BludgerTrack: 51.3-48.7 to Coalition

The nation has gone on election alert, but there’s not much to report from the latest weekly poll aggregate reading, other than a continuation in the headlong plunge in Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval rating.

The BludgerTrack poll aggregate records essentially no movement at all on national voting intention for the second week in a row, although the Coalition has at least avoided recording its eighth fall in a row. Reasonable results for the government from Newspoll and ReachTEL balanced a particularly bad one from Roy Morgan, which stands out like a sore thumb on the sidebar charts due to the correction made for the pollster’s otherwise pro-Coalition form since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister. The Greens are down a bit, which it might be tempting to impute to Senate electoral reform, but it would pay to wait another week or two to see if the movement sticks. Only the ReachTEL poll was conducted after Turnbull’s election strategy announcement on Monday, but it produced no obvious evidence that anything had changed. However, there is a bit going on this beneath the surface this week at state level, with the Coalition gaining two seats since last week on the seat projection, but losing one each in Victoria and Queensland. On the leadership ratings, Newspoll has caused Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval rating to dip ever so gently into negative territory, while Bill Shorten’s continues to slog laboriously upwards, having slowly gained about 10% since the start of the year.

I would normally append this post with a bunch of preselection news and such, but I’ll be changing by MO now the pace has quickened with the inauguration of the phony election campaign. From now on, the news snippets will get their own post at the end of the week – and there will be a very great deal to report so far as preselection goes, with certain tardy state party branches now hurriedly getting their acts together ahead of an assumed July 2 election date. Also, what was formerly “seat of the week” is now “seat du jour”, starting with the entry below for Shortland, since I aim to make these a daily feature from now on. Eventually they will all be rolled together into the regular Poll Bludger’s seat-by-seat election guide.

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.

832 comments on “BludgerTrack: 51.3-48.7 to Coalition”

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  1. BK@3

    Section 3 . . . Cartoon Corner

    Alan Moir – Stop the boasts

    David Pope with an Easter massage. Look at the Trojan Horse and the Senate guard!

    Ron Tandberg hints that Morrison might turn the tables.

    John Spooner with a metaphor of the issues facing the print media.

    Mark Knight with Tintin in Brussels.
    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/6b855c61633ab8a2e7b2ccd802031a4a?width=1024&api_key=zw4msefggf9wdvqswdfuqnr5
    David Rowe sums up the Brussels attacks.

    Hi BK, a bit of feedback for you.

    Your SMH links in this post do not work – the others do.

    But when I go back to your post in the previous thread, the SMH links work.

    I have noticed this before, so something is going wrong when you copy your posts across to a new thread.

    Your work is greatly appreciated – if only I had time to read all that you link to. 😀

  2. Malcolm Turnbull didn’t really say much last night in his Foreign Policy speech at The Lowy Institute that we here on Pollbludger couldn’t have surmised from the global situation.
    And a fair bit that was pompous twaddle.

    But he did say it in his best ‘Father Knows Best’ voice. 😉

  3. Good Morning

    The dressing down of Morrison in front of cabinet colleagues is getting a good run on media.

    Jim Chalmers was on Newsradio this morning making real points about the chaos and disfunction in the LNP.

    Apparently the turnover at the ministry of human services has been rapid. Makes the RGR year ministers look long term by comparison.

    Then add the public service strikes and the chaos that is at the centrepiece of the Turnbull revival, the budget becomes real clear.

    If you live in Canberra and had a booking for a quite night in a restaurant your luck is out as lobby groups journalist and any one interested in the budget descends on Canberra a week early.

  4. guytaur

    If only, if only, the Coalition would stop this nonsensical determination to remove anyone appointed by Labor. That’s Abbott/Credlin paranoia style.

  6. lizzie

    Yes. With the strikes by the public service the ones that are there are not there on a consistent basis. This would be a problem for a budget on May 10. May the 3rd I think its probably a disaster in the making.

    Its going to be a very interesting budget in reply.

  7. The Liberals should have renamed ‘The Free Enterprise Foundation’ the ‘Free Kick Foundation’.

    I only wish the NSW ICAC was able to release it’s report on the ‘4×5’ matters and the FEF before the federal election but Liberals Mike Baird and Margaret Cuneen are making sure that doesn’t happen. 🙁

  9. [It’s interesting to see Turnbull castigate Belgium and in fact the rest of Europe over their unpreparedness for the attacks in Brussels. Would he do the same if another attack happened in the US or Britain? I doubt it.]

    its all part of the up coming stop the boats there may be terry wrists on board.

    labor is beholden to the greens and will let the boats start again bringing more terry wrists.

    as mal said in the press conference terrys wrist were agile in belgium but the lnp is agile and innovative so can stop the terry wrists.

    labor can’t can’t as labor is not agile and innovative.

  11. The money the AEC is denying the Federal Liberal Party in NSW is key to election coverage. The MSM cannot ignore the story and will not.

    Thats a huge advantage to Labor. NSW Liberals are $4 million down plus whatever new money they have got will not be accessible until they declare who the donors to the Free Enterprise Foundation are.

    Big lose lose for the LNP.

  13. [Nothing on ABC this morning about Liberal donation scandal]

    ABC Sydney radio news covered it pretty well, but it was about 6th item.

  14. Kevin Bonham’s research indicates that Turnbull is coasting.

    We can only hope for something entirely unexpected – and helpful to Labor! -to erupt during the campaign.

  17. On the illegal donations … it does seem to take the MSM/CPG a few days to get into gear on important stories.

    It’s as if each outlet is waiting to see if otheres are interested in a story before getting interested themselves.

    The VEEP story first surfaced on Monday …. but it wasnt until yesterday before it started to appear more widely.

    In the worst cases they exhibit wilful blindness … Ashbygate for example.

  18. [3.Malcolm Turnbull didn’t really say much last night in his Foreign Policy speech at The Lowy Institute that we here on Pollbludger couldn’t have surmised from the global situation.
    And a fair bit that was pompous twaddle.

    But he did say it in his best ‘Father Knows Best’ voice. 😉
    ]

    Malcolm made a bad strategic error as well. In his eagerness to defend the refugee policy by conflating terrorism and refugee issues he, and others around the world laid blame and suggested it could have been stopped.

    The true beauty of terrorism until now was that noone was ever blamed. It just happened, Governments and security agencies milked it for political ends and ever greater powers over citizens, but assigning blame isn’t supposed to be part of the matrix.

    The Fed police are supposed to be able to ignore dozens and dozens of credible old fashioned reports, play with their new powers and draft what new powers they’d like after the next attack. They aren’t supposed to be like stopping attacks, and held responsible if they fail.

    This whole idea that Malcolm and others had of suggesting someone should be responsible is new and dangerous for Government. Rather than milk a political bonanza they risk crowds who are not nearly as surprised, nor as frightened with each new attack turning on them.

  22. bemused
    [Hi BK, a bit of feedback for you.

    Your SMH links in this post do not work – the others do.

    But when I go back to your post in the previous thread, the SMH links work.

    I have noticed this before, so something is going wrong when you copy your posts across to a new thread.]
    Yes, we’ve been over this before, and it’s the same reason now as back then.

    See the ‘x’ character in the urls, used in the image size. e.g. the 640×480 part.

    In the original, it’s just the letter ‘x’, in the cut and paste it’s somehow replaced with a multiplication/cross character.

    In fact, a link has two parts. It has the underlying url, as well as the displayed text. It just so happens that often the displayed text is the same as the underlying url. What it looks like is that (in the original comment) the underlying url is correct, but the displayed text has the letter ‘x’ replaced by a cross. When you cut and paste from the comment in your browser, you get the displayed text, with the changed character.

  23. When I saw that low grub Turnbull on TV, trying to blame the Belgium bombing to refugees and suggesting that open borders by Belgium and the rest of the EU caused the bombings, I hit the roof. my reaction is unprintable and I was so angry i would have kicked a Turnbull effigy.

    What a disgrace! As the PM of Australia, turnbull has shamed us. He went straight into victim blaming mode (as per family domestic violence model, it was ‘her fault” and she (or he)’asked for it’ by their actions or non actions). And he did it for a few votes from the scum of the RWNJ’s. He probably was targetting the RWNJs in his own party.

    That disgusting appalling tapeworm has all the morals of a merchant banker.

  24. Ah, see. There’s the explanation. If you look at comment 72, you will see where I put 640×480, I had actually typed the letter x, but it has been replaced with a cross/multiplication character.

  25. davidwh@70

    I seems like Martin Parkinson is the de-facto treasurer which gives me some comfort in an otherwise depressing situation.

    Must be hard to be a Lib supporter these days David.

  26. BK, bemused

    [ I have noticed this before, so something is going wrong when you copy your posts across to a new thread. ]

    I’ve also noticed this in other cases. Something in the cut and paste software is being a bit too clever and is translating ‘x’ (i.e. letter x) into ‘×’ (i.e. the multiplication sign character) in the links where it thinks it is appropriate – e.g. it translates ‘600×400’ into ‘600×400′.

    Easily fixed once you spot it – just find and fix the’×’ – but a bit mysterious until you know what’s going on.

  27. [ it translates ‘600×400’ into ‘600×400′. ]

    … as it has done here. This is NOT what I typed! The first instance had an ‘x’ where the ‘×’ was!

  28. [21.I seems like Martin Parkinson is the de-facto treasurer which gives me some comfort in an otherwise depressing situation.]

    Yeah a solid view on things, but I’m not sure where Peter Martin and others get the idea Turnbull will find his missing spine and progressive values, and do a bit of innovative economics. Not sure innovative is what Turnbull & Parkinson give you.

    I’m guessing Malcolm rang them to mention the great innovation we will see soon, if not after the next election definitely the one after.

  33. [ Its exciting innovative and agile to go to an election with no policies. ]

    Or with Arfur Sinodinos prominent in your team. 🙂

    Wonder how far this will spread? The NSW electoral commission seem to have pretty much solidified the links between the NSW party machine and “foundations” or funding vehicles that have links to the Federal party? This is dangerous for the Libs on a lot of levels, and more broadly than “Arfur is incompetent”.

    Bringing back the HoR on the 18th STILL look like a brilliant tactical move Mal??

  34. WWP, re terrorists, any blame, or underlying cause was always put onto the T’s they hate us and our freedom, it was never anything the west might have done.

  35. [35.WWP, re terrorists, any blame, or underlying cause was always put onto the T’s they hate us and our freedom, it was never anything the west might have done.]

    Exactly! Makes a movement to hold security agencies responsible very interesting indeed.

  40. Puff when Labor get back in in July perhaps they should set up a LPDC (Liberal Party Donations Commission) instead of the proposed ABCC. That would help.

  41. [That disgusting appalling tapeworm has all the morals of a merchant banker.]

    That’s just hyperbole. Only a person who is or has been a merchant banker has the morals of a merchant banker. Wait….

  46. [Puff when Labor get back in in July perhaps they should set up a LPDC (Liberal Party Donations Commission) instead of the proposed ABCC. That would help.]

    And to follow the lead of the current Government, the terms of reference should be very carefully drawn up to exclude any possibility of looking at Labor Party donors. Because, no ALP donor is BAAAD.

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