With nearly every pollster in the game having pitched in last week, a quiet period looms. The weekly Roy Morgan should be along later today as always, and DemosAU is about due for one of its big-sample MRP projections. On the broader electoral front, there is the following to report:
• The Weekend Australian had the quarterly Newspoll detailed breakdowns from its four polls conducted in April, May and June. The state results show movement towards One Nation and away from Labor clearly evident in Victoria and South Australia, less evident in New South Wales, and not at all evident in Queensland and Western Australia, with Labor gaining three points in the former case. Breakdowns by education are distinctive in that One Nation is up six among those with technical qualifications, but effectively unchanged for everyone else. Voting intention is barely changed among 18-to-34s, whereas One Nation are up significantly among the older cohorts. Presumably inspired by the budget tax measures, the breakdowns now include housing tenure, as commonly featured by other pollsters. To commemorate the occasion, I have added tabs for these results to the BludgerTrack poll data features (keep clicking the “more” tab until you see them).
• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has published an interim report from its routine inquiry into the last election, which notably focuses on aggressive behaviour at polling booths. The majority report cites data on public complaints received by the AEC, and recommended that “election participants” be required to register and observe a code of conduct. The AEC, whose bailiwick currently ends six metres from the entrance, would enforce this code within a “campaign zone” around the polling place, in which signage limits would also apply. The report argued that much of the offending behaviour “seemed to involve third parties”, and while it didn’t name names, committee chair Jerome Laxale told parliament while tabling the report of “an assault by third parties identified in submissions like the Plymouth Brethren and Advance”.
• Certainly the Plymouth Brethren angle had been divined by the committee’s Coalition members, who headlined their dissenting report “less inquiry, more hyperpartisan witch hunt” – the latter having been directed against “Australians based on their religious faith”. While acknowledging aggressive behaviour was an issue, their own volunteers having been “targets for intimidation by unions and other third party organisations on polling booths for many elections”, the Coalition members forcefully rejected the recommendations as burdensome, open to abuse and possibly unconstitutional. Also in the Coalition report was a call for the early voting period, already truncated from three weeks to two before the 2022 election, to be reduced to one week, and for the AEC to be “more strident on ensuring that people accessing pre-poll are doing so for one of the reasons prescribed in the Act”.
• The official determination of how many seats each state and territory will be entitled to at the next election, which is calculated a year into each parliamentary term, will be made later this month. Antony Green has done their work for them based on the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics population data, and concludes there will be no change from the status quo, Queensland having recorded not quite enough growth to get it over the line for a thirty-first seat. Queensland will nonetheless get a redistribution under the seven-year rule, which is now overdue after being twice delayed: first because of the election, and then because there was no point commencing the process until it was clear how many seats the state would have. Proposed boundaries were published in March for South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, final boundaries for which are expected later this month.
• Wendy Askew has brought forward the retirement she recently announced for the end of her term in mid-2028, now to take effect in a “few weeks”. This means two vacancies are now available for Tasmanian Liberal Senate seats, together with that created by Jonathan Duniam’s surprise retirement announcement last month.
Hh
Trump already totally cut trade with Spain a month or so ago.
So now he is doing it again.
It is starting to look as if, from time to time, some of Trump’s underlings are ignoring certain of Trump’s ravings.
So the notion that Ukraine is fighting nothing much more than a petrol station, which was the proposition I responded to originally, is close to being war propaganda.
Blattodea doing good.
Let’s all be better to women. I suggested the same weeks ago.
Link: https://www.pollbludger.net/2026/06/07/newspoll-labor-30-one-nation-31-coalition-18-open-thread/comment-page-10/#comments
nadiasays:
Monday, June 8, 2026 at 8:27 pm
…Prem Allan is a clueless cow for allowing the “group ticket voting” system to remain in place.
She’s clueless.
Subsequent language summarised:
“clueless cow, She’s clueless, silly, stupid cow, She’s an idiot, If she wants to play the “I’m being picked on card” that’s her problem, Lazy Cow, Spare me the moralising about who is a cow, a witch or bitch, Premier Allan is an idiot, She is a clueless cow.”
Boerwar
Russia’s production capacity is far less than before. It is still more than Ukraine, a quarter of its size and population, which gets its factories regularly bombed.
Also Russia inherited the vast weapon stockpiles of the former USSR. It has been burning through them.
I never said it was a petrol station. But bear in mind Russia is now relying heavily on imported North Korean ammunition, while largely unable to defeat a nation less than 1/4 its size.
I agree the Ukraine war is headed for a negotiated settlement.
…go Kwee Lan?
Boerwar – Trump didn’t cut trade with Spain. He said he would, but he doesn’t have the power to do that, so it didn’t happen. He says a lot of things…
DemosAU Tasmanian state poll: LIB 28, ALP 21, ON 21, GRN 14, IND 12.
https://pulsetasmania.com.au/news/one-nation-debuts-on-21-as-major-party-support-slumps-in-tasmania/
BW @ 8:38p
cheers
@DPRee at 8:39pm
Oh please don’t start bringing in AI shit like that to attack people, if we start doing that then we’re all finished as humans, while the billionaires sail into the sunset laughing on their megayachts while the rest of us kill each other.
Anyone who thinks Zelensky is going to sit down and negotiate away territory is out of touch with events and reality
Asha says:
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 at 8:25 pm
Frednk:
If you were not familiar with the slang that is exactly how you would have to interpret it.
Every person with more than three functioning braincells understood what “shag” meant in that context.
With two they would have not taken the PM’s comments out of context. With three they would realize they are making fools of themselves.
Iran Ceasefire is dead, buried and cremated
Trump declares Iran ceasefire is over, calls its leaders sick, bunch of scum
Weeks after signing an interim peace deal to end the war, Donald Trump said the US-Iran ceasefire was over as the countries traded strikes overnight. The US unleashed a new wave of military strikes on Iran after it claimed Tehran hit three ships in Hormuz.
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/dont-want-to-deal-with-them-theyre-sick-trump-says-iran-ceasefire-is-over-after-hormuz-ship-attack-2943196-2026-07-08
Trump is a scum of historic proportions.
Japanese 10 year bonds hit a new 30 year high tonight… Back to 1996… Around about the time that the Spice girls debut single “Wannabe” was released….
“I wanna—, I wanna—, I wanna—, I wanna—, I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig, ah.”
I think Trump will go in. The Iranian leadership does not have full control, so no ceasefire will hold. It is not like the ceasefires in other regions, where some tit for tat is allowed. Closing the Strait means the US will respond.
I was the one that said Russia was a state masquerading as a petrol station, with no petrol.
The phrase originates from late U.S. Senator John McCain who famously called Russia a “gas station masquerading as a country” in 2014. This label highlights an economy heavily dependent on oil and gas exports rather than a diversified industrial base
AI? https://www.pollbludger.net/2026/06/07/newspoll-labor-30-one-nation-31-coalition-18-open-thread/comment-page-11/#comments
The person who started this discussion DID say that Russia was nothing much more than a petrol station. That is the context of my comments.
I agree that Russia’s production is far less than it was before. But even so it is still constructing in the order of 700,000 cars and 40,000 heavy trucks a year.
We agree that the War is stalemated.
In terms of manoeuvre, the Front is worse than the worst days of WW1. The defence is overwhelmingly dominant. OTOH, neither side can stop the other side from inflicting dreadful mid- and long- range damage using missiles etc.
Incidentally, it is possible that russian deserters number considerably less than Ukrainian deserters. I am not sure about this. The reported numbers tend to look that way but I don’t trust those numbers. The logic is that the russians have troops behind the lines whose task it is stop or to shoot deserters. The Ukrainians do not.
Steelydan I feel that you’re not taking Trumps well known yet somehow still astonishing ball crippling pure weakness into account.
I am sorry about this nadia. I don’t usually go third man in but I really am sorry about this. Take a break. Look after yourself and please do come back when you are ready.
Steelydan – What is Trump going to go in with? There is no the military forces to go in, there is basically no public support for war. Any attempt to start a land war is going require a lot more than a few thousand marines. To occupy any part of Iran is going to require more troops than the US has available. The US military doesn’t even have the ammo to continue the war at the same pace as they did for the first month of the war.
Thanks.
Boerwar at 8.25 pm
“Taylor blunders along”. Also Hastie.
Ms Ferguson was surprised on 7.30 when Hastie could not give a simple endorsement of multiculturalism.
The Libs, including Hastie, are a long way to the right of where M Fraser was in 1975, let alone in retirement.
Link: https://www.pollbludger.net/2026/06/03/federal-polls-yougov-and-roy-morgan-open-thread-3/comment-page-1/#comment-4728396
Taylormadesays:
Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 7:42 am
The Age Editorial 03/06/26….
_______________________
Now we’re supposed to believe the Allan govt will finally do something about it in late 2027 if they are re-elected. Pigs might fly.
______________________
My reply –
DPReesays:
Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 7:49 am
LoL Taylormade. Quick, put Jess Wilson in a cosplay piggy suit, she will fly!
“ A network clock can be disciplined by a quantum clock.”
So why didn’t they reset to the quantum clock?
@nadia
Honestly understandable. I think I’m going to also take a break from this place, I’m falling into old habits and I really need to stop, so, going to do that as well.
A piece of helpful advice I got recently was “the modern news is designed to make you alert and frightened and miserable and keep your attention”, yet “if you miss it for a week, not much changes.”
So yeah, going by that for now. Of course if something big happens I’d probably comment.
Diogenes
Interference from a quantum weather balloon imo
‘Trump will go in’ implies an invasion of Iran. He wants to get out. Going in equates to failure.
1. The US side was the first side to fail to deliver on its MOU commitments. I refer specifically to Netanyahu’s continued bombing of Lebanon and his continued occupation of southern Lebanon. Why does this matter? Because your framing of the US as ‘responding’ is bullshit. Iran responded to the inability of the US to deliver. Iran WAS delivering on its side of the MOU. Until the US did not.
The US is now reacting to that response. All this inevitable shite is on Trump being unable to deliver on Netanyahu and on Netanyahu for being an out-of-control monster.
2. ‘in other regions’ is irrelevant. Trump failed to deliver in THIS region.
3. No ceasefire can possibly hold unless Trump can learn to control Netanyahu OR until it suits Netanyahu. If anything, the latter seems more interested in expanding the conflict to include Turkey.
Trump is an increasingly disinhibited malignant narcissist. To make it easy for his supporters, he has Trump Derangement Syndrome. He is as mad as a cut snake.
The Hun has a non-paywalled article on the V/Line trains not operating, although there are obviously some replacement buses. The article acknowledges that this is not just a Victorian issue. Some NSW trains are still not running.
Omar
Or possibly Albos $1b bet on US quantum going sour after the WC loss. Those Norwegians invented The Scream.
Yep. I suppose it is what happens when a Party’s membership and its representatives spiral inwards. A solid rump of the old moderates would right now be belting Hastie and Taylor around the ears and telling them to praise multiculturalism and to start talking about a woman’s right to control her body any time someone raises abortion. But, no. The interesting thing from my POV is the sneaking suspicion that they don’t really get it at all. In other words, they are not posturing. The serial political stupidity we are witnessing is the real thing.
Phshaw!
ALL of the ACT’s trains were affected.
I assume that was one outbound and one inbound for the day.
But still.
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2026/07/demosau-could-hare-clark-help-one.html
DemosAU: Could Hare-Clark Help One Nation Shift Tasmania To The Right?
I am not about to argue the point; I will be proven right or wrong in a couple of weeks. Even though the ground war will not have started, all the prep work will be far enough along for most of us to know what is going to happen. Taking Kharg Island may be enough, but I doubt it.
Thanks. I believe that there may be significant overlap in our positions.
Diogenes, Albo made a $1bn bet? A bankroll like that makes him a baller and assuming he used other peoples money… triple baller (unnatural mutant) status at least.
I would very much love for this war to be settled in a couple of weeks. But I am not sanguine. We are already four-and-a-half months into a three day war. But Netanyahu, Khamenei II and Trump do not seem to me to be at all the sort of individuals who give a flying fuck for the people whose lives they are trashing.
Liberal frontbencher Simon Kennedy says his party can win back a swath of city seats at the federal election if its candidates finish in the top two on primary vote, predicting preferences from One Nation, Labor and the teals will push the Libs across the line. The prognosis comes as Angus Taylor urged Australians not to “blow the place up” by voting for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, saying a “one-person show” won’t give the country “a strong direction, strong plan, strong team”.
Backed by the former NSW Liberal president and member for Mackellar Jason Falinski, Mr Kennedy believes a resurgent One Nation and voter anger at the Albanese government has changed the political landscape and will work in the party’s favour. “If Labor keeps losing support and the Coalition sharpens its economic agenda, the electoral map in metropolitan Australia looks very different in two years’ time,” Mr Kennedy, opposition assistant minister to the Opposition Leader, told The Australian.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/liberal-frontbencher-predicts-his-party-will-win-back-city-seats-with-one-nation-labor-and-teal-preferences/news-story/d760fdb707c3634c86c4b74c48e480f0?amp
Hh
That sounds like one of the stories that keep coming out of the Ukraine War. They all start with ‘If…”
Good night, all.
How is not wanting any serious punishment (the IDF’s history of not disciplining its forces for war crimes) for offenders, so very different from supporting the rape itself? Isn’t that a distinction without a difference?
Surely the important thing is the finding of the United Nations published in March last year:
I guess there is an argument that the respondents, or a proportion of them were completely ignorant of reality, and if they understood the reality they might have answered differently.
For those wanting to see for themselves:
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/report-of-the-commission-of-inquiry-israel-gender-based-violence-13march2025/
They might want to get their primary vote back above 20 first if they are hoping to achieve that goal.
At the moment they are looking likely to be reduced to minor party status.
Welp. Looks like the Lodge is gonna be-a rockin tonight.
It’s very hard to predict who ends up wearing the blame for the V Line debacle besides Telstra (but Telstra doesn’t need people to vote for it), but at the very least I don’t think it can be a good thing for either state or Federal governments. Blame will not necessarily be assigned in accordance with strict logic. When people are stuck in 3 hour+ queues for a bus to replace their train home to a regional area there’s plenty of anger to go around.
‘…if its candidates finish in the top two on primary vote, predicting preferences from One Nation, Labor and the teals will push the Libs across the line..’
You don’t get all those preferences if you finish in the top two, because one of those is in the top two as well.
Arky:
Rightly or wrongly, I think the state government is going to cop most of the blame for that one. Both because transport is a state issue and because unpopular governments typically get blamed for everything that goes wrong once they reach a certain level of toxicity.
Macca RB, this morning:
Bet ya that was nightfill last night, sneakily plugging an iPod into the box out the back that runs the PA, then forgetting to take it out. I used to work with a guy who’d play Skrillex and Opiuo after the managers and customers went home. Not entirely my thing, but anything’s better than the Woolies loop.
Could be a glitch in the programming, too. Several years ago, I heard the uncensored version of “Ride Wit Me” by Nelly on the loop. Firstly, “if you wanna get high with me, smoke an L in the back of a limousine…”- in the PG version the words “high” and “L” (slang for a joint) get bowdlerised out with a *puff* sound effect. Me: “Uh-oh, this gets even more explicit towards the end of the song”. Sure enough, two minutes later: “Nelly talk, city listen, when I fuck fly bitches…”, in the middle of a supermarket at 3pm. Someone must’ve got their arse kicked for that one.
The editing of some of those songs is a bit and hit and miss. “Get The Party Started” by Pink has the phrase “kissing my arse” blurred out, but “Celebrity Skin” by Hole gets left alone. I’ve always wondered how the line “oh Cinderella, they aren’t sluts like you” gets played every day in every supermarket in the country, and nobody’s complained about it.
Oh, and the uncensored version of the Pogues “Fairytale of New York” once slipped onto the loop at Christmas, so customers got treated to Kirsty MacColl shouting “You scumbag! You maggot! You cheap lousy faggot!”. That got fixed pretty quick.
The Liberals don’t believe in multiculturalism and haven’t done so for a long time. They are assimilationists at heart. That includes our First Nations people as well as non-Anglo immigrants and their descendants. When in office, the Liberals studiously avoid the “M” word.
BoP:
Yeah, Celebrity Skin was on regular rotation at our store too, thank the Gods. Rihanna’s “S&M” too, completely uncensored: “Sex is in the air, I love the smell of it.”
Once upon a time, they let us listen to our own music after the store was closed. Those were lovely days.
Then they changed the rules so we could only have a single headphone in. For “safety” reasons. But, whatever, I could hack it, and fair enough too – sometimes there were announcements we needed to hear.
Someome up high eventually decided that wasn’t safe enough either, and then we weren’t allowed to use headphones at all. Thankfully, the night managers were generally a pretty chill bunch, and all except one never reallt gave a shit if we bent the rules. But if that one stickler was on shift and I didn’t realise, I’d suddenly hear the dreaded words: “Asha, I have a concern…”