Saturday snippets

Detailed polling on same-sex marriage and republicanism, plus state electoral developments in New South Wales and South Australia.

I had a paywalled article on the same-sex marriage issue in Crikey yesterday, which focused on the ways in which the proposed postal survey might skew the result to “no”. To that end, I obtained figures from Essential Research breaking down recent polling on the subject by age and gender, results of which are displayed below. This is based on 3061 responses obtained in June and July.

Further polling:

• The Seven Network reported yesterday that a poll of 700 respondents in Tony Abbott’s electorate of Warringah, which I presume was conducted by ReachTEL, found 69.7% in favour of same-sex marriage and 25.7% opposed.

• The Australian published further numbers from this week’s Newspoll on attitudes towards a republic, finding 51% in favour (steady since the last such exercise in January 2016) and 38% against (up one). Those number become 55% and 34% in the event that Prince Charles becomes king. As The Australian’s report notes, it’s actually the middle-aged cohort of 35 to 49 year olds that has the strongest net positive result, with the younger cohort on 45% and 37% and the older on 54% and 40%.

State matters:

• South Australia’s parliament has settled on a new electoral system for its Legislative Council that will abolish group voting tickets, leaving the Victorian and Western Australian upper houses as the last hold-outs. The new system will resemble that for New South Wales in that voters will be able to number as few or as many boxes above the line as they like. Below-the-line voters will be directed to number at least 12 boxes, but a vote will be formal with as few as six. This compares with a minimum of 15 preferences for below-the-line voters in New South Wales. The Liberals had sought to introduce a Senate-style model in which above-the-line voters were to be directed to number six boxes, but with any number being sufficient for a formal vote. However, Labor’s model eventually prevailed in the upper house.

• Two state by-elections loom in New South Wales, with dates yet to be determined. Nationals MP Katrina Hodgkinson is retiring after a parliamentary career going back to 1999, creating a vacancy in the rural seat of Cootamundra. While Labor is not competitive in this seat, the last by-election in a Nationals held seat, in Orange in November last year, was won by Shooters Fishers and Farmers. In the western Sydney seat of Blacktown, former Labor leader John Robertson is retiring, and in this case there seems little reason to doubt that Labor will be seriously challenged. Stephen Bali, the local mayor and a former organiser with the Right faction Australian Workers Union, would appear to be the front-runner for preselection. Antony Green has guides up for both: Blacktown and Cootamundra.

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.

2,482 comments on “Saturday snippets”

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  6. realDonaldTrump: Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!

    atDavidHoffman: trump is such an idiot. Immediately attacks a man who just stood up against racism. Yet 2 days later, no condemnation of white supremacy. twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…

  7. Tingle:

    In one fell swoop, all the nightmares that haunted the Labor government between 2010 and 2013 are now haunting Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition: day to day uncertainty over its parliamentary numbers, questions over its legitimacy to govern; and internal division which is a greater threat than the challenges from its political opponents.

    Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/from-chaos-to-fullblown-crisis-for-turnbulls-coalition-20170814-gxvvba#ixzz4pjglYSC3
    Follow us: @FinancialReview on Twitter | financialreview on Facebook

    I remember saying during the LOTO Abbott era that I hoped the crap they perpetrated on Labor would come back to bite them, and so it is. 🙂

  10. Yes it Labor Karma running over Liberal dogma time 🙂

    (Sorry I know its cliched but hey you can bite me, I’m tasty 🙂 )

  12. bemused, yes I saw it here first but for some reason I walked away with the impression that it must have been Uniting. Shows you how the sydney Anglicans have tarnished their name.

  17. cud chewer @ #2437 Monday, August 14th, 2017 – 11:09 pm

    Gay people raise children. SSM doesn’t change that fact.

    So do divorced people, people who were never married in the first place, widows/widowers, foster carers, and so on.

    Since nobody seems opposed to any of those things (or at least, opposed enough to advocate making them all illegal), I can only conclude that the child-welfare angle of the SSM debate is vastly overstated if not entirely hypocritical.

  18. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/opinion/when-the-president-is-un-american.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

    ….we don’t need to wonder whether an anti-American cabal, hostile to everything we stand for, determined to undermine everything that truly makes this country great, has seized power in Washington. It has: it’s called the Trump administration.

  19. “cud chewer @ #2437 Monday, August 14th, 2017 – 11:09 pm

    Gay people raise children. SSM doesn’t change that fact.

    So do divorced people, people who were never married in the first place, widows/widowers, foster carers, and so on”

    I think it’s pretty self-evident that if it were up to ME opponents who spout this ‘gay people are lesser parents’ bs argument, gay people would not be allowed to raise children.

  21. White nationalists marched on the grounds of the University of Virginia on Friday night in Charlottesville. Credit Edu Bayer for The New York Times

  24. In the run-up to and the aftermath of the US election, it was noted here that the pop-left, unable to support Clinton, had found pretexts to support Trump and, in doing so were aligning themselves with the proto-fascist Right.

    The proto-fascists are not merely in the anteroom of US politics now. They have broken down the doors and begun to smash the furniture and the windows.

    The faked up self-styled Left and the frauds of the Right are responsible for this. They are present here too, though they may be less clustered and less given to violence than their US cousins…at least so far. I certainly ran across a few of them, doing the bidding of ON, during the WA election.

    We have to find ways to defuse the truculence and the provocation….the lies. It would help if the pop-left would cease propping up the goons.

  27. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/opinion/trump-charlottesville-hate-stormer.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

    The demagoguery is getting cranked up…

    “We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump,” said Mr. Duke, whose support Mr. Trump has only reluctantly disavowed in the past. “That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump.”

  29. A colleague of mine here, Texan, staunch Republican said to me today that while he could never wish ill on someone, Trump is his exception. He said he couldn’t bring himself to vote for him and wishes him gone – one way or another.

    He said ‘I weep for what my country has become’.

  30. LHHoA

    He said ‘I weep for what my country has become’.

    I’d expect that is a common feeling among Americans, living o/s, who are seeing lots of non-US press.

  31. Rebecca Armitage’s ABC article “Lucky I’m not a politician” on how easy it is to find out if you are a British citizen ends with “But it’s easy to assume that being an Australian citizen is as simple as being born here. I certainly did” misses the point.

    It’s not about if she’s an Aust citizen, it’s about if she is a British citizen as well.

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