It’s been a big couple of days for state opinion polls: a shock Newspoll from South Australia three weeks out from the election, a YouGov poll showing Labor still in front in Queensland, and a Resolve Strategic finding that Labor is back in the game in New South Wales. As well as all that, I can offer the following summary of miscellaneous developments to hang a new open thread off:
• The Age/Herald has related that the small sample of 170 Western Australian respondents from the recent Resolve Strategic poll had 64% supporting Mark McGowan’s decision to scrap the originally proposed date of February 5 for reopening the state’s border, with only 32% opposed. This compares with 39% and 47% respectively from the national sample of 1604.
• The Liberal National Party candidate for the Labor-held marginal seat of Lilley in Brisbane, Ryan Shaw, has announced his withdrawal. Shaw is an army veteran who served in East Timor and Afghanistan, and said he had made the decision to focus on his mental health.
• Lara Alexander will become one of the three Liberal members for Bass in the Tasmanian state parliament after winning the recount to succeed Sarah Courtney. This involved counting the ballots that elected Courtney at the election last May, which found Alexander prevailing over rival Liberal candidate Simon Wood by 5671 votes (52.9%) to 5051 (47.1%).
• The Poll Bludger, individually and collectively, was greatly saddened to hear of the death of Zoe Wilson, a.k.a. Lizzie, an unfailingly civil contributor to the forum of long standing, as was related yesterday in comments by Zoomster.
Financially crippling them is a good tactic in my humble opinion.
davidwh @ #790 Sunday, February 27th, 2022 – 4:56 pm
You’re on Bribie, I think. Cut off too?
Mr Mysterious:
Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 5:53 pm
[‘Any predictions for tonight’s newspoll (assuming there is one)?
I’ll say 53-47 ALP.’]
I’m backing your prediction, on the basis of the advantage Morrison has with the international imbroglio.
C@t
I am still here in hospital and expect to be discharged tomorrow. I expect to be read the riot act by Mrs BK telling me to slow down. I will ease my way back to Patrol duties during the week, I hope.
Snappy Tom @ #726 Sunday, February 27th, 2022 – 5:52 pm
The Libs both Vic and Federal are fast becoming a cult.
Newspoll prediction 57-43
Steve777
Brisbane’s received 134 mm of rain since 9:00 today, making it a total of over 700 mm (28”) in five and a bit days.
EDIT: That’s approximately equal to Melbourne’s average annual rainfall.
I live near Mt Glorious on Brisbane’s outskirts and I can assure you we’ve received around 1200mm in the past four days which is about Brisbane’s annual average rainfall, just ridiculous amounts really. In good news, the end of the deluge is approaching hopefully.
A lot of water from the dams will hit Ipswich and Brisbane in the next few days and with all local creeks in flood this could be worse than 1974. Looking pretty grim.
Major rain has started again north of Brisbane so not looking like clearing tonight. Just pray it does start to clear overnight.
BK,
So the plans to play Full Forward for Adelaide are officially shelved?
Late Riser yes we are marooned. BI Road and Bruce Hwy all closed in the usual places. Ok on the island as we have a big lake around us to drain the rainfall.
Listen to Mrs BK and take it slow and steady BK. Best wishes.
There are plenty of grounds on which Dutton can and should be subject to criticism and attack. I don’t think that these include fundraising for flood victims.
We’ll see how the Federal Government responds in coming days. Their efforts over the last couple of years with the Fires and the Plague don’t inspire confidence. They’ve probably already started a soreadsheet.
Steve,
I am calling bulshit.
He’s part of a Government that has $4.2 billion dollars in an emergency disaster fund that is accumulating interest and nothing else.
He’s part of the problem and not the solution.
Yes, GG, the Crows had been sniffing around.
A lost opportunity .
Best wishes BK.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/02/26/odds-and-ends-2/comment-page-16/#comment-3829851
Indeed, though there is an outlook, mindset underneath the posts, I find them to (generally) be experience, facts rather than opinion, beliefs based, I usually learn something from the to/ fro.
I’m tipping 55 or 54 to Labor in tonight’s Newspoll. It’s been a pretty good week for Scomo. He hasn’t done or said anything especially stupid (I mean, apart from nearly blinding himself, but nobody’s going to be thinking about that after the events of the last few days), and even a bitter partisan like myself has to admit that the federal government’s response to the Ukraine situation has been totally reasonable so far.
Mavis @ #803 Sunday, February 27th, 2022 – 6:04 pm
I expect the Ukraine conflict is a tailwind for Morrison. Partly due to it forcing him to look like he’s doing his day job and suppressing his desire to wash random young women’s hair and weld without a mask. It also blunts the extent to which he can be attacked.
Wonder if a favourable shift in the polling will prompt Morrison to skip the budget and visit the GG.
Davidwh:
I was lucky enough to be overseas during the 2011 floods, but I believe those happened without it really raining at all in Brisbane. If so, we could be in for some bad times once all that water flows down to us.
BK,
You’re problem was always that you made too many points.
Oh, and do hope you are alright over on Bribie, David!
Here’s hoping. The sooner to be rid of him.
Work To Rule at 6:26 pm
The big thing it does for Bullshit Man is it wipes everything else off the front pages. The economy ? Pandemic ? What are they ?
All good Asha. Best wishes for you if you are in Brisbane.
Most people have only a vague idea of what is happening but they can see petrol over $2 dollars a litre and people think Morrison will get a bounce out of that.
David:
Glad to hear it. I’m in a hilly suburb well away from the river and any serious catchment areas, do while I may be stuck at home for a few days, my place won’t be in any danger.
We can all giggle about the Russians running out .of fuel but it wouldn’t be quite as funny when the same thing happened here to our defense forces if attacked. Last time I looked, Oz would run out of fuel in a week if a hot war started.
Yeah we have strategic reserves……IN AMERICA!!!
It’d take a week to get here if it arrived at all.
Asha @ #819 Sunday, February 27th, 2022 – 5:29 pm
The rain event feels more like 1974 to me (major flood before 2011). It is another very slow moving and persistent system. In a way that is good becasue Wivenhoe Dam was built with a view to containing another 1974-like event. The SEQWater people seem quite happy they have enough capacity to manage it.
2011 had a different rainfall pattern, which was part of the reason the result was so bad.
As a matter of interest – mine – how will the donations of military hardware be delivered into the hands of the Ukrainians.?
Boerwar? C@t? You both seem to be all knowing in matters military.
Leon
Air drops and the Russians only control a small part of the country.
If there is a newspoll tonight our LNP will be leading 51/49
Drive a truck across the border from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia or Romania? The trains are also still running.
AJM:
Good to know.
If there is a Newspoll tonight, I think it will be same as last time or within half a percent each way (to accommodate margin of error). I feel that the numbers are getting baked in and that people have made up their minds about Morrison and his government.
Work To Rule:
Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 6:26 pm
Mavis @ #803 Sunday, February 27th, 2022 – 6:04 pm
[‘Wonder if a favourable shift in the polling will prompt Morrison to skip the budget and visit the GG.’]
The GG or the poster who has a problem with his overt aggression, and who dear moderator opined, to the words of said effect, adds little to this site?
BOM forecast is less rain tomorrow. 🤞
http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/forecasts/brisbane.shtml
Wayne @ #825 Sunday, February 27th, 2022 – 5:41 pm
Here’s hoping, and for reasons already posted.
Leon @ #829 Sunday, February 27th, 2022 – 6:38 pm
Don’t ask me, Leon. Haven’t you listened to Andrew_Earlwood or Seadog? I’m a fool who knows nothing but how to use google and even then I’m incapable of comprehending what it means. I merely live and breathe to glorify war and America. When not shrieking like Michaelia Cash.
Go ask the big dogs, Leon. They think they have all the answers. Careful though that you don’t disagree with them or they’ll call you out as being a fool too.
@TPOF – I basically expect the same. I expect there might be a small drop/lift in the ALP/LNP primary, but the Greens recover from their result last time – and that entails to the 2PP.
1974 Brisbane flood. Now that was fun. Looking out of the kitchen window, watching the water level creeping up the Hills hoist and then observing a large barge being swept down stream. Made a Big Bang when it hit the Centenary Bridge.
Cleaning up the house afterwards wasn’t fun though – stinking mud everywhere. And no help from Kevin Rudd either. Plenty from the neighbours.
BK @ #804 Sunday, February 27th, 2022 – 6:05 pm
Thanks for the update, BK. I’ll keep up my end of the bargain for as long as needs be. Look after yourself and let Mrs BK have the pleasure of your company in a relaxed and friendly, unrushed way, for a while. 🙂
Can I just put on record that I have almost no interest in military history, equipment or operations.
I must have missed the genes that code for it, although I am male.
I get the need for acquiring defence assets and the competence or otherwise of governments in doing so and am quite interested in that, although I wish we had a world where it was all redundant.
Leon @ #840 Sunday, February 27th, 2022 – 5:53 pm
The hazards of living near the river when you live on a flood plain. it is called a flood plain for a reason!
The interesting things about Newspoll will be the PVs for the General Reactionaries, Labor and the Under-Reactionaries.
Will the past apparent shift in PV to Labor appear to consolidate? Will the General Reactionaries appear to have recovered any support? Will the decline in the PV of the Under-Reactionaries that was apparent last time be repeated? Was that decline merely polling noise? Was it real?
Will the UAP register any change in support? Will there be any shift in favour of the Other option?
The PV gap between Labor and the General Reactionaries has been running at 5-6 points. Morrison will have been trying to eliminate that gap. Have the polemical, MSM and social campaigns raised by Morrison made a difference? Has the commencement of the Russo-Ukraine War made a difference?
Has the internecine war in the NSW Division yet ruined the chances of the General Reactionaries in that State?
Late Riser the radar is looking better here so hopefully BOM is right this time.
I hope Scott Morrison’s commitment to provide “lethal matériel” to Ukraine has more substance and timeliness than his commitment to bushfire relief, or vaccine provision, or the NBN, or a Federal ICAC, or a strategic fuel reserve.
Unfortunately, I can’t think of a better example of the proposition that effective policy requires more than a press release (and a compliant press gallery that doesn’t even bother to ask basic how, what or when logistical questions)
I would like to be a pacifist. The ‘warrior gene’ is not in me. Sadly, however, the time for beating swords into ploughshares isn’t happening any time soon. In the meantime we have to have defence forces and defence equipment, especially now that the world’s suddenly got more dangerous.
(Actually, scrap “suddenly”. It gradually got more dangerous over the last decade or so, but now it’s clear).
BK, have you had to resign your position of head groundsman at the local cricket ground?
Leon,
This is a sober analysis by two eminent academics that is very deasy to understand:
https://www.thebulwark.com/podcast-episode/russia-as-a-pariah-state/
Newspoll has to be pretty stable at 55-45 ALP. I don’t think there has been anything that has made the Govt shine to turn the around the ingrained perceptions. Indeed, the shananigans of the week seem to reinforce the perceptions of hopelessness like good old Tim Wilsons attack on the independent supporters putting up posters before the election is ‘offically’ called with the fines and dog in a neighbor.
For a laugh have been following the Twitter-verse to keep up to date on the travels of SfM and the response has been petty relentlessly critical, after all todays photo op at a Ukrainian Church?? Anything to politicise and play partisan politics with a show of god bothering.
The second more recent thing is the Dutton launching a gofundme for flood relief – I mean WTAF, are we now privatising disaster relief, why not spend some of the allocated but unused 4billion from bushfires or dip into the 16billion war chest and do your job of Government.