Budget eve miscellany (open thread)

Labor maintains a 52-48 lead in the only poll to have emerged in the pre-budget lull.

As noted in the previous post, budget week means a calm before the following week’s storm in federal opinion polling. However, there is the following:

• The weekly Roy Morgan poll has Labor leading 52-48 for the fourth week in a row, though the stability is down to variable respondent-allocated preference flows, as the latest result has Labor up two points on the primary vote to 32% with the Coalition steady on 37%, the Greens up half a point to 13.5% and One Nation down half a point to 5.5%. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1654.

• The latest SECNewgate Mood of the Nation issue salience survey records 21% of respondents mentioning crime when asked without prompting about “the main issues facing Australians that are most important to you right now”, compared with 10% in the February survey, with cost of living continuing to dominate with 69% followed by housing affordability on 36%. A forced response question on national direction finds wrong direction favoured over right direction by 63% to 37%, out from 44% to 56% in February. Thirty-one per cent rate the federal government’s performance excellent, very good or good, down from 34% in February, while fair, poor or very poor is up two to 66%.

Preselection news:

• High-profile former state MP Kate Jones is reportedly in contention to take second position on Labor’s Queensland Senate ticket, which represents a vacancy because the party failed to win a second seat in 2019. Jones served in cabinet in the Bligh and Palaszczuk governments and held the seat of Ashgrove and its successor Cooper from 2006 to 2020, outside of an interruption when she lost it to Campbell Newman in 2012 before recovering it in 2015. She stepped aside from a position at a lobbying firm in March amid an ongoing controversy over the state government’s relationship with lobbyists, and is now an Australian Rugby League commissioner and executive director at the Tech Council of Australia. The idea is being promoted by Gary Bullock, Left faction figurehead and state secretary of the United Workers Union, and would disturb an arrangement in which the top position has gone to a candidate of the Left, in this case incumbent Nita Green, and the second to the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association. The Australian reports Jenny Hill, former mayor of Townsville and a member of the Right, will also nominate, and that she may be joined by factional colleague Corinne Mulholland, former candidate for Petrie and now in-house lobbyist for Star casinos.

• InDaily reports there are two contenders in the mix for Liberal preselection in the South Australian seat of Mayo, which Rebekha Sharkie of the Centre Alliance has held since 2018. “Outspoken” Adelaide councillor Henry Davis has confirmed his interest, but a party source is quoted saying both moderate and conservative factions were looking for someone “more competitive”. That might mean Rowan Mumford, conservative-aligned state party president and unsuccessful candidate for Kavel at the March 2022 state election.

• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reports Labor’s candidate to recover the Brisbane seat of Griffith, which Terri Butler lost to Max Chandler-Mather of the Greens in 2022, is likely to be Renée Coffey, chief executive of Kookaburra Kids, a foundation that helps children whose parents have a mental illness. Coffey is reportedly aligned with the Old Guard faction, which was once counted as a subset of the Right but now lines up with a dominant Left.

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.

1,726 comments on “Budget eve miscellany (open thread)”

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  2. Jesus f’ing Christ are people seriously stressing over polling 10-12 months out from an election?

    FFS.

    It’s Friday night – relax.

    Also, if there’s anything the last two US Presidential election tells us, polling should be basically ignored. What’s the vibe in September/October? That’ll tell you better than polling what will happen.

  5. Scottie Scheffler incident is a massive story for the PGA Tour.
    Rory filing for divorce and now this.
    LIV can’t believe it’s luck.

  6. Gina Reinhardt employs the same Mafioso-adjacent tactics that Donald Trump does. Make sure that your fingerprints are not found on the murder weapon.

    NB this is an analogy, to pre-empt FUBAR getting his knickers in a twist over it.

  7. “Cheer, cheer the red and the white,
    Honour the name by day and by night,
    Lift that noble banner high,
    Shake down the thunder from the sky
    Whether the odds be great or small,
    Swans will go in and win over all
    While her loyal sons are marching
    Onwards to victory!”

    This song sounds great and tune is good.

  9. Other issue with calling an early election is the redistributions in NSW, Vic and WA are not done, which, given they will have a different number of seats than last election will result in ‘interim boundaries’ that merge or split seats not necessarily nicely. (In NSW case it merges Wentworth and Warringah, ending one of the teals)

    That pretty much rules out an election before November/December.

  10. ”
    steve davissays:
    Friday, May 17, 2024 at 10:58 pm
    Swans must be favourite for the flag atm
    ”

    After 15 minutes I changed the changed the channel because Carlton were dominating and in front by 26 points after scoring first 4 goals.
    Then I went back to watch a few seconds before half time, Swans led 50-36, a turn around of 40 points.

  11. CNN
    Billionaires Jamie Dimon and Ray Dalio sound the alarm on soaring US government debt

    https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/16/business/jamie-dimon-ray-dalio-us-government-debt?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17159503791497&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2024%2F05%2F16%2Fbusiness%2Fjamie-dimon-ray-dalio-us-government-debt%2Findex.html

    ”
    The chorus of voices warning about the dangers of record US government debt is growing louder.

    In the past 24 hours, JPMorgan (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon and Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund, have weighed in with concerns about America’s debt pile.

    In an interview with Sky News Wednesday, Dimon said he hoped the US government would focus on reducing its budget deficit — the difference between what it spends and what it receives in taxes each year — before financial markets force it to.

    “The sooner we focus on it, the better,” Dimon added. “At one point, it will cause a problem… the problem will be caused by the market, and then you’ll be forced to deal with it and probably in a far more uncomfortable way than if you dealt with it to start.”

    Yawning deficits are adding to the overall level of US government debt because they require the Treasury to issue more bonds to plug the gap.

    Dalio said he was anxious about waning investor appetite for those government bonds, known as Treasuries. “I’m… concerned about the softening demand to meet supply, particularly from international buyers worried about the US debt picture and possible sanctions (against countries other than Russia),” he told the Financial Times.

    If investors become wary, they may demand higher returns — or yields — to own Treasuries — a risk already flagged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) — and that in turn could mean higher borrowing costs across the US economy.

  12. davidwh and Entropy at 3.11 pm

    Correct re pathetic sentence for Zumbo. 300 hrs of community service is what the unemployed have to do over 20 weeks just to avoid the farce of applying for jobs that won’t eventuate. The judge never had that obligation.

  14. How many times do I have to point out the facts of the matter wrt the assertion that we may have an early election!?!

    On the day after the Budget was handed down the PM stated specifically that the government will hand down a Budget in March next year. BEFORE the election. That kind of puts it out beyond this year, if you think about it for more than a nanosecond.

  15. World #1 golfer, Scottie Scheffler, believes he is above the law like Donald Trump and trys to weasel out of responsibility for his actions by saying, ‘it was all a misunderstanding’. 🙄

  18. “… the PM stated specifically that the government will hand down a Budget in March next year. BEFORE the election. That kind of puts it out beyond this year, if you think about it for more than a nanosecond.“

    Oh ye of lotsa faith. 😉

  19. Oliver Sutton, be snarky if you want, but having read profiles of the PM and specifically about how very deliberate he is, I don’t think he would have said that if it was not actually the case.

    As others have observed, the Budget didn’t look like a pre-election Budget to them. I agree.

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