Morrison’s ratings take a hit in Newspoll as Coalition notionally loses a seat in redistribution

AAP/James Gourley

Adrian Beaumont, The University of MelbourneThis week’s Newspoll, conducted March 24-27 from a sample of 1,517, gave Labor a 52-48 two party lead, unchanged from last fortnight’s Newspoll. Primary votes were 40% Coalition (up one), 38% Labor (down one), 11% Greens (up one) and 2% One Nation (down one).

While voting intentions moved slightly towards the Coalition, Scott Morrison’s ratings fell to their lowest point since the COVID crisis began. 55% were satisfied with his performance (down seven) and 40% were dissatisfied (up six), for a net approval of +15, down 13 points.

Anthony Albanese’s net approval was up one point to +2, and Morrison led as better PM by 52-32 (56-30 last fortnight). Figures are from The Poll Bludger.

The last Newspoll was taken during the final few days of the WA election campaign. It’s plausible, given Morrison’s ratings slump without any impact on voting intentions, that Labor’s federal WA vote in the last Newspoll was inflated by the state election.

While Morrison’s ratings are his worst since the pandemic began, they are still strong by historical standards. So far, Morrison has only lost people who were likely to switch to disapproving at the first major scandal. Voting intentions imply that many who approved of Morrison were not voting Coalition anyway.

This poll would not have reflected the latest scandals about LNP Bowman MP Andrew Laming, who was revealed on Saturday night to have taken an upskirting picture in 2019. But are sexual misbehaviour scandals getting as much voter opprobrium as they used to?

In last fortnight’s article I cited two recent US examples of alleged sexual misconduct. Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016 despite the release of the Access Hollywood tape a month earlier. And New York’s Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, is still in office despite multiple sexual harassment allegations against his female employees.

According to Morning Consult polling of New York state, Cuomo’s ratings have stabilised recently after a large drop, and he still has a +10 net approval. That’s because he has a 75% approval rating from Democratic voters.

In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate of 2016 US national polls, Hillary Clinton gained only about a point in the week after the October 7 Access Hollywood tape was released, to have a six-point lead, up from five. Trump won that election in the Electoral College despite losing the national popular vote by 2.1%.

Draft federal redistributions for Victoria and WA

As a result of population growth trends, Victoria will gain an additional House of Representatives seat before the next election, while WA loses one. On March 19, the Electoral Commission published draft boundaries for both states.

In WA, the Liberal seat of Stirling was axed, while in Victoria the seat of Hawke was created in Melbourne’s northwestern growth area. The Poll Bludger estimated Hawke will have a Labor margin of 9.8%.

There are no major knock-on effects that would shift any other seat into another party’s column based on 2019 election results. So the impact is Labor gaining a Victorian seat as the Coalition loses a WA seat. Christian Porter’s margin in Pearce has been reduced slightly from 6.7% to 5.5%.

Ignoring the defection of Craig Kelly from the Liberals, the Coalition will start the next federal election with a notional 76 of the 151 seats, down one from the 2019 results. Labor will notionally have 69 seats, up one.

Early Tasmanian election announced for May 1

On March 26, Tasmanian Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein announced the Tasmanian election would be held on May 1, about ten months before the four-year anniversary of the March 2018 election.

The Liberals expect to capitalise on a COVID boost that could fade if the election were held as expected in early 2022. The last Tasmanian poll, conducted by EMRS in February, gave the Liberals 52%, Labor 27% and the Greens 14%. Tasmania uses the Hare-Clark method of proportional representation with five electorates that each return five members.

WA election final lower house results

At the March 13 Western Australian election, Labor won 53 of the 59 lower house seats, gaining 12 seats from what was already a thumping victory in 2017. The Liberals won just two seats (down 11) and the Nationals four (down one). Labor will have almost 90% of lower house seats.

Primary votes were 59.9% Labor (up 17.7% since 2017), 21.3% Liberals (down 9.9%), 4.0% Nationals (down 1.4%), 6.9% Greens (down 2.0%) and just 1.3% One Nation (down 3.7%).

Labor’s primary vote was higher than the 59.0% the combined Nationals and Liberals won at the 1974 Queensland election. The 1941 Tasmanian election, when Labor won 62.6%, is likely the only prior occasion in Australia of a single party winning a higher vote share than WA Labor.

The Poll Bludger estimates the two party vote as 69.2-30.8 to Labor, a 13.7% swing since 2017. The upper house has yet to be finalised, but Labor will win at least 22 of the 36 seats.

Israeli, UK local, German and Dutch elections

I wrote for The Poll Bludger on March 21 about the March 23 Israeli election and the May 6 UK local elections that also include Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections. Israel’s right-wing PM Benjamin Netanyahu failed to win a majority for a right coalition, with that coalition winning 59 of the 120 Knesset seats. UK Labour is struggling in the polls.

I wrote for my personal website on March 19 about two German state elections that the combined left parties nearly won outright. The German federal election is expected on September 26, and the incumbent conservative CDU has slumped from its COVID heights, so the combined left could win the next German election. However, the left performed dismally at the March 17 Dutch election.

Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Biden still leads US Democratic primaries, Trump’s ratings fall slightly after gun massacres, plus Australian preference flows

Joe Biden remains the favourite to win the Democratic nomination.
AAP/EPA/Jim Lo Scalzo

Adrian Beaumont, University of Melbourne

After the first Democratic presidential debate on June 25-26, Joe Biden fell in Democratic national presidential polls, and Kamala Harris surged. In the lead-up to the July 30-31 debate, Biden recovered lost support while Harris lost some of her gains.

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Read more:
US Democratic presidential primaries: Biden leading, followed by Sanders, Warren, Harris; and will Trump be beaten?

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Since the debate, the biggest movement is clear gains for Elizabeth Warren, while Harris has continued to fall. In the RealClearPolitics national Democratic poll average, Biden currently leads with 30.8%, followed by Warren at 18.0%, Bernie Sanders at 16.8%, Harris at 8.3% and Pete Buttigieg at 6.3%. All other candidates are at 2% or less.

As I wrote previously, four states – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina – hold their primaries or caucuses in February 2020, while all other states need to wait until at least March 2020. So early state polls are important.

In the only poll conducted since the second Democratic debate in Iowa, Biden led with 28%, followed by Warren at 19%, Harris at 11%, Sanders at 9% and Buttigieg at 8%. In New Hampshire, there have been two polls since the debate. One has Biden at 21%, Sanders 17%, Warren 14%, Harris 8% and Buttigieg 6%. The other gives Sanders a lead with 21%, followed by Biden at 15%, Warren 12%, Buttigieg 8% and Harris 7%.

In general election polling, Biden has a high single-digit lead over Donald Trump, Sanders a mid single-digit lead, and both Warren and Harris have low single-digit leads. Biden’s perceived electability is crucial in explaining his continued strong polling, as this tweet from analyst Nate Silver says.

For the next Democratic presidential debate, on September 12, the threshold for participation has been increased. As a result there are likely to be far fewer candidates than the 20 in each of the first two debates.

Trump’s ratings slightly down after gun massacres

On August 3-4, 31 people were murdered in two separate gun massacres in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.

In the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, Trump’s ratings are slightly down since these massacres. With all polls, Trump’s ratings are 41.9% approve, 53.6% disapprove, for a net approval of -11.7%. With polls of registered or likely voters, his ratings are 42.6% approve, 53.3% disapprove, for a net approval of -10.7%.

Perhaps due to his anti-immigrant rhetoric, Trump’s net ratings have fallen about 1.5 points since my previous article a month ago, and this trend has continued after the massacres.

In the latest US jobs report, the unemployment rate remained at just 3.7% as 164,000 jobs were added in July. These jobs reports have been good news for Trump. I wrote an old but still relevant article on my personal website last year about how the low US participation rate holds down the unemployment rate compared to Australia.

The question that should be asked about Trump is why, given the strong US economic performance, his net approval is well below zero. FiveThirtyEight has historical data from 12 presidents going back to Harry Truman, and Trump’s net approval is only ahead of Jimmy Carter at this point in their presidencies. If there is an economic downturn before the November 2020 general election, Trump is likely to be far more vulnerable.

An economic downturn could occur due to Trump’s trade war with China, or due to a “no-deal” Brexit in the UK. I wrote for The Poll Bludger on August 2 that the UK parliament is running out of options to prevent no-deal, which PM Boris Johnson’s hard “Leave” cabinet suggests he will pursue. In my previous Poll Bludger article on July 23, I talked about Johnson’s crushing victory (66.4-33.6) in a Conservative members’ ballot.

Trump can still win the 2020 election, despite his low approval ratings, if he is able to either demonise his eventual Democratic opponent, or win the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote, as occurred in 2016. However, recent state by state polling has Trump’s net approval below zero in ten states he carried in 2016, and in some of those states his ratings are well below zero.

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Read more:
US 2016 election final results: how Trump won

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If all the states where Trump’s net approval is currently negative were to go to the Democrat, the Democrat would win the presidency by an emphatic 419-119 votes in the Electoral College.

Australian election preference flows and the first Newspoll

On August 2, the Electoral Commission released data on how every minor party’s preferences flowed between the major parties at the May federal election. The Greens, who won 10.4% of the primary vote, flowed heavily to Labor (82.2%), but Clive Palmer’s UAP (3.4% of the vote) flowed at 65.1% to Coalition, and One Nation (3.1% of the vote) was almost identical in its flow (65.2%). Excluding the Greens, UAP and One Nation, Others preferences were 50.7% to Labor.

Analyst Kevin Bonham says there was barely any increase in the Greens preference flow to Labor since 2016. The Greens flow increased in four states, fell slightly in Queensland, and was weaker in SA as more moderate voters returned to the Greens after the collapse of Centre Alliance.

In 2016, One Nation preferences were just 50.4% to the Coalition, so the Coalition’s flow from One Nation increased almost 15%. In 2013, Palmer’s party preferences were 53.7% to the Coalition, so the UAP’s flow to the Coalition improved 11.4%.

Preference shifts advantaged the Coalition by 0.8% on the national two party vote compared to if no preference shifts had occurred. The Coalition’s overall share of minor party preferences (40.4%) was its best since 2001, when the Greens only had 5%.

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Read more:
Difficult for Labor to win in 2022 using new pendulum, plus Senate and House preference flows

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In the first Newspoll since the election, the Coalition led by 53-47, from primary votes of 44% Coalition, 33% Labor, 11% Greens and 3% One Nation. Scott Morrison’s ratings were 51% satisfied, 36% dissatisfied, for a net approval of +15, a big improvement from +1 in the final pre-election Newspoll that was biased against the Coalition. Anthony Albanese’s initial ratings were 39% satisfied, 36% dissatisfied. Morrison led by 48-31 as better PM.

This poll was conducted July 25-28 from a sample of 1,600. Bonham says there is no indication in The Australian’s report that anything has changed at Newspoll since the election’s poll failure. As I wrote after the election, there was, and still is, a lack of adequate documentation of Newspoll’s methods.

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Read more:
Newspoll probably wrong since Morrison became PM; polling has been less accurate at recent elections

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Spain’s Socialists fail to form government

The Spanish Socialists won the April 28 election, but as I wrote on my personal website on August 1, a lack of cooperation between the Socialists and far-left Podemos could mean another election. Also covered: a landslide for former comedian Zelensky’s party in the Ukraine, and the conservatives easily retain their hold over Japan’s upper house.

Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s still building 4 in every 5 new houses to no more than the minimum energy standard

Trivess Moore, RMIT University; Michael Ambrose, CSIRO, and Stephen Berry, University of South Australia

New housing in Australia must meet minimum energy performance requirements. We wondered how many buildings exceeded the minimum standard. What our analysis found is that four in five new houses are being built to the minimum standard and a negligible proportion to an optimal performance standard.

Before these standards were introduced the average performance of housing was found to be around 1.5 stars. The current minimum across most of Australia is six stars under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS).

This six-star minimum falls short of what is optimal in terms of environmental, economic and social outcomes. It’s also below the minimum set by many other countries.

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Read more:
Low-energy homes don’t just save money, they improve lives

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There have been calls for these minimum standards to be raised. However, many policymakers and building industry stakeholders believe the market will lift performance beyond minimum standards and so there is no need to raise these.

What did the data show?

We wanted to understand what was happening in the market to see if consumers or regulation were driving the energy performance of new housing. To do this we explored the NatHERS data set of building approvals for new Class 1 housing (detached and row houses) in Australia from May 2016 (when all data sets were integrated by CSIRO and Sustainability Victoria) to December 2018.

Our analysis focuses on new housing in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, all of which apply the minimum six-star NatHERS requirement. The other states have local variations to the standard, while New South Wales uses the BASIX index to determine the environmental impact of housing.

The chart below shows the performance for 187,320 house ratings. Almost 82% just met the minimum standard (6.0-6.4 star). Another 16% performed just above the minimum standard (6.5-6.9 star).

Only 1.5% were designed to perform at the economically optimal 7.5 stars and beyond. By this we mean a balance between the extra upfront building costs and the savings and benefits from lifetime building performance.

NatHERS star ratings across total data set for new housing approvals, May 2016–December 2018.
Author provided

The average rating is 6.2 stars across the states. This has not changed since 2016.

Average NatHERS star rating for each state, 2016-18.
Author provided

The data analysis shows that, while most housing is built to the minimum standard, the cooler temperate regions (Tasmania, ACT) have more houses above 7.0 stars compared with the warm temperate states.

NatHERS data spread by state.
Author provided

The ACT increased average performance each year from 6.5 stars in 2016 to 6.9 stars in 2018. This was not seen in any other state or territory.

The ACT is the only region with mandatory disclosure of the energy rating on sale or lease of property. The market can thus value the relative energy efficiency of buildings. Providing this otherwise invisible information may have empowered consumers to demand slightly better performance.

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Read more:
Energy star ratings for homes? Good idea, but it needs some real estate flair

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We are paying for accepting a lower standard

The evidence suggests consumers are not acting rationally or making decisions to maximise their financial well-being. Rather, they just accept the minimum performance the building sector delivers.

Higher energy efficiency or even environmental sustainability in housing provides not only significant benefits to the individual but also to society. And these improvements can be delivered for little additional cost.

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Read more:
Sustainable housing’s expensive, right? Not when you look at the whole equation

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The fact that these improvements aren’t being made suggests there are significant barriers to the market operating efficiently. This is despite increasing awareness among consumers and in the housing industry about the rising cost of energy.

Eight years after the introduction of the six-star NatHERS minimum requirement for new housing in Australia, the results show the market is delivering four out of five houses that just meet this requirement. With only 1.5% designed to 7.5 stars or beyond, regulation rather than the economically optimal energy rating is clearly driving the energy performance of Australian homes.

Increasing the minimum performance standard is the most effective way to improve the energy outcomes.

The next opportunity for increasing the minimum energy requirement will be 2022. Australian housing standards were already about 2.0 NatHERS stars behind comparable developed countries in 2008. If mandatory energy ratings aren’t increased, Australia will fall further behind international best practice.

If we continue to create a legacy of homes with relatively poor energy performance, making the transition to a low-energy and low-carbon economy is likely to get progressively more challenging and expensive. Recent research has calculated that a delay in increasing minimum performance requirements from 2019 to 2022 will result in an estimated A$1.1 billion (to 2050) in avoidable household energy bills. That’s an extra 3 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

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Read more:
Buildings produce 25% of Australia’s emissions. What will it take to make them ‘green’ – and who’ll pay?

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Our research confirms the policy proposition that minimum house energy regulations based on the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme are a powerful instrument for delivering better environmental and energy outcomes. While introducing minimum standards has significantly lifted the bottom end of the market, those standards should be reviewed regularly to ensure optimal economic and environmental outcomes.

Trivess Moore, Lecturer, RMIT University; Michael Ambrose, Research Team Leader, CSIRO, and Stephen Berry, Research fellow, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Poll wrap: Morrison’s ratings slump in Newspoll; Wentworth’s huge difference in on-the-day and early voting

It took six months for Malcolm Turnbull to receive his first negative Newspoll net approval as PM; it has taken Scott Morrison just two months.
AAP/Joel Carrett

Adrian Beaumont, University of Melbourne

This week’s Newspoll, conducted October 25-28 from a sample of 1,650, gave Labor a 54-46 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since last fortnight. Primary votes were 39% Labor (up one), 36% Coalition (down one), 9% Greens (down two) and 6% One Nation (steady). Rounding probably assisted Labor in this poll.

41% were satisfied with Scott Morrison (down four), and 44% were dissatisfied (up six), for a net approval of -3, down ten points. Bill Shorten’s net approval was up three points to -13. While Shorten’s ratings are poor, this is his best net approval this term. Morrison led Shorten by 43-35 as better PM (45-34 last fortnight).

58% thought Morrison should hold the election when due next year, while 33% thought he should call an early election before the end of this year.

Since Morrison became PM, his net approvals have been +2, +5, +7 and now -3. Turnbull’s first four net approvals were +18, +25, +35 and +32. It took six months for Turnbull to receive his first negative Newspoll net approval, it has taken Morrison just two months.

According to analyst Kevin Bonham, even if Morrison never receives another positive Newspoll net approval, he will still have more positive net approvals than either Tony Abbott (two) or Paul Keating (zero) did as PM.

Morrison’s slump could be caused by the Liberals’ loss of Wentworth, but it could also be due to increasingly bad perceptions of the Coalition over issues such as climate change. The falls in the stock market and house prices are likely to impact consumer confidence, and governments usually perform worse when the economy is not perceived to be doing well.

Essential: 53-47 to Labor

Last week’s Essential poll, mostly taken before the Wentworth byelection, gave Labor a 53-47 lead, unchanged from three weeks ago. Primary votes were also unchanged, with the Coalition on 38%, Labor 37%, the Greens 10% and One Nation 7%. This poll was conducted October 18-21 from a sample of 1,027.

Essential uses the previous election method to assign preferences, assuming One Nation preferences split about 50-50. Since December 2017, Newspoll has assumed One Nation preferences split about 60-40 to the Coalition. If Essential and Newspoll used the same method, there would probably be a two-point gap between the two. Since Morrison became PM, Newspoll has given Labor better two party results than Essential despite the One Nation adjustment.

60% (up nine since April) cited cost-of-living as one of their top three issues, while 37% cited health (up one), 29% housing affordability (steady) and 27% creating jobs (down five). Income and business tax cuts were at the bottom with just 12% and 5% respectively who thought they were important issues.

59% thought the change of PM had made no difference and the Morrison government was still the same government, while 20% thought it was a new government. By 35-28, they preferred Morrison to Turnbull as PM (57-29 among Coalition voters).

63% (down one since September 2017) thought that climate change was caused by human activity, while 25% (up one) thought we were just witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate. 56% (steady) thought Australia was not doing enough to address climate change, 23% (up three) thought we were doing enough, and 7% (down one) thought we were doing too much.

37% did not support a separate national day to recognise Indigenous Australians, 36% supported a separate day alongside Australia Day, and just 14% supported a separate day instead of Australia Day.

Massive difference between on-the-day and early voting in Wentworth

With probably fewer than 1,000 postal votes to come before Friday’s deadline for reception, independent Kerryn Phelps won the October 20 Wentworth byelection by a 51.2-48.8 margin over Liberal Dave Sharma, a vote margin of 1,783, and a swing of 18.9% against the Liberals. Primary votes were 43.1% Liberal (down 19.1%), 29.2% Phelps, 11.5% Labor (down 6.2%) and 8.6% Greens (down 6.3%).

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Read more:
Wentworth byelection called too early for Phelps as Liberals recover in late counting

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Early on election night, Wentworth was called for Phelps owing to her strong performance on election-day booths. Pre-poll and postal votes counted by October 21 were much stronger than expected for Sharma, as this tweet from the ABC’s Antony Green shows.

Green also tweeted that there has been a big drop in Sharma’s percentage share of the postals as later batches are counted. Sharma was at 64.4% on postals counted by the morning of October 21, but dropped to just 44.3% in postals counted October 25. Later postals would have been sent closer to the election date.

Later postals tend to be less conservative-friendly than earlier ones, but not to this extent. It is clear from this data that Wentworth voters shifted decisively against the Liberals in the final days.

I think the most important reason for this shift was Coalition senators voting with Pauline Hanson on her “It’s OK to be white” motion. This motion would have absolutely no appeal to an electorate with a high level of educational attainment relative to the overall population.

Victorian Galaxy poll: 53-47 to Labor

The Victorian election will be held on November 24. A Galaxy poll for the Bus Association, conducted last week from an unknown sample, gave Labor a 53-47 lead, unchanged since September. Primary votes were 40% Labor (down two), 39% Coalition (down one) and 12% Greens (up two). This poll was probably close to 54-46 to Labor.

44% approved of Premier Daniel Andrews (up four), and 35% disapproved (down seven), for a net approval of +9, up eleven points. Opposition Leader Matthew Guy’s net approval was up one point to -18.

Since the change in PM, there have been two 53-47 to Labor results from Galaxy, and a 52-48 from ReachTEL. Labor is likely to win the Victorian election, though they could be forced into a minority government if the Greens take inner city seats.

US midterm elections, and far-right wins Brazil presidential election

US midterm elections will be held on November 6. I wrote for The Poll Bludger on Saturday that Democrats are likely to win the House, but Republicans are likely to retain the Senate. Trump’s ratings dropped from highs last seen in March 2017. The recent far-right terrorist events may shift public opinion.

The Brazilian presidential election runoff was held Sunday after no candidate won an outright majority in the first round on October 7. The far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, defeated the left-wing Workers’ Party candidate, Fernando Haddad, by a 55.1-44.9 margin. Bolsonaro has made comments sympathetic to the 1964-85 Brazil military dictatorship. Corruption by the established parties and a recession are key reasons for this result.

Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Newspoll 54-46 to Labor as Turnbull’s ratings slide further. If Parry DQ’d, a Green may be unelected

Adrian Beaumont, University of Melbourne

This week’s Newspoll, conducted 26-29 October from a sample of 1620, gave Labor its third successive 54-46 lead. Primary votes were 37% Labor (steady since last fortnight), 35% Coalition (down 1), 10% Greens (steady) and 9% One Nation (steady). This is Turnbull’s 22nd successive Newspoll loss as PM.

31% were satisfied with Turnbull’s performance (down 1) and 59% were dissatisfied (up 3), for a net approval of -28. In the last five weeks, Turnbull has lost 11 points on net approval, and Kevin Bonham says this is Turnbull’s worst net rating since early April. Shorten’s net approval was down two points to -24. The two leaders combined have a net approval of -52, which Bonham says is the third worst of this term.

According to Newspoll, the Michaelia Cash affair and the ousting of Barnaby Joyce by the High Court have had little impact on voting intentions. In Cash’s case, the general public is less concerned with political scandals than the political media and partisans.

If the Coalition were reduced to a minority government, there would probably be a public reaction. But the Coalition still holds 75 of the 149 occupied House seats, and Joyce is very likely to retain New England.

If pulling out of the Paris climate agreement “could result in lower electricity prices” (a dubious proposition), voters would favour pulling out 45-40.

Tasmanian Liberal Senator Stephen Parry’s possible dual citizenship could unelect Green Nick McKim

Tasmanian Liberal Senator Stephen Parry’s father may have been a British citzen, in which case Parry is probably a British citizen by descent. Update afternoon on 1 November: Parry is indeed a British citizen, and will resign from the Senate.

Given the High Court’s ruling on 27 October, Parry would be disqualified if he is a dual citizen, and his seat would be taken by Liberal Richard Colbeck. However, there were many more below the line votes in Tasmania than in other states at the last Federal election. If Parry is excluded from the count, slightly different preference flows flip the 12th and final seat from a 141 vote Greens win to a 227 vote One Nation win according to @angrygoat.

The question is whether the High Court will unelect a sitting Senator who has done nothing wrong himself. If they do, McKim will be replaced by One Nation’s Kate McCulloch, changing the Senate balance of power for the remainder of this term.

SSM plebiscite turnout and polling

As at Friday 27 October, the ABS estimated it had received 12.3 million same sex marriage plebiscite forms (77.0% of the electorate). Turnout increased from 74.5% on 20 October. This is the second last turnout report, with the final one to be released on 7 November, the last day for envelopes to be received. The result will be declared on 15 November.

Update Wednesday morning 1 November: In Newspoll, 76% of respondents have already voted, and another 10% say they will definitely vote. I am dubious that 10% are going to vote at this late stage. Of the 76% who have voted, Yes leads 62-35 (59-38 last fortnight from the 65% who had voted then). The remaining 24% support Yes 47-34. For the whole sample, Yes led by 59-35 (56-37 last fortnight).

Essential 54-46 to Labor

After a bad sample for Labor last fortnight, Essential has returned to 54-46 to Labor, a two point gain for Labor since last fortnight. Primary votes were 37% Labor (up 1), 36% Coalition (down 1), 10% Greens (up 1), 7% One Nation (down 1) and 3% Nick Xenophon Team (steady). This poll was conducted over the last two weeks from a sample of 1820. Additional questions are based on one week’s sample.

By 54-23, voters did not agree that the NBN would meet Australia’s future Internet needs (47-22 in October 2016). By 43-24, they supported the Labor NBN plan over the Liberal NBN (42-27 last year). By 39-19, voters blamed the Turnbull government over the previous Labor government for the NBN’s problems.

43% said their home was connected to the NBN, and 12% their workplace. Of those with an NBN connection, 52% said their service was better than the old one, and 17% worse.

By 50-30, voters disapproved of giving $50 billion in tax cuts to medium and large businesses. By 46-31, voters agreed with a negative vs a positive statement about these tax cuts.

YouGov primary votes: 36% Coalition, 33% Labor, 10% Greens, 9% One Nation

Update 1 November: According to the Poll Bludger, primary votes in YouGov were 36% Coalition (up 2 since last fortnight), 33% Labor (up 1), 10% Greens (down 1) and 9% One Nation (down 2). So once again Labor’s primary vote is much lower than in Newspoll or Essential. The two party result, from respondent allocated preferences, was an unchanged 51-49 to the Coalition.

Voters backed legalising voluntary euthanasia 69-10. By 58-33, they thought the gender pay gap a problem. By 64-27, they thought sexual harassment widespread. By 58-32, voters thought the government is not very serious about cutting carbon emissions.

Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections: 7 November

US Federal elections are held every two years, and most states hold their elections concurrently with Federal elections. Two exceptions are Virginia and New Jersey, which hold their elections for state governor in the year following the Presidential election. These elections will be held on 7 November, with results from 11am 8 November Melbourne time.

In Virginia, there is a one-term limit, so incumbent Democrat governor Terry McAuliffe cannot seek re-election. The contest is between Democratic candidate Ralph Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie. There is wide variety in the polls: some have Gillespie barely ahead or tied, some show Northam leading by 7 points, and Quinnipiac gives Northam a 17-point lead.

In New Jersey, incumbent Republican governor Chris Christie cannot seek re-election as he has served two terms. Democrat Phil Murphy leads Republican Kim Guadagno by double digit margins in all polls.

There is also a US Congress by-election in Utah’s 3rd Congressional District on 7 November. Trump won this district 47-23 with third party candidates performing best in Utah. In 2012, Romney crushed Obama 78-20, so the Republican should win easily.

As well as gubernatorial elections, there will be legislative elections in Virginia and New Jersey. At the 2018 midterm elections, governors of many populous states will be up for election.

Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Ipsos 53-47 to Labor, but Shorten’s ratings slump; Qld Newspoll 53-47 to Labor

Adrian Beaumont, University of Melbourne

An Ipsos poll, conducted 6-9 September from a sample of 1400, gave Labor a 53-47 lead, unchanged from the last Ipsos poll, taken after the May budget. Primary votes were 35% Coalition (down 2), 34% Labor (down 1), 14% Greens (up 1) and 17% for all Others (up 2). Ipsos has given the Greens higher votes than any other pollster.

42% approved of Turnbull’s performance (down 3), and 47% disapproved (up 3), for a net rating of -5. Shorten’s net approval slumped 11 points to -16. Usually Ipsos gives both leaders better ratings than Newspoll, but not so much for Shorten this time.

Reflecting other polls, Labor’s lead was reduced to 52-48 when respondents were asked for preferences. In 2016, all Others preferences split roughly 50-50 between the major parties. Currently, it appears that Others will be more favourable to the Coalition, as some Abbott-supporting voters have deserted the Coalition, but will probably return after preferences.

Scott Morrison had a 42-38 approval rating as Treasurer, much better than Joe Hockey’s 58-33 disapproval rating in April 2015. Morrison led Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen 38-29 as better Treasurer, and the Coalition led Labor 38-28 on economic management, with 3% opting for the Greens.

By 56-25, voters thought Turnbull had provided better economic leadership than Abbott, another result showing the electorate overwhelmingly prefers Turnbull to Abbott.

Economic management has always been a strength for the Coalition, so their leads on preferred Treasurer and the economy are expected. However, while voters may prefer the Coalition to manage the overall economy, low wages growth is a key reason to vote Labor for personal economic reasons.

Shorten’s ratings may have been damaged by the Coalition’s attacks on him, and also by his negative parliamentary tactics. However, most people do not focus on the opposition and its policies until the election campaign.

In a March UK poll, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump were almost equally unpopular, with both at less than -40 net approval. Corbyn and UK Labour’s popularity surged in the election campaign, and the Conservatives suffered a shock loss of their majority at the June UK election.

65% of Ipsos’s sample said they were certain to vote in the same sex marriage plebiscite. Of certain voters, there was a 70-26 margin in favour of same sex marriage. Ipsos is a live phone pollster, so it is likely to be biased against politically incorrect views.

Essential 54-46 to Labor

This week’s Essential, conducted over the last two weeks from a sample of 1830, gave Labor a 54-46 lead, a one point gain for Labor since last fortnight. Primary votes were 37% Labor, 36% Coalition, 10% Greens, 9% One Nation and 2% Nick Xenophon Team. These primary votes are virtually the same as last week, but rounding helped Labor this time. Additional questions are based on one week’s sample.

Turnbull’s net approval was -5, up 3 points since August. Shorten’s net approval was -11, down four points.

Nine measures were proposed to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy. 86% supported regulating electricity and gas prices, and 81% supported increasing investment in renewables. At the bottom were stopping coal-fired power stations from closing (51-30 support), more onshore gas exploration (48-26 support) and building new coal-fired power stations (48-34 support).

By 73-8, voters thought renewables were better than fossil fuels for the environment. Renewables were also thought better for electricity costs (41-27), the economy (40-28) and jobs (34-26). There has been movement towards fossil fuels in the last three categories since May 2015.

Labor was thought more likely to deliver lower energy prices by a 28-19 margin over the Coalition, with 35% opting for no difference.

Queensland Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor

A Queensland Newspoll, conducted from July to September from a sample of 1335, and released 6 September, gave Labor a 53-47 lead, a 2 point gain since the May-June 2016 Queensland Newspoll. Primary votes were 37% Labor (down 1), 34% LNP (down 6), 15% One Nation (not asked in 2016) and 8% Greens (steady). The next Queensland election must be held by early 2018.

41% (down 3) were satisfied with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, and 46% (up 4) were dissatisfied, for a net approval of -5. Opposition leader Tim Nicholls’ net approval fell 11 points to -16.

Labor changed the electoral system from optional preferential to compulsory preferential voting, and this could disadvantage Labor if One Nation’s vote is high. For its two party calculations, Newspoll is assuming that 80% of Greens preferences flow to Labor, 55% of One Nation preferences go to the LNP, and that Others split 50-50.

This good Newspoll for Labor contrasts with a Galaxy poll in early August that had Labor just ahead 51-49, with the LNP leading 36-35 on primary votes.

Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Ratings agency S&P keeps Australia’s AAA rating but doubtful about government’s surplus timetable

Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen told the National Press Club that a Labor government would “show the ratings agencies the quality of our plans.”
Mick Tsikas/AAP

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Standard and Poor’s Global reaffirmed a negative outlook and is questioning the government’s projection about when the budget will return to surplus, but has still maintained Australia’s AAA credit rating.

The agency’s maintenance of the AAA credit rating following last week’s budget will be a relief to the government, but its detailed outlook is less than confident.

The initial negative outlook from the agency was made in 2016. In continuing it, it points to “risks to the government’s fiscal consolidation plan and risks to the economic, fiscal, and financial stability outlook should the rapid growth of credit and house prices continue”.

The budget projects a return to surplus in 2020-21. But S&P Global says it continued to think surpluses “could remain elusive beyond fiscal 2021”.

“The balance of risks to government revenues remains negative. On the policy front, enacting further savings or revenue policies could remain a challenge, given the Senate’s unwillingness in recent years to legislate many of the government’s fiscal policy measures or doing so after considerable delay.”

“This dynamic, which could continue, presents further downside risk to the outlook for fiscal balances.”

Craig Michaels, director of sovereign & public finance ratings at S&P Global was blunt: “We have seen governments forecast surpluses for many years now and they haven’t materialised. They’ve continued to be pushed back. So we don’t think further pushback on the surplus target is consistent with the AAA rating here on in.”

“We will continue to assess the likelihood or otherwise of whether the government will reach a balanced or surplus budget by 2021 and that will have a large bearing on whether we leave the AAA rating where it is or whether we downgrade it,” he told the ABC.

The S&P Global report cites the potential for low wage growth and low inflation as a “downside risk” for the projections on getting to budget balance. In the wake of the budget many commentators threw doubt on the budget’s wage growth projection – to get to more than 3% – as likely to be too high.

Noting that the outlook has been negative since July last year, S&P Global warns:
“We could lower our ratings within the next two years if we were to lose confidence that the general government fiscal deficit will revert into surplus by the early 2020s.”

S&P Global says “a strong fiscal position is required to offset Australia’s weak external position. It is also needed to allow for a strong buffer to absorb the fiscal consequences if the ongoing boom in the credit and housing market were to abruptly end.”

The report expresses concerns about the financial stability risks in the housing market in Sydney and Melbourne.

S&P Global highlights the debt problem. “Australia’s high level of external indebtedness creates a high vulnerability to major shifts in foreign investors’ willingness to provide capital”, it says. “We consider that strong fiscal performance and low government debt are important to help ameliorate this risk.”

Scott Morrison tweeted:

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Responding to the S&P Global report, Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen said that if he became treasurer he would talk to the ratings agencies early in the term, taking them through an ALP government’s plans, which would also be clear before the election. “We’ll do what is necessary to work with the ratings agencies and show the ratings agencies the quality of our plans.”

Bowen said the budget showed new record debt for the next three years, a deficit for 2017-18 which was 10 times larger than was predicted in the Coalition’s first budget, and gross debt equivalent to A$20,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

https://www.podbean.com/media/player/55eic-6aa7da?from=yiiadmin

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Australian Politics: December 2 – Approval Ratings

CRICKET: CURRENT WORLD BATTING RATINGS

The latest International Cricket Council World Batting Ratings list has West Indian batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul at the top, which quite ironic given the current status (7^th out of 9 test playing teams) of the once great West Indian cricket team. However, Chanderpaul has been a standout batsman for the Windies for quite some time and is most certainly one of cricket’s most reliable batsmen.

Sliding just out of the top ten at 11 is ‘Mr Cricket’ or Michael Hussey (753). The once reliable Hussey has been in something of a form slump just lately and this has also seen his batting average (61.56) come down to earth and be more representative of Hussey’s true batting potential. Matthew Hayden’s (678) fall has continued and he now rests at number 18 in the ratings. Sachin Tendulkar (683) is at 16 with V. V. S. Laxman.

The top 10 are:

1.    Shivnarine Chanderpaul (West Indies) 900

2.    Mohammad Yousuf        (Pakistan)       880

2.    Kumar Sangakkara        (Sri Lanka)      880

4.    Mahela Jayawardena     (Sri Lanka)      854

5.    Kevin Pietersen              (England)         832

6.    Ricky Ponting                 (Australia)        827

7.    Graeme Smith                (South Africa)  810

8.    Younus Khan                  (Pakistan)         799

9.    Michael Clarke                (Australia)        772

10. Gautum Gambhir          (India)               771    

 

BELOW: Footage of Shivnarine Chanderpaul reaching 100 in the 3^rd test against England at Old Trafford on the 11^th June 2007.

IRAN: COURT FINDS WAY TO ACQUIT CHRISTIANS OF ‘APOSTASY’

Tribunal tries to save face by claiming pastors never converted from Islam.

LOS ANGELES, October 30 (Compass Direct News) – An Iranian judge has ordered the release of two pastors charged with “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, but the defendants said the ruling was based on the court’s false claim that they confessed to having never converted to Christianity.

Mahmoud Matin Azad, 52, said he and Arash Basirat, 44, never denied their Christian faith and believe the court statement resulted from the judge seeking a face-saving solution to avoid convicting them of apostasy, which soon could automatically carry the death penalty.

Azad and Basirat were arrested May 15 and acquitted on Sept. 25 by Branch 5 of the Fars Criminal Court in Shiraz, 600 kilometers (373 miles) south of Tehran.

A court document obtained by human rights organization Amnesty International stated, “Both had denied that they had converted to Christianity and said that they remain Muslim, and accordingly the court found no further evidence to the contrary.”

Azad vehemently denied the official court statement, saying the notion of him being a Muslim never even came up during the trial.

“The first question that they asked me was, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I am a pastor pastoring a house church in Iran,” he told Compass. “All my [court] papers are about Christianity – about my activity, about our church and everything.”

Members of Azad’s house church confirmed that the government’s court statement of his rejection of Christianity was false.

“His faith wasn’t a secret – he was a believer for a long, long time,” said a source who preferred to remain anonymous.

During one court hearing, Azad said, a prosecutor asked him, “Did you change your religion?” Azad responded, “I didn’t have religion for 43 years. Now I have religion, I have faith in God and I am following God.”

If the court misstated that the two men said they were Muslims, it likely came from political pressure from above, said Joseph Grieboski, founder of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy.

“If the court did in fact lie about what he said, I would think it’s part of the larger political game that [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and his factions are trying to play to garner political support for him,” Grieboski said.

Ahmadinejad, who is facing re-election, has approval ratings hovering above the single digits and has faced international criticism for the apostasy law.

“What he does not need is bad press and bad political positioning,” Grieboski said. “I would be shocked if [the acquittal] were not somehow involved in the presidential campaign.”

International condemnation of the law and of the proposed mandatory death penalty for those who leave Islam come as Iran faces new rounds of U.N. economic sanctions for uranium enrichment.

Upon his release, Azad said that no reason was given for the court freeing him and Basirat. Disputing the court’s allegation that they claimed to be Muslims, Azad said that he told his attorney, “Two things I will never say. First, I will not lie; second, I will not deny Jesus my Lord and my Savior.”

The two men are grateful for their release, he said, but they worry that their acquittal might merely be a tactic by the Iranian government to wait for them to re-engage in Christian activity and arrest them again. Their release could also put anyone with whom they associate in danger, Azad said.

There is another worry that the government could operate outside the law in order to punish them, as some believe has happened in the past. The last case of an apostasy conviction in Iran was that of Christian convert Mehdi Dibaj in 1994. Following his release, however, Dibaj and four other Protestant pastors, including converts and those working with converts, were brutally murdered.

A similar motivation could have prompted the judge to release the two pastors. Leaving their deaths up to outside forces would abrogate him from personally handing down the death penalty, Grieboski said.

“Even in Iran no judge wants to be the one to hand down the death penalty for apostasy,” he said. “The judge’s motivation [in this hearing] could have been for his own face-saving reasons, for the possibility of arresting more people, or even for the possibility that the two defendants will be executed using social means rather than government means. Any of these are perfectly legitimate possibilities when we start talking about the Iranian regime.”

The court case against Azad and Basirat came amid a difficult time for local non-Muslims as the Iranian government attempted to criminalize apostasy from Islam.

On Sept. 9 the Iranian parliament approved a new penal code by a vote of 196-7 calling for a mandatory death sentence for apostates, or those who leave Islam. The individual section of the penal code containing the apostasy bill must be passed for it to go into law.

As recently as late August, the court was reluctant to release the two men on bail. At one point Azad’s attorney anticipated the bail to be between $40,000 and $50,000, but the judge set the bail at $100,000.

The original charge against Azad and Basirat of “propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran” was dropped, but replaced with the more serious charge of apostasy.

Those close to the two pastors were relieved at the acquittal since they expected their detention to be lengthy.

“We had anticipated [Azad’s incarceration] would be a while, and then we got this notice that they were released,” said a family friend of Azad. “We were shocked by that.”

Azad described his four-month incarceration in positive terms. He said that while in prison he was treated with respect by the authorities because he explained that he was not interested in political matters and was a pastor.  

Report from Compass Direct News