Two other new posts to note before we proceed: a summary of the South Australian election result, and an Adrian Beaumont guest post covering Ukraine, France, Hungary and the United Kingdom.
In what’s otherwise likely to be a barren week for polling, with most of the players having held their fire ahead of the budget, Roy Morgan published a result on Tuesday showing a narrowing in Labor’s two-party lead to 55.5-44.5 from 58-42 a week previously. The primary votes were Coalition 33% (up two), Labor 35.5% (down two), Greens 12.5% (up half), One Nation 3.5% (up half) and United Australia Party 1% (steady).
The state two-party breakdowns had Labor leading 53-47 in New South Wales (in from 57.5-42.5, a swing of around 5%), 60-40 in Victoria (in from 64-36, a swing of around 7%), 57-43 in Western Australia (in from 59-41, a swing of around 12.5%), 63.5-36.5 in South Australia (out from 60.5-39.5, a swing of around 13%) and 53-47 from the small sample in Tasmania (a swing to the Liberals of 3%). The Coalition leads 51-49 in Queensland, in from 54.5-45.5 for a swing of around 7.5%. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1404.
UPDATE: Now Morgan has an SMS poll of 1067 respondents conducted Wednesday and Thursday showing Josh Frydenberg leading Scott Morrison 46% to 28.5% as preferred Liberal leader, out from 38.5% to 31% in mid-February.
In further polling news, Ipsos has announced it will be conducting polling for the Financial Review during the federal election campaign using a mix of phone and online polling. Ipsos conducted polling for the full gamut of the Fairfax/Nine newspaper stable in the previous term, which includes the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, which now bring us monthly polling from Resolve Strategic. Unlike Resolve Strategic, it is a member of the Australian Polling Council and observes the body’s transparency standards. Ipsos was the one pollster that had an accurate read on the Labor primary vote before the last election, but this did not flow into superior performance on two-party preferred since it was balanced by exaggerated results for the Greens.
On the election timing front, the Financial Review has a headline that reads “Why the federal election will likely be May 21”, whereas news.com.au has one that says “May 14 most likely date”. The reasoning behind the former is that the Coalition’s standing in the polls means Scott Morrison will take every week he can get; the latter invokes the opinion of Labor strategists along with the fact that the Electoral Commission has booked out halls for that date, though I personally wouldn’t read much into the latter.
Scott Morrison said on Wednesday he will not be visiting the Governor-General this weekend as he has “a lot to do”, which just about rules out May 7 unless he calls it on Monday. Laura Tingle suggested this wouldn’t happen on the ABC’s 7:30 last night, as the government wants to get “some advertising out in the ether” and the Liberal Party still lacks candidates in key seats due to its legal tangles in New South Wales. Tingle concluded that “most people think that it will now be May 14”, with the announcement to be made late next week.
Victoria @ #97 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:20 am
Sad irony, Mt Disappointment, the southern most last rise of the Great Divide, from where they (Hume et al) hoped to see Pt Phillip Bay, but couldn’t because of the dense tall timbers
“1. Will take no personal responsibility for his own carbon emissions. None at all. Zip. Zero.”
Lets see:
Personal attack cause understanding and reaponding to debate at a level higher than primary school playground is beyond you.
Dishonestly distorting what I actually said so it is something I didn’t day, because I don’t know, your don’t hold yourself to a standard higher than liar?
What I actually said is two things:
Firstly the whole concept of a personal carbon footprint was developed by a fossil fuel company to distract and divert fools from actually solving the problem. I didn’t expect you to agree or even understand the point but that is not relevant to your dishonesty and bad faith.
Secondly I stated that I would not hold others to account using this nasty climate change denier adjacent virtue signalling right wing tool. So if you fly Perth to New York every second week that is none of my business.
Entirely contrary to your dishonest bad faith claim I did say wtte that everyone should make good decisions for them as they can. For the dunces in the class that means to consider and take personal responsibility for your decisions.
I was raised in a very conservative right wing Christian church, and I was always taught, to an insane level of unbelievable guilt verging on child abuse, to do the right thing first. It is one of the ways I differentiate an actual conservative christian from a charlatan like Morrison. And yes I was taught not to judge charlatans like Morrison but one doesn’t have to be a prisoner of ones upbringing.
I think the respect for authority and do not judge things are what lets bad and criminal behavioir flourish im these environments.
I’m sure it is an accident but you’ve hit a nail on the head, the fact I was taught one should take every effort to do everything right and not judge others is one of the reasons I find the hypocrisy in those who support Australias bad behavior and the deliberate undermining of international bodies, norms and standards but then turn to China and froth at the mouth over trivial bad behaviour and rant on about fictional application of the very rules amd standards they don’t believe should apply to them.
A wiser man who spent more time in meditation or even prayer, ‘Western Civilisations’ mediation with guilt, would pass by this intectually and morally bankrupt stupidity without reponse. But it is so wrong and so stupid it pushes my buttons.
PhoenixRed
Hospitalisation rates are creeping up again in both states.
Wonder if Perrotet is going to listen to the Nurses who have been protesting poor working conditions in light of the pandemic
Hearing rumours of a last minute plan to replace Ben Small with Sam Barnett, Colin’s ‘entrepreneurial’ son.
Itzadream
There will be an extensive report as to what occurred.
This helicopter company had a flawless record until now.
Hun has the same treatment of Albo’s aged care announcement as the DT on the dead tree front page. Is Murdoch leaving the harsh rhetoric to the Oz?
Footnote: Waited 15 minutes to post this as Morrison’s FTTN keeps cutting off.
I like this from Albo’s Budget Reply:
”This government might as well have stapled cash to your ballot paper,” he said. And then immediately after: “We’ll deliver those payments as well, because we know the pressure Australians are under.”
Has anyone asked the PM what cuts and sell-offs the Government is planning should they win?
Morgan is obviously rubbish. The Under-reactionaries will not be attracting a PV of 12.5%. 1/8 voters are not that stupid. Likewise, Labor and the LRP are not roughly level-pegging on primaries. It is not a credible estimate.
Having said that, the overall measure of not-a-Lib/pro-Lib sentiment – around 2:1 – is consistent with everything else that’s going on. The imputed 2PP measures in QLD at 51/49 are interesting. They foretell a change of government is coming.
Thanks BK. Out of interest, how long does the morning roll out take you?
I’ve never ‘got’ Michelle Grattan, mainly because I’ve never found that much to get, except longevity perhaps, and studied sombreness. In her rearranging of what everyone else has already said about the budget, she, the supposed Grand Dame of the CPG, drops this little pearl:
The only reason Labor wasn’t rewarded locally (it was globally) for the excellence of its GFC response, was, drum roll, the CPG.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-01/albanese-morrison-budget-election-battle-lines/100956988
It was good to hear Albo weave a mini history lesson into his speech last night. Many voters don’t have a clue where things they take for granted come from.
I think Labor should use the term ‘Labor’s Medicare’ more often.
‘Labor’s Compulsory Super’….’Labor’s PBS’….
I think he should have gone in hard on Howard’s 1996 Aged Care Act.
The one ‘written by providers, for providers’ as was noted by some at the time.
And, Steggall, if she ever had any credibility, lost it last night suggesting she’d back the coalition in a hung parliament situation with a different leader. What does it take FFS.
WWP
You have been abusing people for being ‘cultists’ and ‘climate criminals’ for ages.
”
C@tmommasays:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 8:11 am
WeWantPaul @ #37 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 8:01 am
“You can tell if Albanese & labor budget reply was spot on, the corrupt lib/nats propaganda media units are giving it little air as possible”
Is Labor getting it out through the socials and the fm stations? Or hoping people watched?
”
Cradle to grave! 🙂
Rewi @9:27: someone is planning to replace the voice of Thomas that Tank Engine?
citizen @ #106 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:30 am
I got ‘Labor’s Fibre to the Home’….so I can’t feel your pain. Sorry. 🙂
mundo says:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 9:34 am
Steggall, if she ever had any credibility, lost it last night suggesting she’d back the coalition in a hung parliament situation with a different leader. What does it take FFS.
Steggall is a Lib gone AWOL, as are most of the Lite. They are prodigal reactionaries. The Under-reactionaries – the Greens – will pref them ahead of Labor, hoping to forestall a Labor win and propping up their reactionary collaborators.
”
India’s Foreign Minister says it is natural for a country to seek cheap oil, as criticism grows over India’s purchase of discounted Russian oil.
https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/it-s-natural-india-s-foreign-minister-defends-inking-cheap-russian-oil-deals-20220401-p5a9x4.html
”
It appears that Indian Foreign Minister is implying that India is looking after its National interest like all other countries especially for a country which has lot of poor people and people who drive 2 wheelers and 4 wheelers.
Victoriasays: Friday, April 1, 2022 at 9:27 am
PhoenixRed
Hospitalisation rates are creeping up again in both states.
………………………………………………………………………………………
With winter just around the corner , Victoria , I dread how bad it may get really with the potential emergence of new, more virulent or vaccine‑resistant variants of COVID‑19
How is India going to pay for the oil, Ven? Putin says all oil has to be paid in Roubles now.
Surely rumours about Sam Barnett can’t be true…
Steggall, if she ever had any credibility, lost it last night suggesting she’d back the coalition in a hung parliament situation with a different leader.
Including, Dutts!?!
Steggall is 100% playing to her electorate. Not sure how her comments are surprising to anyone paying even the mildest attention.
”
”
Do Tradies like him because of “forceful blokey thingy “?
Rewi @ #105 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:27 am
But will he be just as clueless?
somethinglikethat @ #122 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:45 am
They love, Dutts!?!
Is Sam Barnett still trying to set up a zoo?
C@tmommasays:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 9:46 am
They love, Dutts!?!
—
I think she’s on #TeamJosh
A quick google of Sam Barnett turns up this 2018 article
https://www.murrayvalleystandard.com.au/story/5780710/former-wa-premiers-son-to-stand-trial/
References a charge of breaching a violence restraining order, mentions “previously [having] faced court for his actions during an argument with his ex-girlfriend at a Queensland hotel in 2016”, and “The previous year was also a tough one for Barnett as he was repeatedly punched in the face by a stranger at a Northbridge nightclub and had his Porsche deliberately scratched”.
Itep
Fancy having your Porsche deliberately scratched. That shows that life was not meant to be easy.
I’m wondering if the Rain has been exacerbating the Covid situation in Sydney and along the NSW coast and tablelands. It’s not cold, in fact it’s mostly reasonably warm, but it’s always either raining or looks like it’s about to. Parts of the great outdoors are a lake or a swamp, the rest a quagmire. Most people are staying inside, even more so than during lockdown. Social gatherings are confined to the great indoors. People are going shopping or to the movies or to the club rather than to the beach or the park.
I’m hoping that things might actually improve come Winter if it brings dry, sunny weather as it often does here.
Steve777
Cold today. We have gone from Darwin in January to Mt Wellington in July with nothing in between.
Coalition is refusing to release its costings for its $10 billion re-insurance pool. First it fucks up the climate. Then it fucks up the mitigation.
I’m happy to see the Teals further weaken the Lib position in the House… but Steggall and most of them
absolutely cannot be trusted.
I call them Tree Tories for good reason.
An election outcome where Labor does not have majority in the House and it’s decided (maybe) by the crossbench almost guarantees the RWNJs will have control of the Senate.
The consequences of this on the issue they claim to care so much about, and every other issue are clear.
“Steggall, if she ever had any credibility, lost it last night suggesting she’d back the coalition in a hung parliament situation with a different leader. What does it take FFS.”
Ha Ha Ha! I want to see the source of that first. But if that’s true that will quieten the staunch supporters of independents on this blog who suggest the only way to get action on climate change is a hung parliament and a make up independents in a minority government.
”
C@tmommasays:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 8:26 am
John Hewson
@JohnRHewson
Morrison boasts that he knows, unlike Labor, when to stop spending. Yet if our economy is roaring ahead as he boasts with the prospect of crippling debt why did he spend billions of additional dollars in the hope of buying votes in key seats?
”
Yeah why indeed?
“WWP
You have been abusing people for being ‘cultists’ and ‘climate criminals’ for ages.”
Yeah I know a lot about cults. And it isn’t abuse to tell someone they are in a cult or behaving in a cultish way, it is an attrmpt to help. Like they say in My Favourite Murder, ‘you are in a cult call your dad’.
And my climate crimes tribunals wouldn’t be targeting people that took too many holidays on jet planes or forgot to take reusable bags to coles, they would be targetting those in power who deliberately did things to stop or slow the needed response to the climate catastrophe.
Let’s be honest they will never be my climate crimes tribunals but if children amd their mates set them up in 20 years time they will be brutal. The entirely justified levels of burning rage amongst that group against the generations before them literally doing almost nothing to secure the planet they will inherit is a real threat.
@mundo:
“ And, Steggall, if she ever had any credibility, lost it last night suggesting she’d back the coalition in a hung parliament situation with a different leader. What does it take FFS.”
_________
She hasn’t lost any credibility over that statement: it is the Iron Price that she pledges as a Teal. All Teals running in otherwise safe (or even moderately marginal seats like Wentworth) need to make that pledge to be viable.
What must be always borne in mind is this: Steggall denies the Liberals a heartland seat and the political resources that come it. Good. She can also do some good for progressive causes whilst in Parliament, falling short of switching her vote on confidence and supply. Good good.
People increasingly talking about Barnett replacing Small on the WA Libs Senate ticket. Seems he’s got the X factor.
“ but Steggall and most of them absolutely cannot be trusted.”
Yes they can be trusted. 100% they will pay the Iron Price and pledge confidence and supply to the Liberal Party in the event of hung Parliament – perhaps with some very modest strings attached. Ie. Morrison is beyond the pale, so they wouldn’t support HIM. Not that that would matter: If ScoMo fails to win a majority, he’s finished. So Steggall etc would be supporting Frydenberg or Andrews … or maybe Dutts (an unlikely LNP leader IMO in the case of a hung Parliament).
Shellbell
Barnett’s zoo went the way of his dad’s far canal.
Political nightwatchman has lost any credibility he might have had by lying about what Zali said.
Zali Steggal said she “could be more likely to” support the coalition if they ditched SfM.
Not that she *would* back them.
Why do you think the teals should be required to swear a pledge of allegiance to Labor? How entitled are you
I like to see this poll-to-poll variation. It builds confidence that Morgan is at least running a genuine random-sampled poll.
Shellbell @ #131 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:55 am
Yep. The heater came out yesterday and the jumper today.
@Itzadream: Michelle Grattan barely even has a newspaper gig (Canberra Times? Come on) and what she writes on The Conversation probably has very little reach and relevance.
There’s no way Grattan would acknowledge that voter opinion on the response to the GFC or anything else was shaped by the press gallery hive mind echoing the Liberal Party any more than she’d acknowledge her appalling treatment of Julia Gillard.
Like a number of other CPG “journalists”, the one and only time she has ever got excited by Murdoch bias is when it was directed at removing Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader.
I have zero respect for Grattan, absolutely zero.
If Teals can eject a few Liberals from the House in seats that Labor can’t win, that would be a great improvement. However, I have no illusions about them. They are centrists who have more affinity with Turnbull- and Hewson-style Liberals than they do with Labor or the Greens. They would be Liberals if the Liberal party weren’t so right-wing and so recalcitrant on climate change. In my opinion, in a hung Parliament, they would be likely to try to extract concessions from the Coalition in return for support. That would still be an improvement. Every actual member of the Liberals is another Morrison or Dutton.
That being said, I still think it makes sense for Labor voters in unwinable blue-ribbon Liberal House seat to strategically vote Teal. However, in the Senate is has to be Vote 1 Labor.
ltep
Barnett’s capacity for drawing attention away from a flailing Morrison is a big positive. He’ll give the WA campaign a bit of ‘wow’ it’s otherwise lacking.
#samentum
somethinglikethat @ #127 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:48 am
Well, if Dutts gets the numbers she’ll have to either vote to support with Confidence and Suppy, him, or Labor, in a hung parliament.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #136 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 9:59 am
Hung parliament, Steggall backs coalition. Labor loses.
Bad bad.
Rewi @ #146 Friday, April 1st, 2022 – 10:09 am
Scott, like Trump, doesn’t like the spotlight being on anyone else but him.
Stegall is what we used to call an independent Liberal.
The issues for the independents, elected and candidates, appear to be (in no particular order) climate change, integrity, treatment of women and Morrison.
It would be no surprise if the Liberals took positive action on all four independents like Steggal might support them in the House on the two issues key to forming government: confidence and supply.
The rest is just theatre.
Hopefully Labor can win 76 seats, or more, and it won’t be an issue.
”
Victoriasays:
Friday, April 1, 2022 at 8:56 am
Good point
PRGuy
@PRGuy17
PORT RORT: Josh Frydenberg has set aside $2 billion (+ $5 billion) to build a new Darwin port because the Morrison Government sold the existing one to China. We’re yet to see media scrutinise this reckless blunder, or any of the usual suspects ask ‘can we afford this’.
”
Victoria
Isn’t the new Darwin port built for future resting place of Subs?
If so, as of now only VIC and TAS don’t have Sub base announcables.