Three items of seat polling intelligence emerged over the weekend, none of which I’d stake my house on:
• Samantha Maiden of news.com.au reports a uComms poll of 831 respondents for GetUp! shows independent Zoe Daniel leading Liberal member Tim Wilson in Goldstein by 59-41 on two-candidate preferred and 35.3% to 34.0% on the primary vote, with Labor on 12.5%, the Greens on 8.9% and an undecided component accounting for 4.6%. It should be noted that the campaigns are clearly expecting a closer result, and that uComms is peculiarly persisting with a weighting frame based entirely on age and gender, which was common enough before 2019 but has generally been deemed insufficient since.
• Andrew Clennell of Sky News yesterday related polling conducted for the Industry Association of 800 respondents per seat showed Liberals incumbents trailing 58-42 in Robertson and 53-47 in Reid, and Labor leading by 56-44 in Parramatta and 54-46 in Gilmore, both of which the Liberals hope to win, and 57-43 in Shortland, which has never looked in prospect. The polling provided better news for the Coalition in showing the Liberals with a 57-43 lead in Lindsay and the Nationals trailing by just 51-49 in Labor-held Hunter. Clennell further related that “similar polling conducted earlier in the campaign also shows the government behind in Bennelong and Banks”. A fair degree of caution is due here as well: no indication is provided as to who conducted the polling, and its overall tenor seems rather too rosy for Labor.
• By contrast, local newspaper the North Sydney Sun has detailed results for North Sydney from Compass Polling, an outfit hitherto noted for polling conducted for conservative concerns that has then been used to push various lines in The Australian, which suggests independent Kylea Tink is running fourth and the threat Liberal member Trent Zimmerman faces is in fact from Labor’s Catherine Renshaw. The poll has Zimmerman on 34.9%, Renshaw on 25.0% and Tink on 12.4%, with Greens candidate Heather Armstrong on 15.0%. The online poll was conducted on May 6 from a sample of 507.
Speaking of staking houses, a fair bit of the electorate-level noise of the late campaign has related to where candidates claim to live for purposes of their electoral enrolment. The ball got ralling when The Australian reported that Vivian Lobo, the Liberal National Party candidate for the marginal Labor-held seat of Lilley in Brisbane, appeared not to live within the electorate at Everton Park as claimed on his enrolment. Labor’s demand that Lobo be disendorsed – always a challenging prospect after the close of nominations – was complicated on Saturday when Labor’s star candidate for Parramatta, Andrew Charlton, blamed an “oversight” for his enrolment at a Woollahra rental property owned by his wife a month after they moved to the electorate he hopes to represent.
The Liberals have naturally sought to maximise Labor’s embarrassment, with the Daily Mail quoting one over-excited party spokesperson calling on Labor to refer Charlton to the Australian Federal Police, as Lobo had been by the Australian Electoral Commission. But as the AEC’s media statement on the issue noted, Lobo has actively identified the Everton Park property as his residential address on his enrolment and nomination forms, potentially putting him in the frame for providing false or misleading information to a Commonwealth officer, punishable by a maximum 12 months’ imprisonment and $12,600 fine.
By contrast, Charlton’s is a sin of omission: failing to update his enrolment within the prescribed one month time frame after changing address, punishable only by a fine of $222 and in practice hardly ever enforced. There remains the question of why he was enrolled in Woollahra rather than at the Bellevue Hill property where he and his wife were living before their recent move to North Parramatta, but it’s difficult to see what ulterior motive might have been in play.
Now a new front has opened in the seat of McEwen on Melbourne’s northern fringe, where the Liberals are hopeful of unseating Labor member Rob Mitchell. Sumeyya Ilanbey of The Age reports today that Labor has asked the AEC to investigate Liberal candidate Richard Welch, who lives 50 kilometres from the electorate in the Melbourne suburb of Viewbank but listed an address in Wallan on his nomination form. Welch claims he had been living separately from his family in Wallan at the time of his nomination, but moved to his own property in Viewbank just days later after his landlord sold the house and terminated the lease.
LeClerc bins Niki Laura’s Ferrari at Historic Monaco Race Week:
https://youtu.be/MN-3hXcWg1E
It wouldn’t be a Monaco race meet without the local boy binning a Ferrari:
https://youtu.be/hC0epPTx2mw
https://youtu.be/ROdeM87EgJY
https://youtu.be/yGzompUqW-0
This Liberal policy isn’t super well thought out. Feeling super comfortable now 🙂
And not forgetting that many young people who lost their jobs during the pandemic initially dipped into their super then.
So who is this policy really aimed at?
Well, without the blonde bit, right there is the core of disaffected Liberal voters the Teals are responding to, and indeed trying to win in those key seats.
Victoria
It’s probably worse than that – the ‘extra’ from super not even making up the average ‘bump’ in prices caused by this policy. In which case it just becomes intergenerational wealth transfer/theft.
Do the Liberals think this policy is crash hot? Are they betting the house on it?
I think that’s enough torture 🙂
Vic:
Given the pledge is supposedly from the young libertarian types in the Liberal party, the pledge is more than likely another way of undermining the superannuation industry.
Stamp duty on a property worth 850,000 is approx 34,000.
Doubt most young people would even be able to access that amount from their super to cover the stamp duty.
What shonks.
Every single housing policy to make housing more affordable makes the price of housing increase.
Fess
Most definitely.
Boerwar @ #97 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 8:50 am
You mean they’re fairly typical traditional Liberal voters in their respective electorates who feel betrayed by their natural party of choice.
Rocket rocket
100 percent. The whole policy is a ruse.
“If there is a lack of diversity among the Teals it’s because they came about in part to address the lack of diversity in the Liberal party.”
Yeah to the extent the teals are lnp types wanting more women, a little science and less corruption of course they are predominantly wealthy white women.
It is ‘is the pope a catholic’ territory.
Greensborough Growler
@AmyRemeikis
“Liberal senator Jane Hume admits house prices will probably increase in the short term because of the Coalition’s superannuation home policy but says it will be worth it to get first home owners into homes.”
Can’t hide the truth for long. Silly trying to defend the indefensible. Makes her Dear Leader look all the more stupid. He needs no help.
Hume admitting this morning that Morrison’s super promise will push up house prices
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2022/may/16/federal-election-2022-live-scott-morrison-anthony-albanese-coalition-labor-housing-health-economy-super-childcare-politics at 8:08
I reckon the fiberals only launched this policy at the finish line of the campaign, just to give a sugar hit to them. They didnt want enough time for the policy to be scrutinised for the dud it truly is.
Holden – that is absolute gold!
Boer – The point of the Teals is they are the disaffected part of the Liberal Party, so of course they are not massively diverse since the Liberal Party isn’t. They are however representative of the seats they run for. If the Guardian is going to whinge about Keneally in Fowler they should not complain about well off middle class white women in North Sydney…
Maybe this policy is to allow the younger generation to directly compete for the same housing stock against the older generation that have been encouraged to downsize just yesterday 😉
Turnbull on the attack against Morrison
Malcolm Turnbull
@TurnbullMalcolm
2017 https://amzn.asia/418NHW2
“He wanted, once again, to abolish or severely restrict negative gearing and reduce the amount of the capital gains discount available to investors in residential property. He was also keen to allow first-home buyers to use their superannuation savings for a home deposit–an idea I’d sharply criticised back in 2015 as undermining the object of superannuation and only likely to fuel demand. My very strong view had always been that the unaffordability of housing was essentially a supply-side problem–because of planning restrictions, we weren’t building enough dwellings. Scott didn’t fundamentally disagree with me on that, but he was convinced that politically we should be cracking down on negative gearing, for the same reasons he’d advocated in the lead-up to the 2016 budget.”
” Liberal senator Jane Hume [Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy] admits house prices will probably increase in the short term because of the Coalition’s superannuation home policy…”
So, the cat’s out of the bag
Maybe they’re attracting those who are:
• so desperate to not rent that they will throw away whatever they have to look like they are in the game.
• those who do not care about super or what it means or what it can do (I used to be like this; I would have been prime candidate for the Libs policy if that is all that mattered to me)
• those who do not do finances well at all and (happily) go with emotion, ignoring how this seems to effect house prices etc.
There’s definitely a few votes there…. I mean, a few.
I guess at this stage, anything can sound appealing to some demographic. That’s not that hard to do. Someone will like something.
“If there is a lack of diversity among the Teals it’s because they came about in part to address the lack of diversity in the Liberal party.”
Damm straight. For all their talk about being a ‘broad church’ in the Liberal party they are dominated by either lawyers or party hacks in their ranks. Nothing broad church about them at all.
Don’t get me wrong there are alot of Lawyers in the Labor party as well. But the Liberal party crow about Labor being dominated by unions but you look into the Liberal party ranks and their so called ‘broad church’ is a myth.
Surely the ALP senior peeps can nail Morrisons housing burp. Marles did OK on RN, but Sabre gave him ample opportunity.
All the right words are there. Grab the hammer by the base, aim carefully and strike through the nail in one hit please. Tap tap tap tap doesn’t cut it.
Mr Eslake was also cynical in his analysis of the housing policy offers during this election campaign.
“There are far more votes to be had in policies that keep house prices going up, as this policy will do, than there are in policies which would restrain the rate of growth in house prices,” he said.
_______
This is the key and why neither major party will do much really to address housing affordability. It will continually be something paid lip service to, with no action.
Lib apologists in the media saying that Morrison should have announced his “game changer” earlier are getting a lesson already. Even in the few days left the wheels are falling off his dumb “game changer”.
It’s Time says:
Monday, May 16, 2022 at 8:57 am
…
You mean they’re fairly typical traditional Liberal voters in their respective electorates who feel betrayed by their natural party of choice.’
=======================
No false excuses for the Teals, please.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that they are disproportionately anglophones.
Fancy stripping your nest egg to near zero to pay extra for housing and stamp duty.
Not forgetting all the interest lost in the money no longer invested in the super account.
eslake was also yung liberal national president and tawsmanian head dididnt he run for parliament once used to work for gratin instetute
Morning all. Thanks for the roundup BK. I am glad I am not the only one who thinks Morrisons super/home swap scheme idiotic. A recipe for more house price inflation.
In the last few days I have started seeing ads for Sturt MP James Stevens on my computer when I watch videos on youtube. I’ve never had that before. I don’t know how close Sturt is but the Liberals are worried.
Weakening superannuation might be a feature not a bug…
Victoria @ Monday, May 16, 2022 at 9:05 am
Don’t worry, the bank gets to earn compound interest on the mortgage instead 😉
Boerwar @ #95 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 8:15 am
This. Perfect. You could add that he doesnt care about solutions for Australia – he isnt interested in governing for Australians. He is the most selfish PM in living memory and this housing “policy” is the shining beacon on the tip of the giant self-interested iceberg.
“Fancy stripping your nest egg to near zero to pay extra for housing and stamp duty.
Not forgetting all the interest lost in the money no longer invested in the super account. ”
Imagine that being your only viable choice.
If they could weather the storm an early bursting of the property bubble could be a gift to the ALP. But it isn’t a small storm.
Missing from BK’s terrific (as usual) cartoon roundup…the true base of the LNP just basking in SfM’s radiance waiting for their property portfolios to embiggen from all those young super accounts..
BK @ #34 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 7:22 am
This article concludes with “…it’s clear, as a group of scientists pointed out in The Age on Saturday, that between the two major parties, Labor’s policy is significantly better than the government’s.”
If you restrict yourself to the major parties, this may be true (although not by much) – but the body of the article makes it abundantly clear that only the Green and Teal policies are either adequate or in line with the actual science.
I reckon the fossil fuel cartel have realized the COALition is a lost cause, are now in full damage control mode – they have shifted to promoting Labor because it is now their best option 🙁
Boerwar @ #94 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 8:44 am
And using pretzel logic to defend yourself is absurd.
They havent thought that far ahead. The feature is ‘how bad the policy is’. He actually went looking for a really bad policy so he could have a point of difference for his Minions in Murdoch to spin and rally around. Thats the type of person this PM is. FMD.
There are a couple of polls to suggest that in the unlikely event Labor lose a seat to the Coalition in NSW it is going to be Hunter.
Seems the Libs superhousing policy is not being that well received. Good.
Really, i think the Libs have long resented the fact that there is much $ tied up in super that their shyster mates dont have access too. Thats why they did their somewhat backfired Banking / Super RC. Now they want those $ shifted into the property market where their mates can get their grubby little hands on it and rake off fee’s for transactions. 🙁
Not really a spectacular centerpiece for their launch.
https://www.pollbludger.net/2022/05/16/move-it-or-lose-it/comment-page-2/#comment-3907196
Not sure Markson is helping the centre right of pollyTICs/ Fibs/ Nats etc with this.
Unless preaching to the choir, or equivalent.
Sydney’s eastern suburbs don’t seem to be under a threat for Liebor/ the Libs lite, more like the Teals, anyway?
Though I guess a possible change of fed gummint would prompt some review of relationships beyond allies and partners and friends..
Dog’s Brunch @ #134 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 9:11 am
At least some of those photos are from Britain.
Effectively, Morrison’s scheme will trap people into the homes they went into debt on by raiding their super. The fine print of the policy says that they must restore the extracted cash back into their super funds within 10 years. With increasing interest rates, how will they do this? Also, if they want to move house, not only do they have to replace the raided cash back into their super, but there will be some liability for the capital gain. I think I am right in this.
“but the body of the article makes it abundantly clear that only the Green and Teal policies are either adequate or in line with the actual science.”
Thanks Player One, what are the teal policies by the way? Are they advocating an ETS/carbon tax? Not asking as a trick, I actually don’t know what their policies are (and I don’t live in a seat where there’s a climate200 backed candidate anyway).
“If there is a lack of diversity among the Teals it’s because they came about in part to address the lack of diversity in the Liberal party.”
Damm straight. For all their talk about being a ‘broad church’ in the Liberal party they are dominated by either lawyers or party hacks in their ranks. Nothing broad church about them at all.
Don’t get me wrong there are alot of lawyers in the Labor party as well. But the Liberal party crow about Labor being dominated by unions but you look into the Liberal party ranks and their so called ‘broad church’ is a myth.
Griff
Of course the bank is always the winner!
Itep at 4.15 re Coalition and Westminster conventions…
Have you studied the Whitlamington era (described this way by Paul Lyneham, on the basis the 1972-75 PM regarded Parliament as a piece of cake)?
A bunch of conventions had to be trashed, materially altering the party-composition of the Senate, before Kerr could trash the convention of taking the advice of the PM of the day.
Boerwar @ #126 Monday, May 16th, 2022 – 9:05 am
You’re not making much sense today, Boerwar. First, “some of my best friends are Jews” and now “the Teals all look the same”. And your second sentence reinforces the point I made that they have the characteristics of typical traditional Liberal supporters in their electorates. Why do you think they are polling so well in their electorates?
“Also, if they want to move house, not only do they have to replace the raided cash back into their super, but there will be some liability for the capital gain. I think I am right in this.”
Hmmmmmmmm…others may know more about this but starting to look like something like self managed super fund?? That is a popular one for the Libs on the “your money” front. And again, exposes newby investors savings to the Liberals base of shysters and donors.
Boerwar
“Finland is buying several dozen JSF which would dominate in air conflicts with Russia. However they have limited air base infrastructure which would be relatively easy to destroy with missiles.”
Boerwar Finnish defence policy is aware of this and has several mitigations:
– Finland and Sweden are close defense allies and Finnish planes can be withdrawn to operate from Sweden
– Finland has a concept of “total defence” whereby the Finnish air force planes can be distributed across temporary runways around the country to limit losses.
– Finland has very good radar cover of Russia and can detect incoming Russian planes and respond.
Jan
Morrison is clearly the worst PM at least since McMahon. But personality wise I think his only peer in the ‘horrible horrible person’ stakes is Billy Hughes.
I am counting down the hours until he’s gone – as are many of his colleagues I would imagine.