Essential Research: 58-42

The latest weekly Essential Research survey (which gets its own thread in Newspoll off-weeks when there’s no Galaxy poll on the Sunday) has Labor recovering from an unheralded dip over the past fortnight, its two-party lead increasing from 56-44 to 58-42. Also featured are questions on leadership preference, which find Julia Gillard favoured over Malcolm Turnbull 39 per cent to 34 per cent and Kevin Rudd favoured over Gillard 63 per cent to 14 per cent, and expectations regarding the economy.

UPDATE (2/12/08): Today’s Courier-Mail provides further figures from yesterday’s Galaxy poll of 800 voters in Queensland, showing 38 per cent would like to go back to John Howard and Peter Costello, against 54 per cent preferring Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

706 comments on “Essential Research: 58-42”

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  3. Glen

    I don’t have the evidence to back this up but I firmly believe Howard would have won the last election if he didn’t bring in Workchoices. It was a dog with fleas.

  4. 153 – I agree Dio. He lost the last election once he introduced Workchoices. A terrible blunder, one that some Libs won’t or can’t recognise.

  5. “It wasnt a protest vote”

    Howard was only the second PM in history to have lost his seat. So everyone just wanted a change?

    I can’t believe the Liberal party’s own internal polling hasn’t already told them that Workchoices was a disaster. Prohibiting right of assembly for workers was fundamentally undemocratic and even people like me who are often skeptical of unions were strongly opposed.

  6. Glen it’s easy to have unemployment statistics at all time lows when it uses the fact that if someone is working for one hour a week they’re classed as employed, just how many of those jobs were part time or minimal time?

  8. Glen, your argument is a little contradictory – you seem to accept that WCs was unpopular, and was a large part of the reason for the result in 2007. But the fire still burns bright, and you still argue that it was good policy (low unemployment etc). And therein lies the rub for the Libs at the moment: WCs was an article of faith for most of them – they genuinely believe that people are better off bargaining one-on-one with their employer, and most of them genuinely regard unions as illegitimate.

    I actually think that the Libs don’t yet appreciate what an albatross WCs will be around their necks going forward. Indeed, public perceptions of WCs will only get worse with the passage of time. To give you an comparison, the ALP lost an election in 2004 based on the interest rates that were current in 1989; on this basis, Labor can beat the Libs with the WCs stick for another decade or more. And that’s leaving aside the fact that WCs is strongly held by most Libs as a good idea – core policy, if you will – whereas the Keating interest rates (and indeed the recession) were more of an outcome of policy, rather than the centre of it.

    It’s gonna be while before your side are back on the Treasury benches Glen, so I’d console yourself with Victorian council elections for the time being (oh, and WA, which they tell me is part of Australia).

  11. I’m conjecturing that Howard “threw” the election. By which I mean he deliberately lost it, knowing the global prosperity boom he’d ridden was about to turn to a big bust.

    He didn’t want to be left holding the parcel (economy) when it blew up in his face. He already had that humiliating experience in the 1980s when, as Treasurer, he’d presided over the worst recession since the Great Depression.

    So my theory is that he used the unexpected bonanza of a Senate majority to pass the draconian SerfChoices, his legislative wet dream, guessing that decent people would reject it, and turf the Liberals out … leaving Labor to 1) clean up after them; and 2) deal with the GFC he could have anticipated was coming.

  12. [I’m conjecturing that Howard “threw” the election. By which I mean he deliberately lost it, knowing the global prosperity boom he’d ridden was about to turn to a big bust.]

    Hahaha, I don’t think so

  13. “I do NOT have the evidence to back this up , but I FIRMLY BELIEVE Howard would.. ”

    An athiest relying on “faith” ?……now I hope all yous athiests here ar on board diog’s new scientific concept discovery of “faith” …I suspect ShowsOn just fainted in horror

  14. Hyacinth would not have let him throw it. It must have been very traumatic when ‘Kirribilli’ turned up to turf her out.

    Last night’s episode just reinforces how much I owe Rudd for getting rid of that mealymouthed lot.

    And I don’t believe it was just Workchoices. Many of us weren’t affected by WC but were absolutely desperate for a change in our national psyche.

  18. [Let me be absolutely clear about this, i support most strongly the principle of individual contracts.]

    I have an individual contract Glen. It isn’t as if they have been eradicated.

  19. [Remember, the one that says the electorate will hold Rudd to account for not being able to lower fuel prices]

    How about… “Petrol prices will always be lower under a Labor government”. Sure it’s disingenuous, but what’s good for the goose…

  20. 166 – you are right Judith and it will happen.
    [“Ms Archer’s term in parliament is due to end in May, when a new legislative Council will be installed.”]

  22. GB (167) The lower petrol prices are good news for all Australians, including Rudd Relishers. Let’s rejoice and be glad in it.

  24. [how much I owe Rudd for getting rid of that mealymouthed lot]

    Someone wrote a post expanding on that theme at the board OzPolitics.

    http://www.ozelection2007.info/forums/viewtopic.php?id=4413

    Look for post #4:

    [… The Liberal party’s intention was to give as much ownership of Australia and Australians to big business as they could. And to achieve that and maintain that they first needed to damage democracy and remove peoples ability to speak up and be heard. I have no doubt that a further Howard government would have gone down the road of fascism as much as they could have.]

  26. I wonder just how much longer the Authorities can hold out on having a proper inquiry into this lot.

    [Two former members of The Exclusive Brethren religious group have told a court some of their former colleagues are guilty of international crimes.

    The former Brethren members, Lydia Desai and Priscilla D’Souza have accused Exclusive Brethren members in three countries of a number of crimes.

    They include genocide, people smuggling and slavery.]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/02/2435500.htm?section=justin

  27. 172 David Charles – not up to your usual standard “Gary Watch” statement David. Your point is? I thought my post was exactly conveying that very message, as well as showing up Glen Milne for the dill he is of course (surely you can’t disagree with that).
    “Rudd Relisher”? – Hang on David, now I get it. It gave you the excuse to put me down for my political stance. Good one. Very Petty.

  28. Grog 173 – I’m not so sure. Annabel seems to have this one theme going on in regard to Julia at the moment and it appears in the first few sentences of that article you linked.
    [AB -“THERE really isn’t any doubt any more about whether the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has the killer instinct.
    The problem tends more to be how to drag her off the victim’s body.”]

    I don’t recall her having the same problem with Abbott or Costello and I don’t mean the comedians, or do I?

  31. Maybe it was just 300K’s worth of Prime Ministerial prayer?

    (“God, help me win. God, I must win. God, tell me I’m a winner. God, tell me I’m clever. God, tell me I’m not a loser. Oh, yeah, and God, sling a bit of good fortune the Elect Vessel’s way eh! God, help me win. God, I must win …”)

  33. The hypocrisy of a group that won’t allow it’s followers to vote but is happy to donate $320,000 to a political party beggars belief.

    Ronster

    Us atheists believe in lots of things, such as Enlightenment values, reason, science blah, blah. We just don’t believe in God. Every religious person is basically an atheist in that they don’t believe in 99.99% of deities except their own one. We just go one further. 😉

  34. See if you can work this one out, from the ‘staff writers’ at news.com.au:

    http://www.news.com.au/business/money/story/0,28323,24739445-5016110,00.html

    [AUSTRALIANS appear to be keeping their money in their pockets despite the cost of petrol, groceries and mortgages falling rapidly in recent months.

    Retail spending is a key indicator of the health of the economy. Data out today show spending has remained stagnant despite recent figures showing that prices have started to fall.]

    And what did the data out today say??? Spending was UP by 0.7% Who are these idiot staff writers???

  35. 177 Milne is, of course, a Rudd Resister rather reviled by Rudd Relishers. Government for Rudd and his colleagues is difficult enough at the moment (Global economy ‘in the toilet’, NSW in the doldrums, major challenges in infrastructure funding, introducing and then implementing a carbon emissions trading scheme et. al.) It would be even more difficult for his government if he had the added (political) burden of unpopularity in the opinion polls.

    Everyone’s interest is looked after if Rudd governs well and then no one will care what Milne and any other Rudd Resisters relate.

  36. [The problem tends more to be how to drag her off the victim’s body.”]

    Oh I disagree GB – I think that is a line that shows AC gets a lot of joy at watching JG. – Also the last sentence of the article really rams home her admiration:

    [But the true moribundity of his performance didn’t really become clear until yesterday, when Ms Gillard demonstrated – cogently, ably and without a speaking note to be seen – that in the right hands, question time can be easy.]

  37. [GB (167) The lower petrol prices are good news for all Australians]

    I dunno about that. Cheap, plentiful petrol is going to do a lot more harm than good. In fact, it already has.

    At least the Government now doesn’t have excuse to leave petrol out of an ETS.

  42. Swan tells parliament that the CBA is passing the full cut. Too easy. Costello must be crapping himself seeing Swan getting to bring this kind of news to the parliament.

  45. Things must be very grim. Bought unleaded petrol for 98c per liter this morning. And now RB cuts interest to 4.25%.

    Is Nicola Roxon turning Buddhist? She is wearing the Zen Buddhist monk necklace.

  46. [record lows…]

    Yup. Another Howard fallacy officially put to rest. Never again can the interest rate scare tactic be used against Labor.

  49. With the interest rate cut and the pensioner and carer payments to go out next week it will be interesting to see how things pan out in the next two months. There is probably still a need for a fiscal stimulus but these moves, combined with lower oil pirces, should have greatly reduced financial pressures. At this point the main thing the economy needs is probably positive psychology rather than major changes.

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