(This article will serve as rolling coverage of spill-related polling and other items.)
Tuesday morning
It's on! Turnbull vs Dutton. Unfortunately because they are already in the party room, we don't get the wonderful drama of retinues of supporters walking the corridors behind their leader and so on.
Turnbull has defeated Dutton 48-35 but generally a margin that small is not sufficient to ward off a future challenge, which in this case could well happen soon.
Julie Bishop has been retained unopposed as Deputy Leader.
It is worth bearing in mind that with the exception of Malcolm Fraser (who was unsuccessfully challenged by Andrew Peacock) no Prime Minister who has faced a spill has remained in the job until the next election. (Fraser lost). Other PMs who have been challenged have all failed to make it to the next election: Gorton, Hawke, Rudd, Gillard and Abbott. In four of these five cases it took two goes to get rid of the incumbent (it is little-known that Gorton was unsuccessfully challenged after winning the 1969 election with a disappointing margin).
Showing posts with label Julie Bishop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julie Bishop. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Poll Roundup: Citizenship Chaos Sends Government To New Term Low
2PP Aggregate: 54.2 to Labor (+1 point in a week) - highest reading of term
Labor would win election "held now" with a large margin
Government has lost majority (for now) with two MPs recontesting their seats in by-elections
This week we've seen a highly unusual event in Australian political history: a federal government has lost its majority partway through a term. This last happened in 1931. The one-term Scullin government began its term with a robust 46 seats out of 75, but a by-election loss and defections to the opposition UAP and the Lang Labor split saw it whittled down to 35, following which it collapsed before the year was out. What has happened to the Turnbull government, so far, is much less dramatic - two of its seats are vacant pending by-elections, and the government will recover majority status if Barnaby Joyce is returned, although it would then lose it again if John Alexander is defeated.
However, as the Section 44 eligibility issues continue to unfold (with the tabling of required evidence by December 1 expected to be the next step), we could well see more by-elections early next year in some much more difficult government seats. The prospect of the government slipping into permanent minority, or perhaps even losing enough seats that it can no longer govern, is a real one. There may also be by-elections in Labor and crossbench seats, but no incumbent government has gained a seat from an opposition in a federal by-election since 1920 so there would not be too much optimism regarding chances of gaining seats there. My legally unqualified view, incidentally, is that the "hesitators" (those who filed to renounce UK citizenship too late for the process to complete by the close of nominations) are in trouble. The references in previous cases to the taking of all reasonable steps as sufficient refer to a context in which a member cannot reasonably renounce an overseas citizenship, not one in which a candidate was needlessly slow about it.
Labor would win election "held now" with a large margin
Government has lost majority (for now) with two MPs recontesting their seats in by-elections
This week we've seen a highly unusual event in Australian political history: a federal government has lost its majority partway through a term. This last happened in 1931. The one-term Scullin government began its term with a robust 46 seats out of 75, but a by-election loss and defections to the opposition UAP and the Lang Labor split saw it whittled down to 35, following which it collapsed before the year was out. What has happened to the Turnbull government, so far, is much less dramatic - two of its seats are vacant pending by-elections, and the government will recover majority status if Barnaby Joyce is returned, although it would then lose it again if John Alexander is defeated.
However, as the Section 44 eligibility issues continue to unfold (with the tabling of required evidence by December 1 expected to be the next step), we could well see more by-elections early next year in some much more difficult government seats. The prospect of the government slipping into permanent minority, or perhaps even losing enough seats that it can no longer govern, is a real one. There may also be by-elections in Labor and crossbench seats, but no incumbent government has gained a seat from an opposition in a federal by-election since 1920 so there would not be too much optimism regarding chances of gaining seats there. My legally unqualified view, incidentally, is that the "hesitators" (those who filed to renounce UK citizenship too late for the process to complete by the close of nominations) are in trouble. The references in previous cases to the taking of all reasonable steps as sufficient refer to a context in which a member cannot reasonably renounce an overseas citizenship, not one in which a candidate was needlessly slow about it.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Poll Roundup: No Instant Damage After Shocking Week
2PP Aggregate: 53.4 to Labor (unchanged)
Labor would win election "held now" comfortably
Last week the Coalition had an extremely messy six-hour party room meeting on the issue of same-sex marriage. The meeting led to open infighting between Coalition MPs and a general perception of a shambles. The end result was a decision (by a roughly two-to-one vote of the joint partyroom) that the Coalition would not allow a "free vote" on a cross-party same-sex marriage bill introduced by Warren Entsch. (Backbenchers can still exercise a conscience vote, but any frontbencher who does can expect to join them there.)
At a Prime Ministerial press conference, Tony Abbott stated afterwards that it was his "strong disposition" that a plebiscite be held after the next election. Malcolm Turnbull has since said that the party room has not yet made a specific decision to adopt the plebiscite as policy, and suggested it be held before the next election. Scott Morrison has instead called for a referendum.
The week ended with the Coalition, still reeling from the dumping of Bronwyn Bishop, facing a fresh scandal over the neutrality or otherwise of Trade Unions Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon, who accepted an invitation to speak at a Liberal Party event while serving in that role. Combined with Heydon's attack on Bill Shorten as a witness, there is a perception about that Heydon is too politically biased, or at least too readily seen to be biased, to continue in his role. The email trail has been dominating Question Time in the first days of this week.
Labor would win election "held now" comfortably
Last week the Coalition had an extremely messy six-hour party room meeting on the issue of same-sex marriage. The meeting led to open infighting between Coalition MPs and a general perception of a shambles. The end result was a decision (by a roughly two-to-one vote of the joint partyroom) that the Coalition would not allow a "free vote" on a cross-party same-sex marriage bill introduced by Warren Entsch. (Backbenchers can still exercise a conscience vote, but any frontbencher who does can expect to join them there.)
At a Prime Ministerial press conference, Tony Abbott stated afterwards that it was his "strong disposition" that a plebiscite be held after the next election. Malcolm Turnbull has since said that the party room has not yet made a specific decision to adopt the plebiscite as policy, and suggested it be held before the next election. Scott Morrison has instead called for a referendum.
The week ended with the Coalition, still reeling from the dumping of Bronwyn Bishop, facing a fresh scandal over the neutrality or otherwise of Trade Unions Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon, who accepted an invitation to speak at a Liberal Party event while serving in that role. Combined with Heydon's attack on Bill Shorten as a witness, there is a perception about that Heydon is too politically biased, or at least too readily seen to be biased, to continue in his role. The email trail has been dominating Question Time in the first days of this week.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Poll Roundup: Silly Lefties Oppose Senate Reform
2PP Aggregate: 52.9 to ALP (+0.2 since last week, +0.5 in three weeks)
Labor would comfortably win an election "held now"
With the release of a new ReachTEL plus regular offerings from Morgan and Essential, and also a rather striking Morgan leadership phone poll, there's enough new content for another roundup of federal polling.
The Morgan phone poll didn't include a released 2PP figure (they sometimes include them and sometimes don't) so there are three new polls to add. The ReachTEL taken on Thursday had a rounded 2PP of 54:46 and Essential's was 53:47. However in both cases the released primaries pointed to the rounding having been in Labor's favour, and I aggregated them at 53.6% and 52.8% respectively.
Last week's Morgan was 54:46 by last-election preferences; after adjusting for the primaries and the lean to Labor in Morgan's multi-mode series that one went in at 52.3. The Morgan was unusual in that respondent-allocated preferences only gave an outcome of 53:47 to Coalition. This was the first time in this whole term that respondent preferences have been a point worse for Labor than the published 2PP; they have been half a point worse four times with the last of those just over a year ago.
In all my aggregate shows a slight, but not yet statistically meaningful, drift back to Labor over the past three weeks. This is best shown this week on the spiky (non-smoothed) graph of aggregate readings, noting that the ReachTEL has been back-inserted into last week's reading.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Poll Roundup: Ipsos Stalls Re-spill Momentum
2PP Aggregate: 53.5 to Labor (-1.1 since last week, -2.2 in two weeks)
Labor would win an election "held now" comfortably
There aren't a lot of new polls this week so far but one of the two out has been significant and much discussed. The fourth federal monthly Fairfax-Ipsos phone poll came out with a surprisingly good result for the Coalition (by recent standards), with Labor leading only 51:49 two-party-preferred by last-election preferences and the Coalition leading 42-36 on primaries.
Prior to this poll there had been widespread and increasing speculation of a spill against Prime Minister Abbott on either Tuesday or Thursday this week, but following the poll the idea seems to have gone to ground. Suddenly there are reports of more acceptance that Abbott should be given a few months, the NSW election and the Budget to see if the Coalition can recover. The two events aren't automatically connected, but it looks like this single surprise result has had quite an impact on leadership speculation. Maybe that impact is itself temporary and polls next week will spark another round of fervour, but we are approaching a point at which changing leaders becomes a really bad idea for a while because there will be not enough time to clear the air before the NSW election.
The other result this week was Essential remaining at 53:47 to Labor. As noted before, because Essential often doesn't move when other polls do, it's not clear what we should read from this.
Labor would win an election "held now" comfortably
There aren't a lot of new polls this week so far but one of the two out has been significant and much discussed. The fourth federal monthly Fairfax-Ipsos phone poll came out with a surprisingly good result for the Coalition (by recent standards), with Labor leading only 51:49 two-party-preferred by last-election preferences and the Coalition leading 42-36 on primaries.
Prior to this poll there had been widespread and increasing speculation of a spill against Prime Minister Abbott on either Tuesday or Thursday this week, but following the poll the idea seems to have gone to ground. Suddenly there are reports of more acceptance that Abbott should be given a few months, the NSW election and the Budget to see if the Coalition can recover. The two events aren't automatically connected, but it looks like this single surprise result has had quite an impact on leadership speculation. Maybe that impact is itself temporary and polls next week will spark another round of fervour, but we are approaching a point at which changing leaders becomes a really bad idea for a while because there will be not enough time to clear the air before the NSW election.
The other result this week was Essential remaining at 53:47 to Labor. As noted before, because Essential often doesn't move when other polls do, it's not clear what we should read from this.
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Liberal Spill And Poll Roundup: The Trouble With Political Jokes
2PP Aggregate: 55.8% to Labor (+3.2 points in three weeks, highest reading of term)
(updated following Newspoll and Morgan)
Labor would win election held now with a massive majority.
(NB Scroll to bottom of article for updates for polls and other events added from Sunday 8 Feb on)
I've just returned from a week and a half on remote field work, and was going to put out my first poll roundup for the year on Tuesday. However, all sorts of things might happen by then, so the data might very well be redundant. I've decided to catch up on the mass of recent polling data first, and then follow up on the early week polling when it comes out. But first, time for a look back at how (in my view at least) we got here. My own contribution to the narrative-writing about what is going on now is rather long, so some may wish to skip the next two sections.
(updated following Newspoll and Morgan)
Labor would win election held now with a massive majority.
 |
| The Coalition is now in its worst polling position of the current term |
I've just returned from a week and a half on remote field work, and was going to put out my first poll roundup for the year on Tuesday. However, all sorts of things might happen by then, so the data might very well be redundant. I've decided to catch up on the mass of recent polling data first, and then follow up on the early week polling when it comes out. But first, time for a look back at how (in my view at least) we got here. My own contribution to the narrative-writing about what is going on now is rather long, so some may wish to skip the next two sections.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Poll Roundup: Budget Blowout Over
2PP Aggregate: 51.0 to ALP (-0.5 in one week, -0.9 in three weeks)
Chances would be roughly equal in election "held now"
It's taken twenty-four weeks, an air disaster, "combat operations" and various backdowns but national polling has finally returned to where it was before advance reports of an unpopular Budget caused a blowout that at times was worth close to four points in Labor's favour.
This should not cause very much comfort for the Coalition, since "where it was" in April wasn't by any means good; based on current figures an election "held now" would be a tossup. But the view about from hopeful ALP supporters during the initial stage of the Budget backlash - that this was a basically uncompetitive government that was always going to trail badly from that point on - turns out to have been incorrect. With it goes one of the main scenarios under which this government would have been heading for defeat in 2016.
Chances would be roughly equal in election "held now"
It's taken twenty-four weeks, an air disaster, "combat operations" and various backdowns but national polling has finally returned to where it was before advance reports of an unpopular Budget caused a blowout that at times was worth close to four points in Labor's favour.
This should not cause very much comfort for the Coalition, since "where it was" in April wasn't by any means good; based on current figures an election "held now" would be a tossup. But the view about from hopeful ALP supporters during the initial stage of the Budget backlash - that this was a basically uncompetitive government that was always going to trail badly from that point on - turns out to have been incorrect. With it goes one of the main scenarios under which this government would have been heading for defeat in 2016.
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