Polls Thread Mk III

[Magruder]

Last election was 53-47 in Vic, so 58-42 would be a 10 point swing which consistent with the national polling

Last election was 48-52 in NSW, so 59-41 would be a 22 point swing which is completely inconsistent with the national polling

Polling and numbers are probably genuine.

But…

Internal polling is not designed to be predictive of national polling.

It’s highly targeted around specificities of issue, demographic or location. If it was used instead of a representative sample and extrapolated to demonstrate a “national voting intention” the MoE and CI would make it meaningless.

Nevertheless it is entirely possible that the limited, highly specific demographic included in this poll shows a 59/41 margin.
It doesn’t mean that it predicts a 22 point swing.

 

[Magruder]

Yeah, I get your point, but there was huge swing in Gladys' old seat, something like 19%

It is difficult to believe, but I've seen even more bizarre swings

The swing is on.

As long as there’s no khaki election.

 

[Millky95]

Yeah, I get your point, but there was huge swing in Gladys' old seat, something like 19%

It is difficult to believe, but I've seen even more bizarre swings

Wouldn't that be more from the people being more pissed about her resigning? She was popular based on all the fluff pieces they were doing

 

[Vindicater]

Wouldn't that be more from the people being more pissed about her resigning? She was popular based on all the fluff pieces they were doing

Tim James was also not her branches first choice

 

[Baltimore Jack]

Wouldn't that be more from the people being more pissed about her resigning? She was popular based on all the fluff pieces they were doing

Maybe

 

[DaRick]

Wouldn't that be more from the people being more pissed about her resigning? She was popular based on all the fluff pieces they were doing

Tim James was also not her branches first choice

Both true.

The independent also ran a pretty basic sort of campaign - relying on home-made signs, didn't receive much funding and publicity and so forth.

 

[Baltimore Jack]

Poll Bludger today

 

[Forward Press]

Poll Bludger today

I see it but I don't believe it.

/huddo

Look, I know many of us are hoping for a wipeout on a scale suggested in that graph, but surely - surely - that is not possible.

 

[Gough]

I see it but I don't believe it.

/huddo

Look, I know many of us are hoping for a wipeout on a scale suggested in that graph, but surely - surely - that is not possible.

Raw figures aside, that's a year long slide that shows no signing of stopping just yet.

 

[Baltimore Jack]

I see it but I don't believe it.

/huddo

Look, I know many of us are hoping for a wipeout on a scale suggested in that graph, but surely - surely - that is not possible.

I actually agree with you.
I suspect the election day result will be somewhere in the vicinity of 51.5 to 48.5

 

[Hornberger]

Poll Bludger today

For comparison, here is the chart of the 2019 election.

 

[Vader]

For comparison, here is the chart of the 2019 election.

So, 3 months out from the election...

• In 2019 the gap was 53-47 and closing.
• In 2022 it's 56-44 and opening.

The parallels with 1993/1996 continue - both had a miracle win, followed by a slaughter.

** EDIT: Fixed the parallel years, as I really stuffed it up the first time.

 

[Hornberger]

So, 3 months out from the election...

• In 2019 the gap was 53-47 and closing.
• In 2022 it's 56-44 and opening.

The parallels with 2013/16 continue - both had a miracle win, followed by a slaughter.

Do you mean 2010 (Gillard hung parliament) and 2013 (Abbott landslide)?

 

[Father Jack]

or 93/96?

 

[Vader]

Do you mean 2010 (Gillard hung parliament) and 2013 (Abbott landslide)?

No.. 1993 & 1996. My bad.

In 1993 Keating beat Hewson, in an election he wasn't expected to win.
In 1996 the voters were waiting for him with baseball bats, and Howard smashed him.

 

[Crankyhawk]

For what purpose?

To lull alp to false security
To trick some voters who toss up between alp and green to vote green as “scomo getting a kicking anyway and my vote isn’t needed”

 

[Hornberger]

To lull alp to false security
To trick some voters who toss up between alp and green to vote green as “scomo getting a kicking anyway and my vote isn’t needed”

I can't imagine that the ALP is going trust leaked LNP polling over their own internal polling or the publicly available polls. I also have hard time imagining that there would be more than handful of people who pay close enough attention to politics that they have heard about the leaked polling and is also sufficiently on the fence that they could be swayed.

 

[DaRick]

- Roy Morgan: ScoMo vs The Fry (16/2/2022):

- Kore CSR: KORE Poll 6: General direction, Liberal Party Values – KORE Communication | Strategy | Research

- Guardian Essential: Political Insights - essentialreport.com.au

When I look at these polls as a whole, here are my thoughts:

1) The overall situation still reminds me of QLD 2015 and Biden vs Trump. The challenger inspires ambivalence rather than affection, but the incumbent is unpopular. Worse still, the incumbent's unpopularity is effectively baked in, meaning that he's going to drag down the LNP's vote come election day. I don't think Albo is, or will - he's too grey to inspire strong feelings in people, not unlike Annastacia, Howard, Beazley or even Biden. So we'll most likely see a reverse of 2019, where Albo has a net neutral effect on the vote whereas ScoMo's effect is clearly negative.

Not only is the incumbent unpopular, but much like with Newman, much of the discontent towards him is coming from LNP supporters, not just the opposition. To this end, the Kore CSR poll indicates that while the ALP's base is quite firm, the LNP's base is fragmenting. Many of the LNP's supporters seemingly believe that the LNP have become too right-wing socially, combining open religiosity with ON-style xenophobia, a perception doubtless not helped by the LNP's China-baiting, or the LNP's more secular element openly fighting ScoMo's Pentecostal nutters for control over the party.

I've stated repeatedly that inner-city types can't stand ON, and that ON-style policy polarises suburbanites, so the LNP's poor performance in inner-city areas and their mixed performance in the suburbs isn't a surprise. That won't be helped by how 1) the Chinese tend to be pro-LNP, 2) Brisbane's Chinatown is located in...Brisbane and 3) that China-baiting would inevitably affect other ethnicities that resemble the Chinese to even a vague degree. The racist idiots who are incited by that crap wouldn't be able to tell your Chinese from your Vietnamese, and that will hurt the LNP some. It's not like Islam-baiting; Muslims tend to be pro-ALP, there are fewer of them, and Islamic terrorism was actually a legitimate national security threat.

Not just that, but IMO the LNP's blue-ribbon seats would also be disillusioned by the LNP pandering to the 'coalie' seats (Flynn/Herbert/Dawson/Capricornia). IMO the blue-ribbon seats are at cross-purposes with the 'coalies' - the latter rely on coal for their livelihoods; the former want to do away with it altogether because of climate change. If climate change was an issue for the blue-ribbon seats in 2019, it's an even bigger one now.

2) I was surprised by the LNP's poor performance in provincial areas and in Queensland, but then I realised that: 1) quite a few of those areas would have been affected by the 2019-20 bushfires, 2) a lot of retirees live in those areas and 3) QLD relies heavily on small business, and a lot of those would have been hurt by OMICRON. ScoMo ****ed off to Hawaii while those areas were burning and still hasn't provided the promised assistance, he exposed said retirees to the plague and he failed to follow up JobKeeper.

Plus a lot of working families live in Brisbane, and the 'felt' economy isn't great. Inflation and oil prices are already high, plus the Ukraine/Russia situation escalating, with Russia recognising the Ukrainian breakaway republics, will keep them higher for longer, and an outright invasion would lead to a short-term spike in oil prices. This would offset wage growth.

I've always said that Queenslanders have permanent interests, not permanent friends, and that they are fickle towards outsiders, as Keating and Howard discovered. Those interests include small businesses, working families, mining, agriculture and tourism. OMICRON has affected the mining industry, because mines have been forced to close, which has had a knock-on effect on the local community. Not enough to swing any regional seats - even Flynn IMO is a stretch - but enough to have some effect.

3) That said, the situation is still volatile and subject to change - the Incumbent vs Challenger measurement on the Kore CSR poll now favours ScoMo, not Albo, so there's still a real possibility that we have a 1998-style situation where Albo gets a positive 2PP but can't swing enough seats to actually form government.

I say that the situation is subject to change because the economy itself has bounced back pretty quickly since January, OMICRON has peaked on a national level and is declining, while the labour market is in rude health, so wages should grow in between now and May. Not enough to fully offset inflation + oil prices IMO, but enough for ScoMo's prospects in QLD, the provinces and among retirees to improve in the meantime.

I also don't really feel an appetite for change in my electorate (Petrie) yet, and it's been held by the incumbent since 1987. There will be a swing against the LNP here alright (working families factor + reduced ON/UAP vote + no Fraser ****ing Anning), but I don't think it will knock the seat off. That might not matter because this election is IMO sui generis due to the situation in VIC/WA + inner-city QLD/NSW + COVID + the economy being unusually crappy over ScoMo's term, but still...

Plus the Roy Morgan poll indicates that many of the LNP's problems are down to ScoMo himself - not just because he's perceived as a central figure in the shift towards ON-style xenophobia + religiosity, but because he managed to make himself a hate figure in WA by duking it out with a very popular Premier for a long period over border closures. He's also perceived as being too close to another hate figure - Clive Palmer. Both IMO came across as outsiders trying to dictate terms to locals, and that never goes down well. It also seems that his belated mea culpa RE border closures hasn't convinced them, and Clive's latest stoushes with McGowan will just reinforce that link.

This means that, as per the Roy Morgan and Essential polls, that the LNP's issues in WA, VIC and inner-city QLD/NSW aren't necessarily terminal - if The Fry knifes him, they'll win many of those votes back. That'll be offset by them losing votes in QLD, particularly outside of Brisbane, but he'll do better in the most vital seats there (Ryan/Brisbane - both inner-city seats) than ScoMo will, so it may not matter that much, especially since ScoMo doesn't have a whole lot more appeal there right now.

Not to mention that The Fry is a VIC, and Victorians are IMO more parochial than many realise. While he hasn't helped himself by joining in with ScoMo's jibes about Dan Andrews, he would have a better chance of holding off the teals - who are most prolific there - than ScoMo would. ScoMo is not only from a rival state in NSW, but he also held up a former NSW Premier as being the 'gold standard' in managing COVID, which has apparently caused some resentment (noting the low approval figures for ScoMo there). Plus The Fry is IMO more likeable than ScoMo and is much more of an unknown quantity - not unlike ScoMo in 2019.

Considering that the electorate is still fairly disengaged and thus hasn't really been paying much attention to his screwups given ScoMo's constant blundering, him knifing ScoMo would effectively cancel out Albo's 'grey' effect. To the electorate, both would be 'grey', and in those circumstances, they may well go with the devil they know.

4) ON-style policy is also most likely to win back older people and regional QLD. Not to the extent of 2019 - COVID will still be a lingering issue, with BA.2 being even more transmissible than the original, there's no Adani, plus retirees aren't going to be scared off voting for the ALP by franking credits - but enough to see an improvement on the current figures. Plus, the 65+ set do prefer him over The Fry, which indicates that he still has some sway over them. I'm assuming another new variant of COVID doesn't make its way to Australia, because that would likely spike infection rates, trash the economy (again) and bury ScoMo completely.

Speaking of ON, the problem with the LNP adopting their policy is that they will be effectively trading votes with each other, diluting their combined PV. Plus Pauline insists on pushing an anti-vax agenda onto her relatively old base. Say what you want about older people, but they're very pro-vax. They're not exactly going to rush out to vote for an anti-vax party, plus she'll have to trade the anti-vax nutter vote with the UAP, diluting both of their combined PVs in the process. For those reasons, I don't buy her winning 5% of the national PV for a second - she only won 3.5% back in 2019, and part of that was an anti-Shorten/pro-Adani protest vote.

Plus, while China-baiting will strengthen ON preferences towards the LNP, that's not necessarily true of the UAP. Clive relies on China too much to be comfortable with a full-blown anti-China campaign, he apparently wants to unseat Dutton, and there's no anti-Shorten/pro-Adani sentiment to direct preferences the LNP's way. Plus, he's adopting a 2013-style approach (a pox on all of your houses), which means that UAP preferences will be more scattered, and closer to 50/50 rather than 70/30.

RE the UAP's PV, Clive's a hate figure out West for reasons mentioned above, and him deciding to take a very popular State Premier to court not long before an election will doubtless nuke his vote there even more.

The right-wing vote will thus fragment, and that hurts the LNP. The left-wing vote will be firmer by comparison, although The Greens will be hurt by the Tree Tories abandoning them for the teals. That the teals have little time for ON-style xenophobia means that this shouldn't have too much of an effect in practice, though.

5) Dutton as PM is clearly DOA. I know that he is despised in VIC/SA, but even up here he's polarising. I didn't realise that he was so polarising that Queenslanders would apparently vote for an inner-city VIC ahead of him, but there you go.

6) Will Russia invading Ukraine help ScoMo in the manner that September 11 allowed Howard to coast to a comfortable victory? IMO no. Russia is a foreign policy issue, not a national security issue. September 11 revolved around Islamic terrorism, which had already occurred in the US and could conceivably have occured here. I don't expect Russia to have the same effect unless they level New York with an ICBM or something. I sincerely doubt that happens.

7) I don't think that Albo will actually thrash ScoMo. In a contest between a challenger who inspires ambivalence and an unpopular incumbent, the challenger usually wins, but it usually isn't a thrashing. The one exception was Howard vs Keating in 1996, and ScoMo isn't that unpopular.

8) While I don't think it will decide the election on its own, ScoMo has a real problem with the opposite sex. It hurt Latham in 2004, and ScoMo has a bit of Latham's brash pushiness. Him using his wife to take shots at a sexual abuse survivor wouldn't have helped - it gives off the impression that he uses women as metaphorical human shields when it suits him. That's not something that would impress men's men very much either, FWIW. Albo is again too 'grey' to have those issues.

Right now, I'd say that Albo has a 65% chance of winning, but I can easily see that changing. Much depends on the state of the economy + COVID + the ALP's campaign + who is leading the LNP come election time. If the LNP knife ScoMo and replace him with The Fry, the race becomes close to a dead heat. It may actually be too late for The Fry to accomplish much, especially since the LNP have been in power for at least one term too many, but I'm not so sure. He clearly lacks ScoMo's baggage and will hence win many votes back from a disengaged electorate that largely wouldn't be able to tell the difference between him and Albo.

Enough so that I'd go for broke, replace Albo with Chalmers, play up Chalmers' origins, exploit The Fry's weakness in QLD and (amoral though this sounds) hope that another COVID variant puts a spanner in the LNP's works. Chalmers definitely has a more aggressive personality than Albo and is more likely to go for The Fry's throat if he mishandles COVID, and that approach worked well for Abbott.

Note that I'm assuming that the window for The Fry knifing ScoMo hasn't yet passed. Given that ScoMo has made it harder to knife incumbents, and that the LNP show every indication of hoping that he can pull off another 'miracle', it likely has in practice, so the assumptions I've made about The Fry are likely moot.

 

[briztoon]

- Roy Morgan: ScoMo vs The Fry (16/2/2022):

- Kore CSR: KORE Poll 6: General direction, Liberal Party Values – KORE Communication | Strategy | Research

- Guardian Essential: Political Insights - essentialreport.com.au

When I look at these polls as a whole, here are my thoughts:

1) The overall situation still reminds me of QLD 2015 and Biden vs Trump. The challenger inspires ambivalence rather than affection, but the incumbent is unpopular. Worse still, the incumbent's unpopularity is effectively baked in, meaning that he's going to drag down the LNP's vote come election day. I don't think Albo is, or will - he's too grey to inspire strong feelings in people, not unlike Annastacia, Howard, Beazley or even Biden. So we'll most likely see a reverse of 2019, where Albo has a net neutral effect on the vote whereas ScoMo's effect is clearly negative.

Not only is the incumbent unpopular, but much like with Newman, much of the discontent towards him is coming from LNP supporters, not just the opposition. To this end, the Kore CSR poll indicates that while the ALP's base is quite firm, the LNP's base is fragmenting. Many of the LNP's supporters seemingly believe that the LNP have become too right-wing socially, combining open religiosity with ON-style xenophobia, a perception doubtless not helped by the LNP's China-baiting, or the LNP's more secular element openly fighting ScoMo's Pentecostal nutters for control over the party.

I've stated repeatedly that inner-city types can't stand ON, and that ON-style policy polarises suburbanites, so the LNP's poor performance in inner-city areas and their mixed performance in the suburbs isn't a surprise. That won't be helped by how 1) the Chinese tend to be pro-LNP, 2) Brisbane's Chinatown is located in...Brisbane and 3) that China-baiting would inevitably affect other ethnicities that resemble the Chinese to even a vague degree. The racist idiots who are incited by that crap wouldn't be able to tell your Chinese from your Vietnamese, and that will hurt the LNP some. It's not like Islam-baiting; Muslims tend to be pro-ALP, there are fewer of them, and Islamic terrorism was actually a legitimate national security threat.

Not just that, but IMO the LNP's blue-ribbon seats would also be disillusioned by the LNP pandering to the 'coalie' seats (Flynn/Herbert/Dawson/Capricornia). IMO the blue-ribbon seats are at cross-purposes with the 'coalies' - the latter rely on coal for their livelihoods; the former want to do away with it altogether because of climate change. If climate change was an issue for the blue-ribbon seats in 2019, it's an even bigger one now.

2) I was surprised by the LNP's poor performance in provincial areas and in Queensland, but then I realised that: 1) quite a few of those areas would have been affected by the 2019-20 bushfires, 2) a lot of retirees live in those areas and 3) QLD relies heavily on small business, and a lot of those would have been hurt by OMICRON. ScoMo f’ed off to Hawaii while those areas were burning and still hasn't provided the promised assistance, he exposed said retirees to the plague and he failed to follow up JobKeeper.

Plus a lot of working families live in Brisbane, and the 'felt' economy isn't great. Inflation and oil prices are already high, plus the Ukraine/Russia situation escalating, with Russia recognising the Ukrainian breakaway republics, will keep them higher for longer, and an outright invasion would lead to a short-term spike in oil prices. This would offset wage growth.

I've always said that Queenslanders have permanent interests, not permanent friends, and that they are fickle towards outsiders, as Keating and Howard discovered. Those interests include small businesses, working families, mining, agriculture and tourism. OMICRON has affected the mining industry, because mines have been forced to close, which has had a knock-on effect on the local community. Not enough to swing any regional seats - even Flynn IMO is a stretch - but enough to have some effect.

3) That said, the situation is still volatile and subject to change - the Incumbent vs Challenger measurement on the Kore CSR poll now favours ScoMo, not Albo, so there's still a real possibility that we have a 1998-style situation where Albo gets a positive 2PP but can't swing enough seats to actually form government.

I say that the situation is subject to change because the economy itself has bounced back pretty quickly since January, OMICRON has peaked on a national level and is declining, while the labour market is in rude health, so wages should grow in between now and May. Not enough to fully offset inflation + oil prices IMO, but enough for ScoMo's prospects in QLD, the provinces and among retirees to improve in the meantime.

I also don't really feel an appetite for change in my electorate (Petrie) yet, and it's been held by the incumbent since 1987. There will be a swing against the LNP here alright (working families factor + reduced ON/UAP vote + no Fraser ******* Anning), but I don't think it will knock the seat off. That might not matter because this election is IMO sui generis due to the situation in VIC/WA + inner-city QLD/NSW + COVID + the economy being unusually crappy over ScoMo's term, but still...

Plus the Roy Morgan poll indicates that many of the LNP's problems are down to ScoMo himself - not just because he's perceived as a central figure in the shift towards ON-style xenophobia + religiosity, but because he managed to make himself a hate figure in WA by duking it out with a very popular Premier for a long period over border closures. He's also perceived as being too close to another hate figure - Clive Palmer. Both IMO came across as outsiders trying to dictate terms to locals, and that never goes down well. It also seems that his belated mea culpa RE border closures hasn't convinced them, and Clive's latest stoushes with McGowan will just reinforce that link.

This means that, as per the Roy Morgan and Essential polls, that the LNP's issues in WA, VIC and inner-city QLD/NSW aren't necessarily terminal - if The Fry knifes him, they'll win many of those votes back. That'll be offset by them losing votes in QLD, particularly outside of Brisbane, but he'll do better in the most vital seats there (Ryan/Brisbane - both inner-city seats) than ScoMo will, so it may not matter that much, especially since ScoMo doesn't have a whole lot more appeal there right now.

Not to mention that The Fry is a VIC, and Victorians are IMO more parochial than many realise. While he hasn't helped himself by joining in with ScoMo's jibes about Dan Andrews, he would have a better chance of holding off the teals - who are most prolific there - than ScoMo would. ScoMo is not only from a rival state in NSW, but he also held up a former NSW Premier as being the 'gold standard' in managing COVID, which has apparently caused some resentment (noting the low approval figures for ScoMo there). Plus The Fry is IMO more likeable than ScoMo and is much more of an unknown quantity - not unlike ScoMo in 2019.

Considering that the electorate is still fairly disengaged and thus hasn't really been paying much attention to his screwups given ScoMo's constant blundering, him knifing ScoMo would effectively cancel out Albo's 'grey' effect. To the electorate, both would be 'grey', and in those circumstances, they may well go with the devil they know.

4) ON-style policy is also most likely to win back older people and regional QLD. Not to the extent of 2019 - COVID will still be a lingering issue, with BA.2 being even more transmissible than the original, there's no Adani, plus retirees aren't going to be scared off voting for the ALP by franking credits - but enough to see an improvement on the current figures. Plus, the 65+ set do prefer him over The Fry, which indicates that he still has some sway over them. I'm assuming another new variant of COVID doesn't make its way to Australia, because that would likely spike infection rates, trash the economy (again) and bury ScoMo completely.

Speaking of ON, the problem with the LNP adopting their policy is that they will be effectively trading votes with each other, diluting their combined PV. Plus Pauline insists on pushing an anti-vax agenda onto her relatively old base. Say what you want about older people, but they're very pro-vax. They're not exactly going to rush out to vote for an anti-vax party, plus she'll have to trade the anti-vax nutter vote with the UAP, diluting both of their combined PVs in the process. For those reasons, I don't buy her winning 5% of the national PV for a second - she only won 3.5% back in 2019, and part of that was an anti-Shorten/pro-Adani protest vote.

Plus, while China-baiting will strengthen ON preferences towards the LNP, that's not necessarily true of the UAP. Clive relies on China too much to be comfortable with a full-blown anti-China campaign, he apparently wants to unseat Dutton, and there's no anti-Shorten/pro-Adani sentiment to direct preferences the LNP's way. Plus, he's adopting a 2013-style approach (a pox on all of your houses), which means that UAP preferences will be more scattered, and closer to 50/50 rather than 70/30.

RE the UAP's PV, Clive's a hate figure out West for reasons mentioned above, and him deciding to take a very popular State Premier to court not long before an election will doubtless nuke his vote there even more.

The right-wing vote will thus fragment, and that hurts the LNP. The left-wing vote will be firmer by comparison, although The Greens will be hurt by the Tree Tories abandoning them for the teals. That the teals have little time for ON-style xenophobia means that this shouldn't have too much of an effect in practice, though.

5) Dutton as PM is clearly DOA. I know that he is despised in VIC/SA, but even up here he's polarising. I didn't realise that he was so polarising that Queenslanders would apparently vote for an inner-city VIC ahead of him, but there you go.

6) Will Russia invading Ukraine help ScoMo in the manner that September 11 allowed Howard to coast to a comfortable victory? IMO no. Russia is a foreign policy issue, not a national security issue. September 11 revolved around Islamic terrorism, which had already occurred in the US and could conceivably have occured here. I don't expect Russia to have the same effect unless they level New York with an ICBM or something. I sincerely doubt that happens.

7) I don't think that Albo will actually thrash ScoMo. In a contest between a challenger who inspires ambivalence and an unpopular incumbent, the challenger usually wins, but it usually isn't a thrashing. The one exception was Howard vs Keating in 1996, and ScoMo isn't that unpopular.

8) While I don't think it will decide the election on its own, ScoMo has a real problem with the opposite sex. It hurt Latham in 2004, and ScoMo has a bit of Latham's brash pushiness. Him using his wife to take shots at a sexual abuse survivor wouldn't have helped - it gives off the impression that he uses women as metaphorical human shields when it suits him. That's not something that would impress men's men very much either, FWIW. Albo is again too 'grey' to have those issues.

Right now, I'd say that Albo has a 65% chance of winning, but I can easily see that changing. Much depends on the state of the economy + COVID + the ALP's campaign + who is leading the LNP come election time. If the LNP knife ScoMo and replace him with The Fry, the race becomes close to a dead heat. It may actually be too late for The Fry to accomplish much, especially since the LNP have been in power for at least one term too many, but I'm not so sure. He clearly lacks ScoMo's baggage and will hence win many votes back from a disengaged electorate that largely wouldn't be able to tell the difference between him and Albo.

Enough so that I'd go for broke, replace Albo with Chalmers, play up Chalmers' origins, exploit The Fry's weakness in QLD and (amoral though this sounds) hope that another COVID variant puts a spanner in the LNP's works. Chalmers definitely has a more aggressive personality than Albo and is more likely to go for The Fry's throat if he mishandles COVID, and that approach worked well for Abbott.

Note that I'm assuming that the window for The Fry knifing ScoMo hasn't yet passed. Given that ScoMo has made it harder to knife incumbents, and that the LNP show every indication of hoping that he can pull off another 'miracle', it likely has in practice, so the assumptions I've made about The Fry are likely moot.

Just on China town in Fortitude Valley. It actually has a very small Chinese population now. They mostly live out Sunnybank way, and there’s a growing community near Carindale (but they are predominantly born again Christians). China town now has a higher hipster and young professional population, along with more Koreans living in the city.

Oh and Labor done screwed up parachuting a candidate in to Parramatta, when the local wannabe candidate was a Vietnamese immigrant made good Lawyer, in a seat with a largely Vietnamese population. Pretty much lost a guaranteed win due to party politics.

 

[DaRick]

Just on China town in Fortitude Valley. It actually has a very small Chinese population now. They mostly live out Sunnybank way, and there’s a growing community near Carindale (but they are predominantly born again Christians). China town now has a higher hipster and young professional population, along with more Koreans living in the city.

I'm aware that a lot of Chinese and Taiwanese live in Sunnybank. That's in Moreton, which is still held by the ALP. The way things are going, that won't change.

Thanks for the info RE Fortitude Valley, but somehow I don't think ScoMo appeals much to the hipster or young professional crowd. The former are invariably Greens/ALP; the latter are IMO too socially progressive and urbane to embrace ScoMo's 'daggy dad' shtick or his shift towards ON-style policy.

Oh and Labor done screwed up parachuting a candidate in to Parramatta, when the local wannabe candidate was a Vietnamese immigrant made good Lawyer, in a seat with a largely Vietnamese population. Pretty much lost a guaranteed win due to party politics.

That regrettably doesn't shock me, given the LNP's own travails RE selecting candidates in NSW.

The ALP have their issues in Hunter in this regard, too.

Both the ALP and LNP are flawed (the LNP IMO significantly moreso); it's just that the ALP are in a better position right now - but it's not a stable one.

 

[briztoon]

I'm aware that a lot of Chinese and Taiwanese live in Sunnybank. That's in Moreton, which is still held by the ALP. The way things are going, that won't change.

Thanks for the info RE Fortitude Valley, but somehow I don't think ScoMo appeals much to the hipster or young professional crowd. The former are invariably Greens/ALP; the latter are IMO too socially progressive and urbane to embrace ScoMo's 'daggy dad' shtick or his shift towards ON-style policy.



That regrettably doesn't shock me, given the LNP's own travails RE selecting candidates in NSW.

The ALP have their issues in Hunter in this regard, too.

Both the ALP and LNP are flawed (the LNP IMO significantly moreso); it's just that the ALP are in a better position right now - but it's not a stable one.

FYI I come from a die hard Union and Labor family (dad was a Union secretary before he retired).

According to dad, the rank and file up here are big Albo supporters. They wanted him instead Shorten at the previous election.

Me, I was ostracised when I voted for Howard. Mostly vote Green now. Would have stuck with Turnbull if they had kept him.

But give me a good strong independent, like what we might see in NSW.

 

[Baltimore Jack]

FYI I come from a die hard Union and Labor family (dad was a Union secretary before he retired).

According to dad, the rank and file up here are big Albo supporters. They wanted him instead Shorten at the previous election.

Me, I was ostracised when I voted for Howard. Mostly vote Green now. Would have stuck with Turnbull if they had kept him.

But give me a good strong independent, like what we might see in NSW.

So let me get this right

You come from a ALP/Union family
You voted Howard, then voted Green, but you wanted Turnbull, but now you would like an Independent?

Is is fair to say you just stagger through life not knowing what the hell it is all about?

 

[briztoon]

So let me get this right

You come from a ALP/Union family
You voted Howard, then voted Green, but you wanted Turnbull, but now you would like an Independent?

Is is fair to say you just stagger through life not knowing what the hell it is all about?

Nah, I’m a swinger baby. But nice patronising Detlef.

 

[Johnny Bananas]

FYI I come from a die hard Union and Labor family (dad was a Union secretary before he retired).

According to dad, the rank and file up here are big Albo supporters. They wanted him instead Shorten at the previous election.

Me, I was ostracised when I voted for Howard. Mostly vote Green now. Would have stuck with Turnbull if they had kept him.

But give me a good strong independent, like what we might see in NSW.

Is there a strong independent running in your seat?

 

[briztoon]

Is there a strong independent running in your seat?

Nope. I live in Carindale, usually a safe liberal seat.