The latest weekly BludgerTrack update has been added to the sidebar, adding results from Newspoll, Galaxy and Essential Research. I have replaced my ad hoc rolling average calculation with LOESS, the polling wonk’s smoothing method of choice. As well as making my graphs look prettier, this makes for smoother trendlines and should reduce volatility from one week to the next. I’ll be applying some further methodological tinkering next week, including updating the Newspoll bias measures to account for the Western Australian election result – on which more below.
First though, it should be noted that the Financial Review has published results from a JWS Research automated phone poll of 4070 respondents in 54 marginal seats, conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday. This records an aggregate swing of Labor of 9.3%, compared with a quite bad enough result of 4.8% when the exercise was last conducted in mid-January. In the aftermath of last week’s leadership chaos, it may well be significant that the shift was heavily concentrated in Queensland.
Preselection news:
• A general meeting of the ACT Liberals has voted down a motion to overturn Senator Gary Humphries’ preselection defeat at the hands of former ACT Opposition Leader Zed Seselja by a margin of 168 to 138. There had been compaints from Humphries supporters that many party members had been wrongly excluded from the February preselection vote, which Seselja won 114 to 84.
• The plot has thickened in the preselection to choose a successor to Nicola Roxon in Gellibrand, with three credibly rated candidates in the field. Unidentified sources quoted by John Ferguson in The Australian suggest opposition to Tim Watts, Telstra executive and former staffer to Stephen Conroy, amounts to a test of Conroy’s influence, which is said to be “starting to wane”. Josh Gordon of The Age reports a 2008 factional realignment reserved the seat for the Shorten-Conroy Right sub-faction, but Roxon has entered the fray by sending a letter to local party members urging for them to support her former adviser Katie Hall. There is another prospective candidate in Kimberley Kitching, a former Melbourne councillor, current acting general manager tasked with restoring order to Health Services Union No. 1 branch, and wife of VexNews provocateur Andrew Landeryou. Gordon reports the Turkish community is emerging as a source of support for Kitching, as Conroy has roused its opposition by refusing to offer up the state seat of Footscray to the “so-called Turkish bloc”.
• The preselection to replace Richard Torbay as Nationals candidate for New England will be held in Tamworth on April 13. Barnaby Joyce will certainly be a starter, but there have been suggestions he will or should face opposition from Nationals Farmers Federation president Alexander “Jock” Laurie, including from Calare MP John Cobb.
• With the state election out of the way, WA Labor is now proceeding with federal election preselection processes, chief among which is determining its Senate election ticket and filling the casual vacancy caused by the retirement of Chris Evans. Suggestions Labor might be reduced to one Senate seat in Western Australia mean that more than prestige is at stake in ordering the top two positions on the election ticket. The two incumbents are Louise Pratt of the AMWU Left and Mark Bishop of the SDA Right, with the latter generally expected to be deposed by Joe Bullock, who succeeded him as the SDA’s state secretary. Other nominees are former state Bassendean MP Martin Whitely, a critic of party preselection processes generally and the Joe Bullock ascendancy in particular; Brett Treby, a Wanneroo councillor who ran for the state seat of Wanneroo; John Welch, secretary of the Western Australian Prison Officers’ Union; Kelly Shay, assistant state secretary of United Voice; and Sue Lines, assistant national secretary of United Voice.
• Sue Lines is getting more attention for her parallel nomination to succeed Chris Evans, a position claimed by the powerful United Voice sub-faction of the Left. Lines is rated as one of two-front runners along with Sharryn Jackson, who won the lower house seat of Hasluck in 2001 and 2007 and lost it in 2004 and 2010. The aforementioned Martin Whitely, John Welch and Kelly Shea have also nominated for the Evans vacancy, together with Linda Morich and Ashburton councillor Peter Foster. Both matters are scheduled to be determined at a state executive meeting on April 15.
Finally, a review of Newspoll’s performance at the WA election and some related musings on the two-party preferred measure. The scorecard for Newspoll reads thus:
2PP ALP L-NP GRN Result 57.5? 33.1 53.2 8.4 Newspoll 59.5 32 54 8 Difference +2.0? -1.1 +0.8 -0.4
This is a very sound result, with all primary votes well within the margin of error. However, it’s worth noting that it’s the eighth pre-election Newspoll out of the last nine to shoot low on the Labor primary vote, and the seventh to do so by more than a percentage point – remembering that in most cases two-party preferred ended up near the mark because support for the Greens had been overstated (although this hasn’t been evident on the two most recent occasions).
Keeping in mind that my two-party result is based on incomplete data, Newspoll’s two-party preferred result proved less accurate than the primary votes, which is largely down to an issue with two-party preferred calculations involving the Liberals and Nationals. Newspoll looks to have followed the usual method of simply combining the two and then distributing minor party preferences between the two major parties, but this doesn’t account for the fact that in three-cornered contests some Liberal and Nationals votes end up in the Labor pile when the contest is boiled down to Labor-versus-Liberal or Labor-versus-Nationals for two-party purposes. This is of little concern at federal elections, where competitive Nationals-versus-Liberal contests are uncommon. However, the WA election had no fewer than 17 three-cornered contests out of 59 seats, with both Liberal and Nationals polling strongly in most cases.
It should be noted that it makes a difference whether a Labor-versus-Liberal or Labor-versus-Nationals count is used, because Nationals voters are more likely to preference against their coalition partners than Liberal voters. This seems to be especially pronounced in those regional corners of the state where the Nationals have won a new constituency of former Labor voters who are still not keen on the Liberals. The precise result of the final two-party result will thus be influenced by the WAEC’s ruling on whether it conducts Labor-versus-Nationals or Labor-versus-Liberal counts in the eight seats where such counts remain to be published. In 2008 they went Labor-versus-Liberal in each case, which meant the Nationals were only used in seats where the final count had been between them and Labor (I believe this only applied to Pilbara, where only 7517 formal votes were cast, and that this will again be the case this time). The results were thus more favourable to Labor than they might have been if the WAEC had employed an alternative rationale, such as conducting Nationals-versus-Labor counts where the seat was won by the Nationals, as was the case in six of the eight seats with counts still outstanding.
[Yep! Albo Combet Dreyfuss Mark Butler I could go on!]
Please do.
A trot, a fatalist and a clone from the IPA….you all deserve each other….perhaps with bemused as roadie…you could take up busking.
MTBW:
There is simply no consistency in your declaration that Swan is disloyal when all evidence is the contrary.
OTOH you lend your support to MPs who actually have been disloyal.
I understand this cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable for you and upsets you, but it’s fair enough that other commenters draw attention to it.
jv
I had coffee today with a friend I went right through school with. We have always been great friends. I am her daughter’s godmother.
She is a Labor voter but she told me today that everyone she knows is not voting for the ALP this time around.
This should be a worry!
The Liberal equivalent of Labor warehousing people with unions is a year with Lehmann Brothers.
Richard Griffiths has died.
I loved him in that British series where he was a chef in a restuarant he owned with his wife, but a kind of consultant detective on the side. Can’t remember what it was called.
[She is a Labor voter but she told me today that everyone she knows is not voting for the ALP this time around.]
Did you ask why? Let me guess the answer. 😛
zoomster
[Speaking of which what is Joe up to these days. I always felt that after politics he would find his place in auto alley}
Please explain! What on earth are you talking about?
I think Wayne Swan has proved himself an able, hard-working, compassionate Treasurer.
He seems, like his Leader, to be unable to communicate the real difficulties he has steered the economy through.
However, I have no respect for him personally, his treacherous behaviour towards Rudd back in 2010 lives long in my memory.
[Can’t remember what it was called.]
Pie in the Sky.
Joe Tripodi should be thanked for nothing. He is a total unreconstructed self-interested flea.
[A trot, a fatalist and a clone from the IPA]
That would make a great intro to a joke where they all walk into a pub.
rua
Just wanted to add that I also like Jason Clare and Andrew Leigh as well. They are both stand outs for mine sadly Clare holds the seat next to mine and there is a very good chance he will not hold on to it in September. That would be a real loss.
And god said …
Pie in the Sky!
Thanks ru.
confessions, as they say “In defeat, malice.” The defeated here cannot put their malice away. They still add up their losses, like little treasures. They will always blame others for their own errors and for their disappointments. So it is. They will be the Confederates for some time to come.
MTBW
Keep going you seem to like most of the people the Prime Minister has promoted.
Mtbw well still have laurie ferguson and Maria vamvanikou to lead the fight back
[2512
confessions
A trot, a fatalist and a clone from the IPA
That would make a great intro to a joke where they all walk into a pub.]
I think they do that whenever the Senate is in session 🙂
Psephos
I saw something you linked earlier regarding why the party rejected Rudd and it looked very interesting. I was busy at the time and planned to read it later, but when I went looking for it I couldn’t find it. Could you please help me out and tell me where it was – or if you able, re-link it.
Thanks.
Joe Tripodi actually got a few things done in the dying years of the NSW Govt.
I really cannot fathom why people say dumb things, is it because they remember his name?
meher baba 2437
I see the method in your madness and am almost inclined to agree.
What the market system aspires to is ever-increasing productivity, with the result that cheap labour inevitably becomes cheaper. Another result is the widening gap between both ends of the income spectrum. Nevertheless, there are various advantages in the upper 5% keeping the bottom 5% happy.
For one thing, they wouldn’t want a revolution, because that would lead to them losing their precious lot. (Don’t laugh, history shows that many an elite class laughed and later were butchered.)
I have a strong suspicion that severe social unrest doesn’t suit the upper 5% unless you call being forced to live in gated estates living.
So it comes down to some sort of equitable income for those who won’t, or can’t, earn that income.
The real question is how are people on benefits able to lead worthwhile lives. A smart answer to that would go a long way to solving a lot of social ills.
What sort of beer would a Trot order in a pub?
We know the fatalist would order the most boutique and expensive on the list, and spend the rest of the night lamenting about their choice when compared to other beers on the list.
The IPA clone would go for something made by some obscure multinational company rather than a local brew, because presumably it is cheaper and more efficiently made by Chinese children in a 24/7 factory. The Markets! The Markets!
But what would the Trot order?
But what would the Trot order?
Something no longer for sale I assume.
Mtbw@2513
Labor losing blaxland is in unimaginable territory. It really is – these were some of the few areas where labor held on in 2011 in nsw.
BUT I am a partisan!
Haven’t all trot’s become right wing nutters?
[But what would the Trot order?]
Nothing the IPA would pretend to order it and the trot would pretend to drink it.
MTBW
I can’t explain a post I didn’t make.
Briefly
Did you see my 2267 in response to one of your posts earlier today? I was impressed with your analysis of the likely economic consequences of an Abbott government.
I was also wondering if you have had formal training in economics.
confessions
[I understand this cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable for you and upsets you, but it’s fair enough that other commenters draw attention to it.]
Upset? Surely you jest! It a appears to me that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is wrong. You would have to be one of the most dogmatic and divisive people on this blog.
We all know you can’t stand Rudd. Your refrain of him being “sociopathic” has been said over and over again but somebody who says anything critical of Swan gets under your skin.
That’s easy – the trot would drink something from daddy’s cellar
[2505
Psephos
The Liberal equivalent of Labor warehousing people with unions is a year with Lehmann Brothers.]
That would be the equivalent of flogging them at “The Magic Carpet Warehouse Sale”….buy two, get one free, no returns..
rua
[Did you ask why? Let me guess the answer.]
Have a guess!
Darn…thanks for your note…I did not see your earlier posting. I’ll have a look. I studied economics during a misspent youth and have been an avid reader ever since… 🙂
Zoomster @ 2465
After the 1932 rout after the Lang sacking Joe Cahill (later nsw premier of expressway fame) worked as a turnstile attendant at the scg.
New thread.
Maybe its because Joe was a key Terrigal – a group whose self-serving actions have condemned Labor to opposition in NSW for at least 8 years and will almost certainly bring down Gillard.
[Have a guess!]
The nice blonde man with the glasses wuz robbed?
A VB for me please or a Crownie if I was celebrating.
To quote someone who knows.
[Tripodi’s power among his fellow right-wing MPs made him the target for elimination among right-wing heavies at the party’s Sussex Street headquarters. On their telling, he was to blame for everything.
The truth? Whenever Sussex Street had a bad or risky idea – like rolling Morris Iemma, or replacing Nathan Rees with Frank Sartor – Tripodi was standing there saying, “Don’t do this”.]
Facts of course don’t mean anything in this world of perceptions.
Hmmm…interesting to note that Chifley lost a seat once with a swing against him of 16%.
Obviously, with numbers like that, the Labor party was wiped out for all time and Chiff himself faded into obscurity….
…oh, wait….
rua
I don’t rely on who promoted who to make my judgments I rely on their character and how they do their jobs.
[I saw something you linked earlier regarding why the party rejected Rudd and it looked very interesting. I was busy at the time and planned to read it later, but when I went looking for it I couldn’t find it. Could you please help me out and tell me where it was – or if you able, re-link it.]
Sorry, I don’t remember now what it was.
[It a appears to me that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is wrong. ]
Pointing out your illogic is suddenly divisive and dogmatic?
And you have the hide to declare ME the one who has a problem with people I disagree with! 😆
Honestly MTBW you are prone to bouts of nonsensical hysteria when your views are challenged!
confessions
[Pointing out your illogic is suddenly divisive and dogmatic?
And you have the hide to declare ME the one who has a problem with people I disagree with!
Honestly MTBW you are prone to bouts of nonsensical hysteria when your views are challenged!]
Pot – Kettle comes to mind!
Joined the ALP yet?
Suns up! Means that favorites have gone down in 5 of 6 AFL games …so much for bookies odds…including the Doggies top of the ladder….woof!! something for their no 1 fan
Psephos@2544
Wondering if it was this:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4598894.html
MTBW humerously confesses..”I had coffee today with a friend I went right through school with…”
That first sentence and the next gives away the cloisted life MTWB and her friend lives…
I have had the fortune to NEVER have met or had coffee with ANYBODY I went to schol with!…My horizons, I would like to believe, have broadened so much farther than parochial prejudices!
[A VB for me please or a Crownie if I was celebrating.]
Surely that is a form of self abuse.