Victorian Politics – Page 22

Newspoll: 50-50 in Victoria

GhostWhoVotes reports that the first bi-montly Victorian Newspoll result on Denis Napthine’s watch has the two parties at 50-50, after Labor lead 53-47 in January-February.

GhostWhoVotes reports that the first bi-montly Victorian Newspoll result on Denis Napthine’s watch has the two parties at 50-50, after Labor lead 53-47 in January-February. The primary votes are 43% for the Coalition (up four), 37% for Labor (down one) and 12% for the Greens (down one). Personal ratings offer a further impression of a Napthine honeymoon overcoming any sense of government disarray, with Napthine recording a 43-24 lead as preferred premier against 38-31 for Ted Baillieu in the last poll. He also has a 50% approval rating and 19% disapproval compared with 31% and 53% for Baillieu. However, a spike in Daniel Andrews’ ratings is scarcely less striking: he’s up 12 points on approval to 42% and down eight on disapproval to 28%. Full tables here.

Lyndhurst by-election live

Live coverage of Victoria’s Lyndhurst by-election, where anything other than a clear win for Labor’s Martin Pakula will come as a rude shock for the party.

8.10pm. All the polling booths have reported, but I gather we’ll get some postals or pre-polls before the night has done. The current Labor primary vote of 40.5% is south of home-and-hosed territory under some circumstances, but here the minor vote is divided enough between left and right candidates that he will almost certainly get over the line. His primary vote position should also improve in late counting. Nonetheless, it’s a much closer result than Pakula and Labor would have liked.

7.50pm. All but three booths now in on the primary vote and the situation is little changed, with Labor remaining stuck on 40.1%, Family First second on 16.6% and a crowded field jostling for third: Hung Vo on 10.5%, the DLP on 9.5%, the Sex Party on 9.2% and the Greens on 8.9%. The VEC is conducting a Labor-versus-Greens preference throw, which is unlikely to prove too illuminating.

7.40pm. Antony Green: “Labor needs only half of Green and Sex Party preferences to win, and that is much much more likely than the preferences of both reaching Family First. So Labor looks set to win. I would also expect Labor’s vote to increase on pre-poll and postal votes, areas where minor parties and independents traditionally poll poorly.”

7.35pm. The Greens, who don’t seem to have much luck in Victorian by-elections, are now in sixth place, behind the DLP and the Sex Party as well as Pakula, Vo and Family First.

7.30pm. The Lyndhurst booth is another very poor one for Hung Vo, who is now on 12.5% to Family First’s 16.4%. Martin Pakula’s vote is little changed.

7.20pm. Five more booths have reported on the primary vote, and Labor has struggled up to 40.1% (down 17.9% on a booth-for-booth basis) – still short of what would assure Martin Pakula of victory. However, Hung Vo’s vote turns out to be wildly variable through the electorate, and he’s now fallen behind Family First on 14.9% to 15.3%. My best guess is that Family First and other conservatives would get Pakula over 50% if a “left” candidate finishes second, and left preferences will do so otherwise.

7pm. Very strong result for independent Hung Vo at the Southvale booth, accounting for 472 votes. Vo has polled 21.6% of the vote against 35.6% for Pakula, compared with 4.7% for Vo at the 2010 election and 59.6% for Labor. If the Labor vote stays that low, Pakula could well be in trouble. The Greens are up 6.2% to 12.3%, and Family First 5.4% to 11.4%. The Sex Party, which didn’t run last time, is on 11.9%.

6pm. Polls have closed for the Lyndhurst state by-election in Victoria, wherein Labor’s Martin Pakula is expected to be confirmed in his move from the upper to lower house following the retirement of Tim Holding. There are seven other candidates, none of whom are from the Liberal Party. First results should probably be in in an hour or so.

ReachTEL: 54-46 to Coalition in Victoria

An automated phone poll of state voting intention in Victoria finds a surge in support for the Liberals since the last poll was conducted the day after Denis Napthine became leader.

ReachTEL’s monthly automated phone poll of state voting intention in Victoria is an encouraging result for Denis Napthine, seeing the Liberals up 5.1% on a poll conducted the day after his surprise ascension to the premiership to 45.2%, with the Nationals down from 4.8% to 4.3%. Labor is down from 36.9% to 35.3%, and the Greens from 12.3% to 11.5%. ReachTEL doesn’t publish two-party results, but on my reading of 2010 election preferences this comes out as a 54-46 lead to the Coalition, out from 51-49 last time. The poll gives Napthine a combined 40.6% very good and good rating compared with 21.8% poor and very poor, and he has turned a 53.5%-46.5% deficit against Daniel Andrews as preferred premier into a 52.0%-48.0% lead. The poll was conducted on Friday night from a sample of 1232 respondents.

Lyndhurst by-election: April 27

A by-election for a safe Labor Victorian state seat has not attracted a Liberal candidate, and there are no indications Labor’s Martin Pakula will be troubled in his bid to move from the upper to the lower house.

A Victorian state by-election will be held on April 27 for the south-eastern Melbourne seat of Lyndhurst, to be vacated by former Bracks-Brumby government minister Tim Holding. Lyndhurst covers residential areas at Lyndhurst and Hampton Park in the south and Keysborough and Springvale in the north, with industrial areas separating the two. The electorate was created at the 2002 election upon the abolition of Springvale, which was won by the Liberals on its creation in 1976 before passing permanently into Labor’s hands in 1979. Now very safe for Labor, it will not be contested at the by-election by the beleagured Liberals.

Eddie Micallef held Springvale from 1983 until 1999, when he lost preselection to 27-year-old Tim Holding. This marked a win for Holding’s National Union of Workers sub-faction of the Right at the expense of the Socialist Left, of which Micallef was convener. Holding entered the ministry after the Bracks government’s landslide re-election in 2002, winning further promotion to police and emergency services in January 2005. He hit trouble later in the year after failing to stay on top of a security breach involving confidential police files, and was shifted to finance, tourism and information technology after the 2006 election. He made national headlines in August 2009 when he went missing during a solo hiking expedition in Alpine National Park, putting his Army Reserve survival skills to use over two nights before being located by a police helicopter.

The Labor preselection has kept the seat in the National Union of Workers fold with the endorsement of Martin Pakula, former state secretary of the union and an MLC for Western Metropolitan MLC since 2006. Pakula entered the political stage in 2005 with a determined but ultimately unsuccessful challenge to the preselection of Simon Crean in Hotham. On entering the state parliament the following year he was immediately made a parliamentary secretary, and won further promotion to Industry, Trade and Industrial Relations Minister in December 2008 and then to the troublesome public transport portfolio in January 2010. He currently holds the shadow Attorney-General, gaming and racing portfolios.

The by-election has attracted eight candidates, the ballot paper order running Martin Leahy (Australian Sex Party), Nina Springle (Greens), Hung Vo (Independent), Bobby Singh (Independent), Stephen Nowland (Family First), David Linaker (Independent), Martin Pakula (Labor), Geraldine Gonsalvez (DLP). Profiles of some of the candidates are available courtesy of Antony Green.

Nielsen: 52-48 to Labor in Victoria

A Nielsen poll of state voting intention in Victoria has Labor in the lead, but doesn’t suggest last week’s turmoil has changed things much.

The Age has taking advantage of the Victorian Liberals’ turmoil to sent Nielsen out into the field for a state poll, something it used to do regularly but cut back amid organisational cutbacks over recent years. The poll goes somewhat closer to script than the ReachTEL poll of a few days ago, having Labor in the lead 52-48 on two-party preferred. That’s all GhostWhoVotes has for us so far, but there will surely be more to follow.

UPDATE: The primary votes are 41% for the Coalition, 37% for Labor and 13% for the Greens. Suggestions of a honeymoon effect for Denis Napthine are provided by a 40-38 lead as preferred premier against Daniel Andrews and a 45-37 lead over Ted Baillieu, which with extra options provided becomes 31% Napthine, 28% Baillieu, 10% Mary Wooldridge, 6% Matthew Guy and 4% Michael O’Brien.

ReachTEL: 51-49 to Coalition in Victoria

A ReachTEL automated phone poll commissioned by Channel Seven to capitalise on the Victorian state government’s travails has produced a surprising result

Multiple commenters relate that a ReachTEL automated phone poll of Victorian state voting intention, commissioned by Channel Seven to capitalise on the week’s turmoil, has produced a surprising result, with little change on the last such poll conducted on February 22. The Coalition primary vote is actually up slightly from 44.2% to 44.9%, with Labor up only from 34.9% to 36.9% and the Greens down from 12.6% to 12.3%. My slightly rough preference calculation had the Liberals leading 51.7-48.3 last time and 51.0-49.0 this time. The poll also has Daniel Andrews with only a slight 53.5-46.5 lead over Denis Napthine as preferred Premier (all non-respondents obviously having been excluded). More to follow, perhaps.

Exit Ted Baillieu

In the culmination of a fast-moving crisis that appeared on the radar less than 48 hours ago, Ted Baillieu has stepped down as Victorian Premier.

In the culmination of a fast-moving crisis that appeared on the radar less than 48 hours ago, Ted Baillieu has stepped down as Victorian Premier. More on that to follow, but for the time being here’s a thread to discuss it.

UPDATE (30 SECONDS LATER): Denis Napthine?!

UPDATE 2: Lacking any substantial understanding of my own concerning Victorian Liberal factional politics, I await further explanation as to why Denis Napthine in particular was left holding the parcel when the music stopped. As Lefty E relates in comments, Barrie Cassidy has apparently told Lateline that Baillieu threatened he “wouldn’t go quietly” if it was anyone but Napthine. Leadership talk had been primarily focused on Planning Minister Matthew Guy, but this was presumably predicated on some scheme to move him to the lower house, which events have moved far too quickly to accommodate (on which note, PB’s resident legal authority Graeme Orr argues in comments that while it’s purely a convention that leaders come from the lower house, it’s sufficiently entrenched a convention that a Governor faced with swearing in a leader from the upper house would likely be advised not to proceed).

Also yet to be explained are the substantial reasons why Baillieu felt resignation the best course of action available to him, and what exactly Geoff Shaw had to with it. For the time being, we are left to suspect that it may have involved Shaw flexing the muscle he has fortuitously acquired as a result of the delicate parliamentary balance. John Ferguson of The Australian offers the following exhaustive list of Shaw’s accomplishments in public life:

Police late last year launched a criminal investigation into Mr Shaw after he was allegedly found to have rorted his taxpayer entitlements over the use of his parliamentary car. In other controversies, Mr Shaw made lewd gestures at the opposition during a question time; likened legalising homosexuality to legalising child molestation, speed driving and murder; was involved in a roadside punch-up with a young motorist in 2011; was fined and put on a good behaviour bond after being charged over a 1992 assault at a Frankston nightclub; and allegedly called Labor MP James Merlino a “midget” in question time.

Having been supported through all this by the leadership of the government, Shaw announced today he could “no longer support the leadership of the government”, taking it upon himself to diagnose a “general loss of confidence Victorians are feeling”.

The situation raises thorny questions about the circumstances in which one should advocate an early election. Although I criticised Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott for overlooking the wishes of their constituents when they cut their deal with the Prime Minister, I have been of the view that their transparent arrangement provided a workable basis for the government to go about its business and answer to its constituents in due course. It seems quite a different matter for a government to be at the fickle mercy of a single opportunist with all manner of question marks surrounding his probity.

That’s not to say an election is realistically in prospect, at least for now. Presumably Shaw will need to stand by the government if he wants to see out his term, and a government that badly needs to right its ship will be entirely content to tolerate the arrangement.

Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor in Victoria

Coalition up, Baillieu down, Greens down, Labor well ahead.

Things have improved slightly for the Coalition in Newspoll’s January-February result for state voting intention in Victoria, with Labor’s two-party lead down from 55-45 to 53-47. The Coalition is up three points on the primary vote to 39%, with Labor steady on 38% and the Greens down three to 13%. However, Ted Baillieu’s personal ratings continue to deteriorate: his approval is down two to 31% with disapproval up five to 53%, and his lead as preferred premier has narrowed from 39-30 to 38-31. Daniel Andrews is down two on approval to 30% and up two on disapproval to 36%. Numbers courtesy of GhostWhoVotes.