Still more affairs of state

A whole bunch of privately conducted polls from Queensland and Victoria, some more convincing than others.

No media polling has emerged in the past week, but there have been a welter of reports at state level on private polling – rather too many, one might think, given the political agendas frequently attached to them.

In Victoria, where Liberals provided the Herald Sun with polling showing Labor copping a hiding in four marginal seats last week, Labor-linked firm Redbridge Group has pushed back showing a far happier set of results for the Andrews government. This includes a state voting intention finding with Labor on 39.1%, the Coalition on 34.5% and the Greens on 7.0%, converting into an estimated 53.5-46.5% lead to Labor on two-party preferred. Pollster Kos Samaras offers a few qualifications: that phone polls tend to under-report both Labor and the Nationals, and that the Greens’ inner-city constituency is “difficult to survey”.

On the state government’s road map for emerging from lockdown, 58.1% agree it was motivated by “the best interests of Victorians” with 31.3% disagreeing. Conversely, only 34.1% thought Scott Morrison and the federal government were playing a constructive role, with 50.6% disagreeing, and just 18.2% thought so in relation to the state Liberals, with 57.0% disagreeing. The poll was conducted last Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 2172.

There has also been a flurry of polling ahead of next month’s state election in Queensland, all of it portending bad things for Labor:

• The Australian reported on polling conducted for coal miner New Hope by Omnipoll, which was co-founded by former Newspoll head Martin O’Shannessy, has the following findings in Queensland, targeting four Labor-held seats outside Brisbane. The overall pattern was of an exodus from right-wing minor parties to the Liberal National Party, and of Labor losing a bigger share of the primary vote than they would probably be able to wear:

Ipswich: Labor 44 (-4), LNP 29 (+16), One Nation 5 (-22), Greens 12 (+3).
Keppel: Labor 34 (-9), LNP 40 (+15), One Nation 10 (-16), Greens 7 (+1).
Mackay: Labor 36 (-7), LNP 37 (+12), One Nation 7 (-16), Greens 6 (+1).
Thuringowa: Labor 33 (+1), LNP 40 (+19), One Nation 4 (-16), Greens 7 (+1), Katter’s Australian Party 7 (-9).

This tends to suggest Labor losing more support than they can wear, while the LNP soaks up a huge share of One Nation and KAP support that it had probably been getting back as preferences anyway. Labor won Ipswich by 10.9% over One Nation in 2017, and wouldn’t be troubled there on these numbers; won Keppel by 3.1% over One Nation, and would likely lose to the LNP; won Mackay by 8.3% over the LNP, and would likely hang on; and won Thuringowa over One Nation by 4.1%, and would likely lose.

• The Greens have been circulating results of three inner urban seats conducted by Lonergan Research, where the LNP’s move to preference them ahead of Labor makes them likely winners wherever they can finish second. In the party’s one existing seat of Maiwar, a strong flow of Labor preferences would likely secure victory for incumbent Michael Berkman, on 36% to LNP candidate Lauren Day’s 37%, with Labor on 17%. The party is reportedly well placed to defeat former Deputy Premier Jackie Trad in South Brisbane, where their candidate Amy McMahon has 36% to Trad’s 30%, with Clem Grehan of the LNP on 21%. They also look in the hung on in McConnel, which was once more appositely known as Brisbane Central, Greens candidate Kirsten Lovejoy is on 30%, Labor incumbent Grace Grace is on 29%, and LNP candidate Pinky Singh is on 31%, with 8% undecided. Notes of caution: The Australian cites Labor analysis that has the party expecting to win a very close race; Kevin Bonham discerns a tendency for the Greens to under-perform their own published seat polling; and even the pollster itself cautions that the Greens are “typically over-represented in polls”, as reported by the Courier-Mail. Each of the polls was conducted “over the past month” by phone and SMS from samples of 600.

• A statewide poll conducted by LNP-aligned think tank the Australian Institute for Progress was trumpeted in the Courier-Mail on Monday as a YouGov poll showing Labor on 32%, the LNP 38% and the Greens on 12%. However, it turns out these were the results of the paper’s own YouGov poll from early June that the pollster used as a weighting base for responses to a series of other questions. The Courier-Mail report no longer claims the poll was conducted by YouGov, but continues to present its numbers as fresh results. The new poll would actually appear to have covered barely more than 300 respondents drawn from the organisation’s own online panel, which is quite a lot smaller than those used by YouGov and Essential Research. For what it’s worth, it finds a 56-44 split in favour of the LNP to form government, plus other findings you can read in the pollster’s own report.

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.

898 comments on “Still more affairs of state”

Comments Page 3 of 18
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  1. Player One

    I heard the Fed Labor Leader on JJJ Hack – he fudged the answer a bit, using the line that the Libs plan is really just an announceable and it will change next week.

    They also had Mike Cannon-Brookes on just after Albo. He was very forthcoming about the need for renewables and that gas is a stupid idea. I wish he’d have a run at politics; although it’s unlikely the electorate would accept someone with shoulder-length hair.

  3. Player One @ #100 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 8:30 am

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #98 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 10:26 am

    Well I suppose when it’s more than a brainfart and the legislation is written then they will be in a position to respond to the relative merits.

    So, I guess you mean after Labor has lost the next election?

    Anyway, why are you so excited, this is what you have long been calling for.

    *sigh*

    No it isn’t. It is almost exactly the opposite of what I have been calling for.

    What you never argued to replace coal with gas? 😆

  5. Lynchpin @ #101 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 10:31 am

    I heard the Fed Labor Leader on JJJ Hack – he fudged the answer a bit, using the line that the Libs plan is really just an announceable and it will change next week.

    Yes, this is true. It is mostly just politics – but the Libs are better at that stuff than Labor is. They can see (as anyone can) just how badly Labor is conflicted on fossil fuels, and they will use this same tactic time and time again.

    They also had Mike Cannon-Brookes on just after Albo. He was very forthcoming about the need for renewables and that gas is a stupid idea. I wish he’d have a run at politics; although it’s unlikely the electorate would accept someone with shoulder-length hair.

    Again, I agree. Although he’s quite correct, Labor needs to stay away from people like Mike Cannon-Brookes – he can only lose them support

  6. Lynchpin

    I heard the Fed Labor Leader on JJJ Hack – he fudged the answer a bit, using the line that the Libs plan is really just an announceable and it will change next week.

    Albo’s right. It’s just an announceable. No flesh on its bones.
    Like everything else SfM does, no commitment, no responsibility.
    Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes
    If it doesn’t get the desired response then he drops it.

    “These are my policies, and if you don’t like them……well… I have others”
    (apologies to Groucho)

  7. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #103 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 10:33 am

    What you never argued to replace coal with gas? 😆

    Yes, but as a transition fuel, and not by expanding unconventional gas extraction and not by increasing fossil fuel subsidies. The Libs are proposing opening new unconventional gas fields and then permanently entrenching another heavily subsidized fossil fuel into our generation mix.

    If you can’t see the difference, you are not really looking.

  9. Player One @ #107 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 8:44 am

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #103 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 10:33 am

    What you never argued to replace coal with gas? 😆

    Yes, but as a transition fuel, and not by expanding unconventional gas extraction and not by increasing fossil fuel subsidies. The Libs are proposing opening new unconventional gas fields and then permanently entrenching another heavily subsidized fossil fuel into our generation mix.

    If you can’t see the difference, you are not really looking.

    What do you think your proposition would have done? 😆

  10. Socrates @ #96 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 10:20 am

    On the gas scam, Project Zero Shame, you do not need to be an environmentalist to be opposed. This is using government money to bail out foreign owned gas corporations from failed investments.

    The technical aspects of the “Clean energy” claims of gas powered hydrogen generation have been shot down by experts.
    https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Insight-66-Hydrogen-and-Decarbonisation-of-Gas.pdf

    So have the economics:
    https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/there-is-no-magic-hydrogen-bullet-coming-20191106-p537t6

    If only we had some sort of “Opposition Leader” to oppose this?

    Lol. Campaigned against this?

    If not, then why deprive other states of their share?

  12. I do like the way P1 rejects any idea that Labor’s policies could be nuanced – they should be either for or against on every issue – but when challenged on apparent contradictions in his own stance, resorts to convoluted explanations filled with qualifiers.

    You think he’d be able to grasp that that’s actually the sensible reaction with most policy, because the world isn’t a simple and straightforward place and right/wrong, black/white, good/bad rarely fits reality.

  14. Gas as a transition fuel probably made sense once upon a time. Things have moved on (e.g. we’ve since learned that gasses escaping during extraction are a significant problem).

    Like most people in denial on AGW, the Coalition are turning up after the party is over. They’re tracking behind the curve all the way. At some point I actually do expect that they (or people like them, since we may be talking future generations :P) will agree to tough emissions targets (and boast about how they’ve come around, and how they have the only sensible, practical and realistic policies) but only after those targets are too little, too late, and much tougher/drastic measures need to be taken (which of course they’ll oppose until those measures too are too little, too late).

    Well maybe. I expect some of them to skip the proactive action alltogether and go straight for geo-engineering because there’ll be a market for fancy geo-tech for those who can afford it :P. At which point they’ll be styling themselves as environmental philanthropists …

  16. LP

    [They also had Mike Cannon-Brookes on just after Albo. He was very forthcoming about the need for renewables and that gas is a stupid idea. I wish he’d have a run at politics; although it’s unlikely the electorate would accept someone with shoulder-length hair.]

    He could run against Dave Sharma in Wentworth

  17. I’d LOL if it wasn’t so serious.

    on the Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon recapped Trump’s latest appearance on the Fox & Friends morning show, during which he appeared to catch the hosts by surprise when he announced he’d call in once a week. “That’s right, it will be one call a week and 168 hours per call,” Fallon joked. “I’m not surprised Fox had to schedule a weekly call with Trump,” he continued. “He’s like your relative who always calls at the worst times — ‘oh, you’re in the shower? That’s interesting, I was taking a shower the other day…’”

    During his 47-minute Fox & Friends appearance – host Steve Doocy noted the exact time – Trump also claimed that he read journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, Rage, “very quickly” and called it “very boring”.
    “It was very boring,” said Fallon, imitating the president. “None of the pictures popped up and nothing I scratched made a smell.”

    As for Trump’s claim that he read a 480-page book in one night – “please, I have more faith in there being a real vaccine before the election,” Fallon said. “The only way Trump finished a whole book in one night is if he ate it.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/sep/16/trevor-noah-trump-climate-crisis

  18. zoomster @ #112 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:03 am

    I do like the way P1 rejects any idea that Labor’s policies could be nuanced – they should be either for or against on every issue – but when challenged on apparent contradictions in his own stance, resorts to convoluted explanations filled with qualifiers.

    You think he’d be able to grasp that that’s actually the sensible reaction with most policy, because the world isn’t a simple and straightforward place and right/wrong, black/white, good/bad rarely fits reality.

    Not having a consistent policy position is not “nuanced”. It is just foolish. It makes it so easy for Labor to be tripped up on this issue. Which is exactly what happens every single time it comes up. Why do you think the LNP continues to do so?

    As for the “apparent contradictions”, please point those out … if you can … and I will be happy to educate you.

  20. Player One @ #113 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 9:13 am

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #109 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 10:49 am

    What do you think your proposition would have done? 😆

    I am not sure whether you are just being deliberately obtuse, or you really don’t get it 🙁

    Your plan would have locked in gas in the same way coal is at the moment and we’d have the same fight to get rid of it that we have now.

    Alternately we’d have a huge amount of stranded assets. Those resources would have made a much greater and more permanent impact if they had been put directly into renewables instead.

  21. Five new cases in NSW.
    The number of new daily cases has been oscillating between 4 and 10 for a couple of weeks. They have oscillated between low single figures and the low 20s for two months.

  22. DisplayName @ #114 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:13 am

    Gas as a transition fuel probably made sense once upon a time.

    Yes, it would have slightly less impact now than a few years ago … but as long as we continue to burn coal, it still makes sense.

    Of course, you have to start by realizing that we actually need to stop burning coal as fast as possible, and this is something that some people – and political parties – simply can’t seem to accept 🙁

  24. I personally don’t see any benefit for labor in getting too excited about Morrisons gas announcement. Continually repeating its an announcement, there is no legislation yet, it’s Morrison being a bully, is all that’s needed.

    Continually reiterating that Morrison does announcement not actions is a strategy that should be used constantly. The Libs have proven that even untruths can be sold if mentioned often enough. Let people continually hear, announcement not action and link it to the Libs.
    There will be an election before Morrison can get his plan up and running so Labor doesn’t need to lose anything over this. They do need to be projecting an image of calmly pointing out the more pressing issues that Morrison is not dealing with, such as jobs and a liveable income for the jobless.

    I loved the quote somebody made, with words to the effect of if its announced it doesn’t happen if it happens it’s not announced. Labor should use that frequently.

  27. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #120 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:22 am

    Your plan would have locked in gas in the same way coal is at the moment and we’d have the same fight to get rid of it that we have now.

    Alternately we’d have a huge amount of stranded assets. Those resources would have made a much greater and more permanent impact if they had been put directly into renewables instead.

    Yes, your “sit back and pray” alternative is working out so much better, isn’t it?

    Bushfires anyone? Extinctions? Catastrophic storms? Unprecedented floods? Pandemics?

  28. A well-done You Tube video.

    This guy starts out travelling to a mountain lake to debunk Flat Earth theories, by proving and demonstrating that the curvature of the Earth is measurable over even a few kilometres, and he ends up following a much more sinister trail…

    “The bottom line is that Flat Earth has been slowly bleeding support for the last several years… because they’re all going to QAnon.

    QAnon is a fascist-biblical-esoteric-apocalypst cult that believes an anonymous government agent, known only as ‘Q’, is leaking sensitive, above-Top-Secret ‘information’ to ‘patriots’, revealing that the political and cultural opponents of Donald J. Trump – the so-called ‘Deep State’ and ‘Hollywood Elite’ – are the minions of ‘The Cabal’, literal Satan-worshipping paedophiles who kidnap, traffic, molest and terrorize children in order to produce and harvest Adrenochrome – a by-product of the body’s processing of adrenalin – which they use to get high during their ritual worship of Their Lord – who is, again, Satan – a constructed enemy so cartoonishly evil that it justifies discarding basically all human rights in order to to turn opposition to Trump into a crime (in a sweeping authoritarian purge of ‘undesireables’ and political opponents) called ‘The Storm’, who will usher in an age of Peace and Prosperity called ‘The Great Awakening’.”

    In Search Of A Flat Earth.

    Well worth watching if you want to understand what’s behind Trump, and Morrison by some accounts.

  29. a r @ #125 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:29 am

    Player One @ #122 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:25 am

    Of course, you have to start by realizing that we actually need to stop burning coal, oil, and gas as fast as possible

    Fixed it for you.

    Nope. Coal is the biggest culprit. By a long way. And also by far the easiest to replace. Giving up coal as fast as possible gives us the necessary time to eliminate the other fossil fuels.

  30. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #126 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:30 am

    DisplayName @ #114 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 9:13 am

    Gas as a transition fuel probably made sense once upon a time. …

    Gas transition only made sense before we realised that we needed to move away from burning any fossil fuels at all.

    So probably about 30 years ago.

    This is just your latest excuse for doing nothing. You and Briefly. Different voices, same song.

  31. Rich people look up to rich people so declining to have someone in Labors ranks who is super rich doesn’t make sense to me.
    A man with long hair, again I don’t see a problem with it. We had a PM who strutted around in buggie smugglers, something that I personally find more confronting than long hair.

    Labor needs an assortment of people to stand, especially as the Libs like to refer to all Labor ministers as Union hacks.

  32. Player One @ #127 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 9:31 am

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #120 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:22 am

    Your plan would have locked in gas in the same way coal is at the moment and we’d have the same fight to get rid of it that we have now.

    Alternately we’d have a huge amount of stranded assets. Those resources would have made a much greater and more permanent impact if they had been put directly into renewables instead.

    Yes, your “sit back and pray” alternative is working out so much better, isn’t it?

    Bushfires anyone? Extinctions? Catastrophic storms? Unprecedented floods? Pandemics?

    What renewables aren’t being built and integrated into the power grid?

    It seems they are progressing much faster than your gas plants have and ever would have.

    There is no magic switch!

  35. Non @ #16 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 6:32 am

    One of the stakeholder groups in WA that were in favour of fracking were aboriginal landholders in the Kimberley. Fracking has been banned in WA by the McGowan government despite the possible economic advantages fracking would offer remote communities. This had been a very significant factor in the thinking of some of the unions here, who have a very long-standing commitment to support the economic, cultural, social and political defence of first peoples in this State and elsewhere.

    If the decisions are being made from a basis of poverty and neglect, imposed by us whitey’s, when Big Mining has the money, resources, and power, and the locals have nothing, how much can local support be called ‘choice’?

  36. NSW
    2 in hotel quarantine
    2 known cluster contacts in isolation during infective period
    1 in Wagga suspected to be false positive ( second test was negative)

    NSW overtakes Victoria for total number of tests

  37. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #132 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:39 am

    What renewables aren’t being built and integrated into the power grid?

    It seems they are progressing much faster than your gas plants have and ever would have.

    There is no magic switch!

    I do try and understand why some people continually oppose taking any actual positive action to address global warming.

    I generally fail 🙁

  40. Oh dear nobody cares for the Liberals Gas announcable, and the Greens are upset Labor is treating their Liberal/Green wedge with the disdain it deserves.

  41. Player One @ #137 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 9:45 am

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #132 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:39 am

    What renewables aren’t being built and integrated into the power grid?

    It seems they are progressing much faster than your gas plants have and ever would have.

    There is no magic switch!

    I do try and understand why some people continually oppose taking any actual positive action to address global warming.

    I generally fail 🙁

    What supporting the building of renewables is not taking a positive stand, whereas supporting more gas plants is? 😆 😆 😆

  45. The Australian citizenship test will be updated for the first time in more than a decade to include a section on Australian values.

    In the new test, would-be Aussies will be asked things like: “Should people in Australia make an effort to learn English?” and “In Australia, do religious laws override Australian law?”

    The questions also include more confronting questions such as whether it is acceptable for a husband to be violent towards his wife if she has disobeyed or disrespected him.

    Acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs Alan Tudge said he wanted would-be citizens to have a better understanding of the nation’s values before they were declared Australian.

    “The updated citizenship test will have new and more meaningful questions that require potential citizens to understand and commit to our values like freedom of speech, mutual respect, equality of opportunity, the importance of democracy and the rule of law,” he said.

    “We are asking those who apply for citizenship to understand our values more deeply before they make the ultimate commitment to our nation.”

    The updated citizenship test will have 20 multiple-choice questions, including five questions on Australian values.

    Applicants will be required to correctly answer all five of the questions on Australian values, with a mark of at least 75 per cent overall, to pass the test.

    There will be no changes to the English language or residency requirements for citizenship.

    https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/would-you-pass-the-new-aussie-test/news-story/5ae5e57615e5068d7b06ecb676886686

  47. Player One @ #143 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 9:54 am

    Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #141 Thursday, September 17th, 2020 – 11:48 am

    What supporting the building of renewables is not taking a positive stand, whereas supporting more gas plants is? 😆 😆 😆

    Actively working to eliminate the burning of coal is taking a positive stand. Why are you opposed?

    What all these new renewables coming on grid aren’t challenging coals viability? 😆

  49. The unemployment figures just released are obviously very interesting.

    7.5% for July down to 6.8% for August.

    It will be interesting to see how many Australians have “ left” the workforce and stopped looking for work ie just given up.

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