And this week brought another Newspoll.....

 

On Saturday 15 July 2023 there was a federal by-election in the Queensland electorate of Fadden – a safe seat for the Coalition having been held at 16 out of the 17 federal elections since the electorate was created in 1977.

The by-election was caused by incumbent Stuart Robert, a former minister in the Morrison Government resigning in anticipation of being named in the Report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.

As predicted the LNP candidate, Gold Coast City councillor Cameron Caldwell, won on the day with 49.06% of the first preference vote and 63.26% of the two-candidate preferred vote as at AEC recorded ballot count on 17 July.

Coincidentally, 14-15 July 2023 were the dates on which Newspoll conducted one of its national surveys of voter intentions.

This particular survey clearly indicated that if a general election had been held last Saturday, then MP for Dickson & Leader of the Liberal Party Peter Dutton & his Coalition cronies would remain on the Opposition benches.

IMAGES: The Australian, 17 July 2023

Click on graphs to enlarge

Here are the percentages revealed in this month’s survey.

Primary Vote

Labor – 36 (+2)

Coalition – 34 (-1.7)

Greens – 12 (+1)

One Nation – 7 (+1)

Others – 11 (+1)

Two-Party Preferred

Labor – 55 (+1)

Coalition – 45 (-1)

Performance Approval Rating

ALBANESE:

Satisfied – 52 (unchanged)

Dissatisfied – 41 (-1)

DUTTON:

Satisfied – 36 (-2)

Dissatisfied – 49 (unchanged)

BY 15 JULY 2023 LABOR'S SURVEY POSITION IN COMPARISON WITH ITS POSITION ON DAY OF 2022 FEDERAL ELECTION WAS:

Primary Vote: 3.4% higher

Two Party Preferred: 1.9% higher

Better Prime Minister:

Albanese 54% - no change

BY 15 JULY 2023 COALITION'S SURVEY POSITION IN COMPARISON WITH ITS POSITION ON DAY OF 2022 FEDERAL ELECTION WAS:

Primary Vote: 1.7% lower

Two-Party Preferred: 2.9% lower

Better Prime Minister:

Dutton 29% - 1% higher.

In June 2023 Liberal-Nationals Coalition & Liberal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton still failing to breakthrough with the national electorate?

 

At the Saturday, 18 May 2019 Australian federal general election 15.8 million electors turned out to vote, with the vote result giving 77 seats in the House of Representatives to the Liberal-Nationals Coalition, 68 seats to the Labor Party and 6 seats to minor parties/independents.

Three years later the federal general election saw 15.4 million electors vote, with the vote result sending the Labor Party into government in the House of Representatives with 77 seats, the Liberal-Nationals Coalition forming the Opposition with 58 seats and minor parties/independents holding 16 seats.

Twelve months into the Albanese Government’s three-year term and there is a 10 point projected gap in TPP votes in its favour in the 4 June 2023 Newspoll. While there is a 27 point gap in Albanese’s favour when it comes to which leader is seen as better prime minister material.

The Coalition in June 2023 under Dutton is 8 points lower than the Coalition under Morrison in August 2019 (the first poll after the 2019 federal election) and, at 45 points, 2 points lower under Dutton than where the Coalition was placed on election day 2022. On the Newspoll continuum over the last twelve months Peter Dutton as party leader has never guided the Opposition to a poll score higher than 46 points.

Newspoll, 4 June 2023:

FEDERAL PRIMARY VOTE (FP)

Labor ALP — 38 (no change)

Coalition Lib/NP — 34 (no change)

Greens — 12 (+1)

One Nation — 6 (-1)

FEDERAL TWO-PARTY PREFERENTIAL VOTE (TPP)

Labor ALP — 55 (no change)

Coalition Lib/NP — 45 (no change)

BETTER PRIME MINISTER

Anthony Albanese — 55 (-1)

Peter Dutton — 28 (-1)

SUPPORT FOR THE INDIGENOUS & TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER VOICE TO PARLIAMENT REFERENDUM

YES — 46%

NO — 43%

UNDECIDED — 11%

Sources:

The Australian newspaper, Newspoll, 4 June 2023

Twitter @GhostWhoVotes, 4 June 2023

Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), 2019, 2022.

COVID-19 NSW 2023: Counting Dead People - Part 6

 

NSW Dept. of Health, @NSWHealth, 19 May 2023

In the 7 days up to 18 May 2023 the national COVID-19 death toll was in excess of 114 people.

Between Friday 12 May to Thursday 18 May 2023 61 of these confirmed COVID-19 deaths occurred in News South Wales.

There have been no 7-day reporting periods in 2023 where NSW deaths have been recorded in single digits – according to Covid Live weekly deaths over the last 20 NSW reporting periods have ranged from a low of 22 deaths (17, 24 March & 14 April 2023) to a high of 131 deaths (20 Jan 2023).

As NSW Dept. of Health no longer publishes the COVID-19 fourteen-day tables which include deaths by gender, age group and health district, there is now no way to break down current COVID-19 publicly available death data for the state or for the Northern Rivers region.

The last published table recording COVID-19 deaths by NSW local health district was for the week ending 22 April 2023 and the last published table including a Northern Rivers COVID-19 death was for week ending 15 April 2023.

From January 2023 to 15 April 2023 there have been est. 40 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the Northern Rivers region.

All that can be stated from published tables from then on is that; as of 18 May there were 252 confirmed COVID-19 cases recorded that 7-day reporting period for the Northern NSW Local Health District, spread across all 7 local government areas and, that as of the preceding 6 May the health district was recording on a “Week To Date” and “Year To Date” basis more confirmed COVID-19 cases than confirmed Influenza and RSV cases combined.

The Australian Department of Health and Aged Care released the following information on 19 May 2023:

As at 8:00 am 18 May 2023 there are 3,132 active COVID-19 cases in 453 active outbreaks in residential aged care facilities across Australia. There have been 207 new outbreaks, 38 new resident deaths and 2,751 combined new resident and staff cases reported since 11 May 2023.

[my yellow highlighting]

New South Wales had the highest number of aged care facility COVID-19 outbreaks during 12-18 May period. As well as the highest number of aged care residents & staff with active COVID-19 infections. 

Sadly, compared to other states and territories New South Wales at 14 residential facilities also had the highest number of aged care facilities reporting COVID-19 deaths among their residents. Resulting in this state having possibly the highest number of residential aged care deaths* across all Australian states and territories.

Note: 

* The actual number of NSW aged care deaths in the 7 days to 18 May 2023 is problematic as the Dept. of Health for privacy reasons reported deaths in aged care facilities in blocs of “<6”. So deaths at the 14 individual facilities involved ranged from 1-5 elderly people per facility.

See: COVID-19 outbreaks in Australian residential aged care facilities: National snapshot, 19 May 2023, APPENDIX 1

COVID-19 NSW State Of Play 2023: Counting Dead People - Part 4

IMAGE: www1.racgp.org.au

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 remain the currently circulating variants of concern.

By the end of February 2023 the SARS-CoV-2 sequences by variant pool found in Australia were estimated at 24.46% Omicron (BA 2.75), 1.09% Omicron (BA.5),13.59% Omicron (BQ.1), 3.26% Omicron (XBB), 26.63% Omicron (XBB1.5) and 30.98% recombinant variants. NOTE: Only a fraction of all cases are sequenced and Recently-discovered or actively-monitored variants may be overrepresented, as suspected cases of these variants are likely to be sequenced preferentially or faster than other cases [Our World Of Data, 5 March 2023].

In the 7 days up to 25 February 2023 in NSW South Wales a total of 48 people were recorded as having died from COVID-19.

Of these 26 were adult men and 22 were adult women.

Two of the dead were in the 40-49 year age group and the other 46 deceased individuals were aged between 70 years of age & 90+ years.

Three of the dead were from the Northern Rivers region, which in that 7 day period had seen 223 local residents recorded as newly infected with COVID-19.

In the 7 days up to 2 March 2023 an est. 213 Northern Rivers residents were recorded as newly infected with COVID-19. 

NOTE: NSW COVID-19 data is held at multiple points on the NSW Government’s online public access health data site/s. For reasons best known to itself these sites rarely use identical time periods for their published summaries. This means there is a 2 day overlap in the two 7 day periods for the Northern Rivers which renders the infection number for 2 March an estimate. As yet no deaths have been published for local health district for these particular 7 days.

Over the 12 days from 19 February to 2 March 2023 multiple confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported in the following Northern Rivers local government areas:

• Tweed Shire – postcodes 2484, 2485, 2486, 2487, 2488, 2489;

• Kyogle Shire – postcodes 2474;

• Ballina Shire – postcodes 2477, 2478;

• Byron Shire – postcodes 2479, 2480, 2481, 2482, 2483;

• Lismore City – postcodes 2472, 2480;

• Richmond Valley – postcodes 2469, 2470, 2471, 2473, ; and

• Clarence Valley – postcodes 2460, 2462, 2463, 2464, 2465, 2466.

State-wide in NSW in the 7 days up to 2 March 2023 a total of 7,163 new cases of COVID-19 infection were recorded With 800 infected people hospitalised and a total of 29 deaths recorded.

At that point in time (2 March 2023) the total number of COVID-19 cases recorded in NSW since the pandemic began in January-February 2020 had reached est. 3,907,940 people infected, of which 6,493 have been recorded as dying as a result of contracting the viral infection.

By 3 March 2023 the cumulative total of COVID-19 deaths Australia-wide had reached est. 19,459 men, women and children.

The recorded cumulative number of people infected with the virus, as well as those dying as a result of infection, continues to rise in what is now the fourth year of uncontrolled viral infection spread in the general populace.

Sources:

NSW Health

Data NSW

covidlive.com.au

Our World In Data

WHO

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says the latest Roy Morgan Poll into NSW voting intention shows the election is still ‘up for grabs’ just over a month before 25 March election day

 

Roy Morgan Research, media release, excerpt, 21 February 2023:

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says the latest Roy Morgan Poll into NSW voting intention shows the election is still ‘up for grabs’ just over a month before election day in late March with the ALP holding a narrow two-party preferred lead over the Liberal-National Coalition:

“The latest Roy Morgan Poll of NSW voting intention shows the ALP on 52% narrowly ahead of the Liberal-National Coalition on 48% on a two-party preferred basis. This result is a reverse of the 2019 New South Wales election when the L-NP won a majority of 48 seats in the 93 seat lower house.

“The primary voting intention shows an almost three way split between the Coalition on 35% ahead of the ALP on 32.5% and another 32.5% supporting other parties and independents. This result is very similar to last year’s Federal Election when the ALP won Government despite receiving only 32.6% of the primary vote, even less than the L-NP on 35.7%.

“The low primary vote for the major parties increases the importance of preferences from minor parties and independents. Around half of the support for this group is flowing to two minor parties on either side of politics – the left-wing Greens on 9.5% and right-wing One Nation on 6.5%.

“Greens support traditionally flows strongly to the ALP via preferences at a rate of around 85% while One Nation support flows via preferences at a rate of around 65% to the Coalition. However, the optional preferential voting (OPV) used in NSW means voters need not direct their preferences to any party beyond their first choice.

“The OPV system allows voters to simply number their ballot paper with a ‘1’ for their preferred candidate to register a valid vote. Analysis of prior NSW State elections shows around 50% of voters direct preferences to exhaustion while the other 50% of voters don’t.

“The OPV system therefore makes it harder for parties finishing second, or even third, in the primary vote to overtake the leading party on preferences – favouring the party with the highest primary vote. Not since the 1995 NSW State election has a party won government despite receiving a lower primary vote.

“One interesting result from this month’s voting intention results in NSW is that support for One Nation increased 2% points to 6.5% - the highest level of support for the party since the 1999 NSW State Election over 20 years ago when the party scored 7.5% of the vote.

“One reason for the rise in support for One Nation may have been the recruitment of former Labour MP Tania Mihailuk during January. Mihailuk has represented the seat of Bankstown in the western suburbs since 2011 before resigning from the ALP in 2022 and joining One Nation in mid-January.

“Upon joining One Nation Mihailuk became the first One Nation MP to represent a lower house seat in the NSW Parliament and will run for the Legislative Council in second place behind NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham – a former Federal ALP Leader.”

A brief look at complaints received by the NSW Ombudsman

 

In its last published annual report (2021-22) the NSW Ombudsman’s office received a total of 5,746 complaints concerning government departments/agencies including further education facilities, local health districts and icare.

Service NSW had the highest number of complaints (959), followed DCJ Housing (956), Land and Housing Corporation (374), Roads and Maritime (364) and Ministry of Health (100).

In addition the Ombudsman also received 2,405 actionable complaints about local government councils, including 2 complaints about county councils. 

With Clarence Valley Council being first in the Top 10 councils with the most finalised actionable complaints per 100,00 head of population (89) even though it tied for last place on that same chart for the actual number of finalised actionable complaints (46). Central Coast Council was the dubious Top 10 winner on the basis of actual number of finalised actionable complaints received which reached 158.

Actionable complaints about these 10 councils - Central Coast Council, Canterbury-Bankstown Council, Northern Beaches Council, Georges River Council, Sutherland Shire Council, Mid-Coast Council, Blacktown City Council, Lake Macquarie City Council, Clarence Valley Council, Inner West Council - represent 29% of all the local government actionable complaints the Ombudsman finalised in 2021-22.

The most frequently raised issues in actionable 

complaints about councils were: 

• standards of customer service; 
• complaint-handling processes; 
• council enforcement action; 
• charges and fees; and 
• merits/reasoning of council decisions when they are exercising their discretion in accordance with policy or in a statutory setting.

What that paragraph appears to be indicating that complaints about development applications and in Chamber decisions concerning development still feature prominently in the annual complaints profile as they have for at least the last two decades.

The Clarence Valley Independent was told by a Local Government NSW spokesperson that despite serving the same population, the state’s 128 councils recorded fewer than half the number of complaints made about the state government.

Less than 10 weeks out from a NSW state election and Perrottet & Co. don't seem to be winning over hearts and minds yet

 

The Poll Bludger, 22 January 2023:

Today’s Sunday Telegraph has a YouGov poll suggesting Labor is headed for a comfortable win at the New South Wales state election on March 25, leading the Coalition 56-44 on two-party preferred and 39% to 33% on the primary vote, with the Greens on 11% and others on 17%.

The poll also encompasses questions on the Dominic Perrotet Nazi costume scandal (67% say it won’t affect their vote, 20% say it will make them less likely to vote Coalition, and 8% demonstrate the problems with this sort of question by saying it makes them more likely to vote Coalition), cashless gaming cards (61% are in favour with 19% opposed), better party to deal with the cost of living (30% Labor, 25% Liberal, 26% neither) and issue salience (39% cost of living, 17% economy, 14% health, 10% each for housing affordability and environment). The poll was conducted January 14 to 17 from a sample of 1069.

Newcastle Herald, 23 January 2023, excerpt p.2:

The NSW government is on track to lose the March state election as Premier Dominic Perrottet's popularity wanes.

A YouGov poll shows the Coalition well behind in both first preference and two-party preferred standings.

Labor led the Coalition by 56 per cent to 44 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, while it was ahead by 39-33 per cent on first preferences…..

Both figures point to a parliamentary majority for Labor, which was buoyed in the poll by strong backing from young voters.

Support for Mr Perrottet also dropped, with only 44 per cent of those surveyed preferring him over Labor leader Chris Minns. But Mr Minns says he isn't paying attention to the latest poll as many voters remain undecided.

EveningReport.nz, 23 January 2023, excerpt:

On other topics, the poll found a majority of voters supported cashless gaming cards (61% in favour, 19% opposed). On the party best to deal with the cost of living, 30% selected Labor, 25% the Liberals, and 26% neither. Cost of living was rated the most important issue by 39%, far ahead of the 17% who rated the economy most important.

This YouGov poll found 46% of NSW voters supported a federal Indigenous Voice to Parliament, while 30% did not.

If these recent polls are accurate, the Coalition is likely to be defeated in March after three terms and 12 years in government. If this happens, Labor would govern federally and in all states and territories except Tasmania.

As a battle weary Australia is about to enter the fourth year of the global COVID-19 pandemic....

 

As an Australia - battered by increasing unnatural disasters and a pandemic which never ends -  comes to the final days of 2022, here is a brief summary of where the COVID-19 numbers now stand.

"Globally, as of 4:46pm CET, 9 December 2022, there have been 643,875,406 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,630,082 deaths, reported to WHO...Including 756,013 confirmed cases in the last 24 hours." [WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard] 

As at 13 December 2022 there have been 13,592,315 new confirmed COVID-19 cases world-wide in the last 28 days and 41,383 COVID-19 deaths in the same period. [COVID-19 Dashboard, Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE), Johns Hopkins University]

NOTE: By the time the Morrison Government had been removed from office there was no consistent method of COVID-19 data collection across all jurisdictions in Australia and publicly released information was frequently designed to minimise or hide what federal and/or state governments judged to be politically sensitive statistics. There was also significant under reporting of infection numbers inbuilt into data collection. That situation has not changed to date.

According to the Australian Government Dept. of Health and Aging, in the 7 days up to 6 December 2022 a total of 108,983 cases of COVID-19 were reported across Australia, an average of 15,569 cases per day.

In the 14 days up to 9 December 2022 there were 351 reported COVID-19 deaths bringing the cumulative total of deaths since the start of the pandemic to 16,441 men, women & children, according to COVID LIVE. 

In NSW in the 7 days up to 4pm 8 December 2022 there were 40,194 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases and 48 confirmed deaths reported to NSW Health. 

Of these 1,526 people were ill enough to require hospitalisation, with 40 in intensive care units. Weekly new admissions to NSW hospitals appear to be running in the vicinity of 1,049 people on the wards and 59 to intensive care units.

A total of 954 of the newly confirmed cases in the 7 days up to 8 December were in the Northern Rivers region. An est. 50.41% of these cases were in Tweed Shire, 25.27% in Ballina Shire and 18.65% in Lismore City - with the remaining 5.67% spread across the other four local government areas in the region.  

Compare these state and regional numbers with those of 1-11 December 2021 and it is shocking to see how the collapse of public health measures have affected the course of the pandemic in New South Wales and the Northern Rivers. The Northern Rivers in particular has gone from est. 3.85 daily COVID-19 cases in the 7 days up to 8 December 2021 to est. 136.28 daily COVID-19 cases in the 7 days up to 8 December 2022. 

 

ABS, Provisional Mortality Statistics Jan-Aug 2022, released 25 Nov 2022. Click on image to enlarge 

The Conversation, 12 December 2022:

Last month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released a report of mortality statistics. It showed that from January to July 2022, there were 17% more deaths (16,375) than the average expected for these months.

This historical average is based on an average of the deaths for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. They did not include 2020 in the baseline for 2022 data because it included periods where numbers of deaths were significantly lower than expected. The difference between the expected number of deaths based on historical data, and the actual number, is called “excess deaths”.

However, as the ABS points out in its report, using previous years as the predictor for the expected number of deaths does not take into account changes in population age structure over time, or potential improvements in mortality rates.

As we will see, the excess deaths this year were likely lower than the ABS estimate – but still overwhelmingly related to COVID and its effects on health….

The Actuaries Institute report shows 13% excess mortality for the first eight months of 2022 (approximately 15,400 deaths), substantially lower than the ABS estimate for the first seven months…..

Read the full article here.

COVID-19 Pandemic State of Play 2022: New South Wales in early December

 

 

The graphic above illustrates what 'Living with COVID' 

Perrottet-style actually is, as at 4pm Thursday 8 December 2022.

That's an average infection growth factor of est. 1.02 - which is likely to indicate a 2% increase in daily case numbers. High levels of infection continuing according to NSW Health.

The number of healthcare workers infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and in isolation stood at 1,897 on 7 December.

By 8 December there was an average of 6 deaths a day - an average increase of 2 more deaths a day than in the previous 7-day period.

Because of the deliberate fragmentation of published COVID-19 data and the built-in time lag to its release, there is no demographic breakdown of deaths for the 7 days up to 8 December. However, it seems likely deaths were of a similar age distribution to the previous reporting period, with the majority of deaths occurring in those between 60 to 90+ years of age.

As of the week ending 8 December 2022 there were 195 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection in the Northern Rivers region and a total of 1,171 new cases in preceding 4 weeks.