Australian Federal Election- July 2, 2016

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Yes, I'm starting to think Shorten is becoming a drag on the party's chances. How would Albanese or Plibersek do as leader?

Pilbersek would prevent the party from going even further right, I guess; ditto for Albanese. However, I don't think there has been any public polling on the two.

Um ... the ALP has not shifted to the right since Shorten and Plibersek has actually kind of gone down in my estimations, she might not be a natural 'performer', but whenever I've seen her, she's been kind of unimpressive. I do think Shorten has a stronger policy brain than both Plib and Albo - his mistake was not capitalising on the Government's weaknesses and in essence, create a Government in exile. Just ready and waiting ... But they've gone the old route. But, let's be honest here, we have been spoilt by how bad Abbott had been.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

They more realistic than last time. The ALP is stronger in WA, QLD and VIC is much stronger and consistently so.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Is there any chance this will end in a hung parliament? And, if so, how are the Greens doing? ALP will need them if they are going to have a victory.

Put it this way, I think a Coalition majority is more likely than an ALP one.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Abbott won't care about the re-distributions. But he will care about the Senate, it's the only thing in my mind that might get him to hold off. But he's a politician, if he thinks he can win, he will give it a crack, for a number of reasons- his Federation White Paper process is DEAD, the economy is still stagnant and Shorten will appear at the Royal Commission on Unions as early as next month. They're going to want to bury/extend the situation for the failures and capitalize of Shorten's weaknesses. I don't think they want Parliament to return in August, but that's based on nothing but gut.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The fact that the Government is actively trying to pour cold water on the SSM cross-party Bill and with Eric Abetz saying some of the stupidest things I've heard from this Government yet... Makes me think they don't want to have a timeline for this as early as August. While I don't think minds are made up, I'm more sure that they absolutely want the option to pull the trigger sometime during the winter break (that ends on 10 August).

Remember, Australia is heading into weird times when it comes to the electoral calendar. In reality, the only periods when an election can be held without interfering with the sacred cows of footy finals is between now and late August and from mid-October until very very early December (but in reality late November) - December elections get close to Christmas holidays and people get angry. 

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

New polling out tonight, key elements: Shorten AND Abbott's approvals in the toilet (although Shorten is at new lows in both but people still generally more unhappy with Abbott), Shorten either tied or ahead of Abbott as preferred PM.

Fairfax/Ipsos

Primaries
LNP: 39% (-1)
ALP: 35% (-2)
GRN: 16% (+2)

TPP:
LNP: 47%
ALP: 53%

Approval
Abbott: 36% (-4)
Shorten: 35% (-6)

Disapproval
Abbott: 59% (+5)
Shorten: 55% (+8)

Preferred PM
Abbott: 39% (-2)
Shorten: 43% (+1)

Newspoll (now by Galaxy)

Primaries
LNP: 40% (nc)
ALP: 37% (+3)
GRN: 13% (-1)

TPP
LNP: 48% (-1)
ALP: 52% (+1)

Satisfaction
Abbott: 33%
Shorten: 28%

Dissatisfaction
Abbott: 60%
Shorten: 56%

Preferred PM
Abbott: 39%
Shorten: 39%

Basically, no good news for anyone, outside of the Greens. But the remarkable thing is, despite the massive collapse in Shorten's personal standing, the ALP is not losing votes and is retaining it's lead. Interesting note, of the last 150 polls, the ALP has led in 148 of them. I've heard a lot of people say "the Government is in no worse position than many first term Governments..." Pretty much wrong. This is the worst performing first term Government for four decades, and the worst performing Prime Minister. Funnily, for all of this drama about Shorten's collapse, he's still one of the best performing opposition leaders against a first-term government, but he will be appearing before the *coughhatchetjobcough* Royal Commission on Union Corruption this coming week... and that could well be an important step if the Government decides to go early.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Former New England Independent MP Tony Windsor is considering a political comeback.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-09/tony-windsor-considers-political-comeback-in-light-of-mine/6606022

I cannot begin to tell you how much I want this to happen.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Why does Shorten have such high disapproval numbers? Seems odd for that to happen to an opposition leader. I heard him speak a couple of years ago and i thought he was fantastic

For first term Opposition Leaders high negative ratings and low preferred PM ratings are the norm.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The Coalition has stormed to an election-winning lead in the newest Galaxy.

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2015/09/18/galaxy-51-49-to-coalition-2/

They lead 51-49, with primary votes at 44-36-11.

Turnbull has a massive 51-20 lead over Shorten on PPM. RIP Bill.

This is what Talley has been waiting for.

This is the sugar hit, what matters is whether this is sustained.


The degree to which Abbott's removal has been greeting with a sigh of relief is actually so much stronger than I expected. It seems everyone except the rabid right is pleased. So, of course, the LNP number will bounce and the PPM number will surge in Turnbull's favour. This is what pretty much everyone expected would happen.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Quite a rush back to the Coalition, yes, but we all know the large personality following that Turnbull has amassed.  I must be honest, but I have yet to find him particularly impressive in the role, and the media darling track has been rather annoying.

Of course, I would say that in the face of numbers such as this, but these are very early days.  I still believe that there are deeper structural issues with Coalition support that will take longer than three days to repair, although Turnbull will be much more successful at doing so.

If anything, most of the commentary is referring to the Turnbull bounce so far as being "modest".

There's a Newspoll in the field this weekend maybe an Ipsos and likely Morgan too.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

For some reason Morgan, after previously being much Labor than the other pollsters has flipped the other way, Md is giving results way more Liberal than the others. Odd.

Morgan's pro-Labor bias is exaggerated, their issue isn't exaggerating Labor's numbers, but exaggerating the current mood. They get better closer to elections, but during the regular year, they're usually off. Considering the last Abbott poll had Labor up 56-44 when everyone else had it around 53-54, the polling is starting to settle around 52 at the moment for the Coalition, maybe 53. So it is a flipping of the previous status quo, but noting the Morgan tendency to overplay the mood.

The poll was actually a topic of conversation at the sub-branch last night, most of us are realistic that we cannot win the election, but laughed ourselves stupid at the idea that we're at 27.5% primary.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It's interesting... it does reflect what the mood generally is. Turnbull is just so preferable to Abbott it's insane, Shorten pales in comparison. But... the voting intention seems to not, in any way, reflect the leadership ratings, I hear a lot of people say how much they prefer Malcolm over Bill and absolutely over Abbott but I don't see a lot of people equally say "I'm voting for them now". A lot of the numbers pre-Turnbull were unhappy moderate Liberals, they've largely come home. For the remaining unsure, Turnbull still has to translate, through policy pronouncements, that personal appreciation into votes.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

And Talley - Essential has moved in 51-49 for the Coalition from 52-48 last week...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2015/10/23/reachtel-53-47-to-coalition-3/

ReachTel has it at 53-47 to the Coalition, up from 50-50 last time.

Turnbull's approvals are 66-16 and Shorten's are 25-62.

Turnbull is ahead 76-14 as preferred Prime Minister...

Let's be brutally honest here. Turnbull hasn't really had to make a difficult decision yet. It's a perfect popularity storm for him right now.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

We are officially on double-dissolution watch.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-21/malcolm-turnbull-brings-budget-forward-threatens-election/7262898

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

We are officially on double-dissolution watch.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-21/malcolm-turnbull-brings-budget-forward-threatens-election/7262898

so in a double dissolution, 12 senators are elected from each state? does this not mean that the quota come down from 14.3% to 7.7%? resulting in even more microparties in the crossbench?

Not really, there is a theory that the lower the threshold, the greater the risk of microparties, but you've also got the major parties running 12 people in each ticket, in each state, that situation means the majors will wring as many votes and seats as they can, before they go to help microparties.

Plus, the new Senate voting practices mean that people's votes will likely exhaust long-before helping elect no-name Indies or micros.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

An election is definitely coming - Sarah Henderson the Lib in Corangamite accidentally had 1000 corflutes delivered to the ETU in Geelong.

Yup - the combination of that plus the House is only scheduled to sit for 2 of the 8 additional sitting days before the Budget session tells you the Government is locked in to the DD.

There's going to be Newspoll, Ipsos likely on Monday

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Bronnie has lost preselection...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Two polls out overnight - with two more to come.

Newspoll

Primaries
LNP: 41% (nc)
ALP: 36% (nc)
GRN: 11% (nc)

TPP
LNP: 49% (nc)
ALP: 51% (nc)

Satisfaction
Turnbull: 36% (-2)
Shorten: 31% (-1)

Dissatisfaction
Turnbull: 49% (+1)
Shorten: 52% (-1)

Preferred PM
Turnbull: 47% (+1)
Shorten: 28% (+1)


Fairfax/Ipsos

Primaries
LNP: 42% (-3)
ALP: 33% (+2)
GRN: 14% (nc)

TPP
LNP: 50% (-3)
ALP: 50% (+3)

Approval
Turnbull: 51% (-4)
Shorten: 33% (nc)

Disapproval
Turnbull: 38% (+6)
Shorten: 55% (+3)

Preferred PM
Turnbull: 54% (-7)
Shorten: 27% (+5)

A trend is forming, but it's interesting that Ipsos saw the strongest results for Turnbull personally and the TPP (outside of Morgan) and those personal figures seem to be holding up. They also seem to have an under-cooked ALP primary and slightly over-cooked Green primary.

Oh... I forgot there was also a ReachTel over the weekend.

(trigger warning: decimals)

Primaries
LNP: 43.5% (-3.1)
ALP: 35.8% (+1.3)
GRN: 9.8% (-0.7)

TPP
LNP: 50% (-2)
ALP: 50% (+2)

ReachTEL use ratings of very good/good-satisfactory-poor/very poor

Combined Very Good/Good
Turnbull: 25.5% (-4.1)
Shorten: 23.4% (+2.3)

Combined Very Poor/Poor
Turnbull: 36.6% (+2.5)
Shorten: 42.4% (-4.9)

ReachTEL also force people to choose a preferred PM - no, 'uncommitted' option
Turnbull: 58.4% (-1.6)
Shorten: 41.6% (+1.6)

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Now Morgan for what they're worth before a campaign

Primaries
LNP: 40.5% (-1.5)
ALP: 32% (+1)
GRN: 14% (+1)

TPP (Respondent-allocated)
LNP: 50% (-2.5)
ALP: 50% (+2.5)

(Previous election)
LNP: 49% (-2.5)
ALP: 51% (+2.5)

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The ABCC legislation has been defeated in the Senate, Turnbull has his desired DD trigger.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Please don't wish that upon us.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It looks like both Labour/Labor parties are suffering from lackluster leaders Corbyn/Shorten. The fundamentals are certainly there for them to win.

And that's the only time Corbyn and Shorten will be compared.

Or should be.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

We know the election will be called at some point between Thursday night and Saturday morning.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

We know the election will be called at some point between Thursday night and Saturday morning.

I thought May 10/11 was going to be the day the election was officially called? Don't they need time to get the bills through Parliament?

The supply Bills will likely be passed by tomorrow afternoon/Thursday morning.