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.
rua
What you’re missing is that sometimes nothing is what people want governments to do. I think that’s fair enough. That’s what I hope TA does if he gets in, the alternative is too horrible to think about!
Dont worry CTar1, I am here so there is plenty of disagreeing to go around! :devil:
Mod Lib @ 2260 1. PPL scheme
I do not believe that Tony Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave scheme will see the light of day. As a poster on this blog said some weeks ago, business does not seem to believe it either. It is likely that the fix is in – otherwise where are the howls of outrage over an increase in company tax of 1.5% for all businesses on profits over $5 million? Why aren’t the Murdoch tabloids campaigning against it, saying that the ‘great big new tax’ it will be a wrecking ball destroying jobs, that it will cause massive increases in the cost of living and will wipe medium sized towns off the map?
I expect that shortly after Tony Abbott is safely installed in the Lodge, maybe when an Audit Commission headed by a Liberal mate ‘finds’ a ‘black hole’, or possibly in the lead up to the 2014 Budget, he’ll announce that the state of the economy and/or the budget makes it unwise to proceed with the scheme at this time and that it will be ‘deferred’. It will never be heard of again. And there will be screaming headlines in the Daily Telegraph proclaiming Tony Abbott a liar? No, they will never mention the scheme again either.
PAROTI
REALLY WELL YOU must not be clear thinking
he would say yes may be but when
next sitting or the next sitting
now lets send it to a commitee of ,,, well lots of catholics in the lib party , make great committees
no a catholic who believes the pope is infalible will not
they fear they would burn in hell,
abbott would be pm and pope,
after all if you have been that close to be ordained a priest,,, why would do do anything else
u just dont get it
my say
[he pope is very elderley i would be more than surprsied if any thing changed]
I have the reverse view. He is showing every sign of being like John XXIII, an old man in a hurry.
Here is the sermon from yesterday, which sounds to me like a LOT of change is in the wings…
[…We know what the impediments are that can restrain the messenger: dividing walls, starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another, the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now only debris.
As happens with certain old buildings. Over the centuries, to adapt to the needs of the moment, they become filled with partitions, staircases, rooms and closets. The time comes when we realize that all these adjustments no longer meet the current needs, but rather are an obstacle, so we must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins…]
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/03/29/vatican:_passion_of_our_lord_sermon_%5Bfull_text%5D/en1-678145
Mod Lib@2299
Stop typing so quickly.
Lies, you just agreed with me before I even typed anything!
Mod Lib
[Dont worry CTar1]
It scared me!
As a long time student of Roman History, it’s decline and fall..it seems to me that civilisations collapse when it’s citizens stop thinking and discussing new ideas… both practical AND philosophical.
It appears we of the west have fallen into step behind the idea that money will solve all our problems, while mulitculturisim is the creator of many problems…..well…I always admired Mohammud Ali’s answer as to why he wouldn’t go fight in Vietnam…: “I’ve never heard a viet-cong call me a nigger!”…..
I am afraid we here in Aussie are at a point, where if we cannot think of any better solution than to elect a dirty piece of work like the LOTO, then we are in real trouble.
However, I for one have no inclination of changing my vote just because a bunch of dumb-arsed hustlers in a business council meeting are shitting themselves!….so they can shove this one “sure-thing” in their poll-pipe and smoke it, because I believe that unlike the LOTO..:the Lady is NOT a tramp!
[is it worth the risk,.. would you rely on a stranger to
look after all that is dear to you,
some one you know nothing about,
well if you would you
must not be thinking very well]
So you’re voting for the Greens also? Good for you!
I know only one person in team Gillard – one of Conroy’s staffers. His persona only reinforces my view/vote.
CTar1
[
Display
Is this going to be like the ill-fated coming together of matter and antimatter?
It was the last thing I expected.
Even on a trivial point!
😀 ]
On a positive matter /anti-matter note the last I read matter ( CTar1) and anti-matter ( CC) at the big bang should have been created in equal amounts but (Yaaaay) matter won out.
Steve777:
You could be right. The “Cupboard is bare” approach is certainly not new. The trouble with it this time around is that Gillard and Swan have already admitted to stuffing up the accounts and we are already in the red when they were boasting up hill and down dale about how smart they were to get us to surplus.
I reckon the PPL, or a more moderate version thereof, is in. It works to prop up Abbott’s authority and also works to soften his hard image with women. I suspect making it 85% of income and 4 months and only up to $120,000 or something would be the approach.
[2264
Compact Crank
Briefly @2256 so under your very narrow definition of national interest, exactly what sort of response would you expect from the US when their national interest (under your definition) didn’t align with our national interest that resulted in a request for US military support?]
Who says my definition of national interest is “very narrow”?
Your definition appears to equate our interest with compliance to US requests. This practically dispenses with the whole idea of an independent Australian national interest.
Are you suggesting we should be afraid of the reaction of the US if we were to disagree with them? Put it the other way around. Do we expect the US to agree that their interests necessarily match ours too? Of course not. And likewise, they do not expect Australia will agree with them at all times either. We are in an alliance, not a marriage.
Kim Beazley had the most insight into this relationship. He put it this way. While US and Australian interests differ, and these differences imply we would not always agree on things, Australia could rely on the relationship because Australia contributed more to US defense than it cost the US in return. As long as that equation holds, the US will be an ally of this country. And likewise, as long as we derive more from the relationship than it costs us, it is a net benefit to Australia.
This is the real-politik of the Australia-US connection. I’m sure the US see it that way too.
The further point, of course, is that the AUS-US relationship has been manipulated in the context of ideological radicalism in Washington. This has been damaging to the US and all its allies. Hopefully this era is well and truly over.
[Is this going to be like the ill-fated coming together of matter and antimatter?
]
Matter-antimatter interactions can be very useful. That’s how we do PET scans.
If (heaven forfend!) he were to become PM, would be fascinating to see what Abbott does to the Royal Commission
“”You underestimate the depth of TAbbot’s personal ambition to be PM. The keys to the Lodge are “my precious”. Also he can always fall back on a country as Catholic as Spain legalizing it years ago.””
He’s desperately looking for security in his old age, needs something with a $700.000 mortgage!.
joe
It’s the economy.
Stupid!
Can someone estimate for me the difference in productivity gained from technological advances and fiddling about with economic management/processes?
Technology: 100% 1000% 10000% 100000% ?
Management: 1% 10% 20% ?
[Great. Then you have nothing to fear with a Lib government]
So if your roof has a leak, doing nothing is a great idea?
If you live in WA and population is increasing by 3.4% a year, doing nothing is a good idea.
No new anything is what you are aiming for Mod Lib?
poroti
😆
Diogenes
[Matter-antimatter interactions can be very useful. That’s how we do PET scans.]
An absolutely huge DOH ! from me. Never connected the bleeding obvious “positronic” with “positrons” .
Diogenes@2313
Well I’m sure CC and CTar will be glad that their mutual annihilation will be useful to someone :).
LNP are not going to just do nothing.
They have said time and again they are going to wind things back.
Undo carbon pricing.
Undo the NBN
Undo the public service.
Undo Infrastructure.
Basically if it move the LNP s going to undo it.
So in that sense they are worse than a do nothing government.
joe
[As a long time student of Roman History, it’s decline and fall..it seems to me that civilisations collapse when it’s citizens stop thinking and discussing new ideas… both practical AND philosophical.]
I thought civilisations are thought to collapse due to an inadequate response to an internal or external threat. There is a great book on that theory called The Collapse of Complex Societies by Tainter.
I haven’t read Diamonds book yet.
Crank – It seems from the learned discussion above that neither of us exist any more.
[What you’re missing is that sometimes nothing is what people want governments to do. I think that’s fair enough.]
Not if things need doing, the reform fatigue garbage has always been garbage.
If a tiny bit of your house has a termite, do you say no need to do anything yet?
yes i read that
when a pope stands up and says go missionaries to the poor coutries and teach how to use contrception then
i may think the church has opened it eyes to world poverty.
till then it all talk for me,
on that subject when we first got married the joke in our ycw youth goup was the pope does not pay the school fees,
rua
To use your example. The LNP to eradicate the termite will destroy the house. Then rebuild another of less quality
DIO
THIS WHAT you dont get about us down to earth ordinary
people
i made the comment the other day and a certain person screamed at me
this blog is over represented by to many over educated people
[ruawake
Posted Saturday, March 30, 2013 at 4:51 pm | PERMALINK
Great. Then you have nothing to fear with a Lib government
So if your roof has a leak, doing nothing is a great idea?
If you live in WA and population is increasing by 3.4% a year, doing nothing is a good idea.
No new anything is what you are aiming for Mod Lib?]
I see.
So your great fear for this country is that the Abbott government might leave it in exactly the state that the Gillard government has left it.
You guys make it so easy don’t you? :devil:
rua
Where’s the termite in Australian society? Well, other than you-know-who, but then he’s not going to do anything about himself, is he!
Ok, I don’t mean doing absolutely nothing, but doing nothing particularly new. So if WA is growing and the processes to handle that growth are already in place, then ‘doing nothing’ would be just keeping on with the existing processes.
you all talk in riddles,
you honestly do,,, plain speaking and saying like it
also this blog is now over represented by trolls and liberals and JOE and i come over here and tell you
all like it is ,too bad.
dont go putting us down , and tryint to turn our words around i understood exactly what joe was saying,
exactly education is often snobbery when its put out for all to see
ruawake
[Not if things need doing, the reform fatigue garbage has always been garbage]
Ah good old “reform fatigue” .Such was the extremely high rotation use of it by journos leading up to the 1996 election it is seared into my memory. It fitted in so well with the rodent’s promise of “comfortable and relaxed”.
[To use your example. The LNP to eradicate the termite will destroy the house. Then rebuild another of less quality]
Either that or they would sell it at a discount instead of fixing it.
[this blog is over represented by to many over educated people]
Would you like us to have a lobotomy?
[So your great fear for this country is that the Abbott government might leave it in exactly the state that the Gillard government has left it.]
No and stop being daft.
Abbott has said many times wtte “I will not change xyz in the first term” what if they need changing. The world is not static.
He will not change super, so where will he get the $50 billion in tax concessions from? Even Matthias had the sense to realise changes are needed.
[this blog is over represented by to many over educated people]
but I balance this out My Say
radguy
[I know only one person in team Gillard – one of Conroy’s staffers. His persona only reinforces my view/vote.]
That surprises me. I’ve worked closely with a variety of Conroy’s staffers over the years and contact his office on at least a weekly basis.
I do that despite the fact that, at various times, Conroy has ceased to be this electorate’s duty Senator – simply because his staff is so helpful, competent and reliable.
I’m always impressed with his ability to pick good people.
Dio
[Would you like us to have a lobotomy?]
You could jump the surgery queue and get it done for free as well.
ruawake:
Perhaps I am being daft. Please explain how you can be petrified of an Abbott Government, say that he will do absolutely nothing and simultaneously claim that things are not that bad now (which by definition means if they stayed the same they would stay not that bad)?
Either you dont mind an Abbot government
Or you dont think Abbott would do nothing
Or you do mind an Abbott government, and you do think he will do nothing but things are so bad right now that doing nothing seems frightening
Which?
@BarnsGreg: @chrismurphys Pathetic puff iece by Tele anti Gillard specialist Gemma Jones on how much of a feminist Abbott is, according to daughters.
Mod Lib
[
this blog is over represented by to many over educated people
but I balance this out My Say]
In this respect you are an over achiever 😆
Mod Lib – the PPL scheme you describe is much more reasonable, although it is still another piece of Middle Class Welfare we don’t need. Maybe Tony Abbott (or whoever deposes him) will take something like that to the 2016 election.
The other thing that won’t see the light of day is ‘Direct Inaction’. The cost of the plan is capped at $10.5 billion out to 2020, or about $1.5 billion per annum. No one believes that it would take us anywhere meeting our bipartisan target of a 5% reduction in Carbon emissions by 2020 unless it is greatly expanded. Even so, it will cost the average household about $3 per week – to fix a problem that most Coalition party members, MPs and backers don’t believe exists. It ain’t going to happen. The plan might be mentioned during the election campaign as a salve to those concerned about climate change but who want to vote for the Coalition. After the election, it will never be mentioned again, nor will the bipartisan emission reduction target.
[guytaur
Posted Saturday, March 30, 2013 at 5:12 pm | PERMALINK
@BarnsGreg: @chrismurphys Pathetic puff iece by Tele anti Gillard specialist Gemma Jones on how much of a feminist Abbott is, according to daughters.]
All the women’s magazines ran covers of Gillard before 2010.
I don’t remember the howls of complaints from bludgers then….
[In this respect you are an over achiever ]
My mediocrity knows no bounds
Diog
always a bit broadbrush to find one cause for a society’s collapse, but I would agree that societies which stagnate are doomed.
Sumer decided that everything that could be invented had been (gifts from the Gods).
Rome made commendable efforts to reinvent itself, but its inflexibility regarding, for example, the requirements for office led to a situation where the talent pool for key positions became far too shallow, which led to failures in decision making.
Of course ‘external threats’ are something faced continually by all societies. A strong society can resist them. A weakened society succumbs.
Similarly, you could probably ascribe all deaths to heart failure. It’s why the heart failed that is the crucial question.
[over educated]
No such thing.
CTar1 @2323 Not sure would be more pleased – PB or Mrs Crank.
ML
What an amazing staement from you.
It is missing points like this that will be the cause of any loss for the LNP.
You just do not get it.
@Leroy_Lynch: Blogpost by @awelder: for whom the polls toll http://t.co/UqQwxh0lTY #auspol #ausmedia
Guytaur @2321
I didn’t realise they were policy positions.
Should be an interesting contract to dig all the optical fibre out of the ground.
Nothing like a bit of hyperbowl when you’re in high dungeon.
[guytaur
Posted Saturday, March 30, 2013 at 5:18 pm | PERMALINK
ML
What an amazing staement from you.
It is missing points like this that will be the cause of any loss for the LNP.
You just do not get it.]
Please be more specific. I make numerous amazing statements 🙂