.

    He lost in a landslide and was put out to pasture where he tells Andrews to open, complains he opened up too early and fails to take responsibility for
    Closing Fairfield infectious diseases hospital
    Gutting the department of health
    Strangling public hospital system

    Men who went to scotch like him, women family with the health system loathe his guts

    I think ScoMo will come a cropper in a similar manner

  44. Bucephalus @ #190 Friday, August 28th, 2020 – 12:50 pm

    Interesting that Pelosi doesn’t want Biden to debate Trump. Why could that be?

    Tactics.

    Pelosi is applying the “rope a dope” strategy to get up Trump’s nose. Simple really, which is no doubt why it went completely over your head.

    Pelosi has been around long enough to know that Biden HAS to debate Trump.

    It’s interesting that you were one of the dopes she managed to rope in.

  46. Police have today arrested a 76-year-old Windsor male following an investigation into the organisation of a protest which is due to occur on Saturday 5 September.

    Following the execution of a search warrant, police seized multiple items including two laptops, a computer and two mobile phones.

    The male was subsequently charged with incitement, and has been bailed to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 8 February 2021.”

    The protest seems to have the same confusing collection of ideologies as most anti-lockdown protests to date – no masks, no 5G, somehow Bill Gates’s fault, etc.

  47. Bucephalus @ #190 Friday, August 28th, 2020 – 2:50 pm

    Interesting that Pelosi doesn’t want Biden to debate Trump. Why could that be?

    Because Trump will stalk around the stage and make a megalomaniacal ass of himself again, while getting away with telling sundry lies that go unchallenged and un-fact-checked by the debate moderators and broadcasters?

    No sane person wants Trump to have free airtime to broadcast even more lies and nonsense.

    Also Trump’s an obvious C19 risk.

  48. Danama Papers
    On the other hand it will boost those who earlier pushed the line Biden will avoid debates as he is a bit ‘senile’ . Trump may well be pleased with such a comment from Pelosi.

  49. At last, i realise why Adani is so loved and unquestionably supported by LNP politicians over above ordinary garden variety capitalist enterprises.

    It incorporates serious ‘unconscionable conduct’: everything that the contemporary LNP chancers love and admire (like robodebt, aged care abuse, refugee abuse etc).

    “Adani has quietly begun planning to rebrand its Abbot Point coal terminal – removing all reference to Adani in its company name and branding – as financiers continue to abandon the business and a Queensland court orders it to pay $106.8m in damages.

    The Queensland supreme court this week ordered Adani to pay four terminal users damages in a judgement that was scathing of Adani’s actions to advantage its own financial interests over other coal companies.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/28/adani-quietly-rebranding-abbot-point-terminal-as-company-hit-with-107m-damages-bill

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