Essential Research: 54-46

In lieu of anything from Newspoll or Nielsen, this week’s very interesting Essential Research survey gets its own thread. It finds Labor at what might be an all-time low for this agency, which opened for business after the 2007 election and has traditionally provided Labor with friendly results. Labor nonetheless retains a commanding 54-46 lead, down from 55-45 last week. Kevin Rudd also has his weakest personal ratings to date, his approval down three to 52 per cent and disapproval up four to 37 per cent. Tony Abbott by contrast is up a hearty eight points to 45 per cent on approval, but down only one on disapproval to 36 per cent. The likely headline-grabber of the survey is a question on the performance of Peter Garrett who gets a resounding thumbs-down with 28 per cent approval and 56 per cent disapproval. Better news for Labor on an insightful question as to whether respondents expect a Tony Abbott government would reintroduce parts of WorkChoices: 57 per cent say likely and 23 per cent say unlikely, with large majorities across supporters of all parties.

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.

2,963 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46”

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  6. Kelly.

    With the election honeymoon over, and without the job of leading the nation through the immediate and urgent challenge of the GFC, he’s lapsed into old bad habits, retreating into the bureaucratic persona of old. People are starting to ask who is this guy, what does he stand for.

    Some might even be starting to wonder why they voted for him in the first place. Wasn’t he supposed to be different?

    People are starting to ask… What people, exactly, I wonder?
    Abbott’s Undead?

    Howard’s beloved AM radio Shock Jocks stuck with a PM who prefers more recent forms of radio than GenBlue AM (though we 2 GenBlues switched to FM for decades ago; didn’t most listeners)? Who frequents TV chat-shows (liked to be on Rove)?

    Ms Grattan and other print journo no longer getting government leaks, esp since the Grech affair?

    The same “dumbed-down” scribblers who’ve let their own skills lapse during Howard’s Dumbed-down for Hanson Voters meaningless populist clap-trap, and now can’t cope with a PM who sounds as if he’s successfully completed Year 12?

    “Rudd doesn’t talk down to us,” is the most common statement I’ve heard from locals, most of them Nat & Lib voters (not many ALP here!)

  9. [It was a very smoothly run and discreet operation. ]

    It’s getting more publicity than the Winter Olympic Games! How can you call that discreet!

    Seriously, I can name more of the assassins (albeit by their fake names) than I can name Gold medallists at the Winter Games.

  10. jv
    about to dash off, so no time to argue further. As a govt (loath to use expert) advisor on water quality, I wouldn’t at this stage support banning triazines. Aerial spraying of plantations, I should think, requires a detailed risk assessment, and I wouldn’t rush to judgement on it.
    Seems like McKim needs to be more careful how he expresses policy to the media. I don’t have any quibble with the policy as you’ve quoted it above. But talk of ‘chemical free water’ just plays right into the hands of the kooks and nutters.

  12. [Still hold his title minister for arts and Enviroment then?]

    Yep he can play with geckos and stuff – the economic stuff is Wong’s. Still in Cabinet.

  13. “Mossad are considered the most professional of the spy agencies and this one was so badly done that it suggests Mossad might not have done it.”

    How “badly” was it “done”? The guy is dead. Mission accomplished.

  16. [Mr Rudd said Mr Garrett’s passion lay with the protection of Australia’s natural resources and his reduced range of responsibilities would be more suited to him.]

    Poor Mr Garrett. Doesn’t sound like a huge vote of confidence.

  18. GB – you got me in one!! It was Mr Mitchell I heard, and similar stuff from John F on 774.

    Trubble at the Mill- I’m speechless…I’ve actually been contemplating some travel. now reconsidering

    Seriously though, my point is not ‘poor innocent little mossad’.

    My point is that

    1) Rudd and Smith could have made their point more diplomatically
    2) Overplaying the point helps detract media attention away from insulation/Garrett/7:30 report.

  19. [Seriously, I can name more of the assassins (albeit by their fake names) than I can name Gold medallists at the Winter Games.]

    The lack of snow hasn’t helped 🙂

  20. BH @ # 2893

    The thing I disagree with is the enticement by Harvey to ‘buy now … no interest for yonks’ to people who don’t really understand what the implications are eventually. Plus the hypocritical stance of Gerry Harvey – I’ve NEVER bought anything on hire purchase. I paid cash for everything.

    I think that the “buy now … no interest for yonks” is great I avail myself of those offers if there is an advantage to me and usually there is.

    It only takes a couple of seconds on a cheap calculator to work it out.

    I treat it as a no interest loan from the seller and the day before interest starts I pay it off in full. With all things I work on the basis of not paying interests but that is not going to stop borrowing “free cash” and using it for what I want.

    Now if people cant ask what the conditions are and work out what they have to do to get an advantage is not the fault of the seller. It is all really very simple stuff.

    As an example why would anyone borrow from a finance company and pay their high interest rates when one can get a loan from a bank at a very reasonable rate.

    To blame the retailer is a bit like the “Garret scenario”, blame the easy target and not those who are really responsible.

  21. [It’s getting more publicity than the Winter Olympic Games! How can you call that discreet!

    Seriously, I can name more of the assassins (albeit by their fake names) than I can name Gold medallists at the Winter Games.]

    But we have no idea who any of them really are (except Mossad agents), what role each played in the assassination, or how they left the scene. It’s an exquisite piece of work considering that the only evidence is purely circumstantial – offered by the video footage of the movements of these people.

  22. 16 Boats in less than 60 Days. Not a bad effort from the Rudd government.

    Wind your minds back to the Howard days under the Pacific Solution when we would get 3 Boats a YEAR.

    This is what happens when you let latte sipping lefties set immigration policy… they have no bloody idea. No amount of bleeding heart BS will be able to cover up the mess Rudd has got Australia into. This year we will have 6000 Illegals. Next year it will be 10,000 just as Ruddock predicted. The people smugglers and boatpeople think this government is a limp wristed joke, and you know what? They are right!

    http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/asylum-boat-number-16-intercepted/story-e6frg13u-1225834710460

    [A BOAT carrying asylum seekers has been intercepted by the navy as it approached Christmas Island.

    Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said initial indications suggested there were 45 passengers and two crew on board the boat.]

  23. [To blame the retailer is a bit like the “Garret scenario”, blame the easy target and not those who are really responsible.]

    I think the banking industry, and those in it who asess credit risk, are a classic proof of the truth of the Dunning Kruger effect:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger

    Possibly applies to some other people we can think of too.

  24. Mr Squiggle – Rudd’s gravity on this issue also helps, in a small way, to highlight the stupidity of the opposition’s claims about ‘death by insulation’ being the most serious threat to Australians’ security.

  25. I must admit in one way I am disappointed Rudd has given way but in another I can see the reasoning behind it. It let’s Garrett save some face while politically settles the waters.

  26. [I think that the “buy now … no interest for yonks” is great I avail myself of those offers if there is an advantage to me and usually there is.

    It only takes a couple of seconds on a cheap calculator to work it out.

    I treat it as a no interest loan from the seller and the day before interest starts I pay it off in full.]

    This is exactly what I do too. I have a nice new couch and regularly pay off the loan with ease.

    In honour of Peter Young, I also add, sorry for the clutter.

  27. polyquats
    [As a govt (loath to use expert) advisor on water quality, I wouldn’t at this stage support banning triazines. Aerial spraying of plantations, I should think, requires a detailed risk assessment, and I wouldn’t rush to judgement on it.]

    You must know Alex Schaap, the general manager of bio-security, do you?

  28. Garrett demoted? So Labor caved in? Wow. Now the floodgates have opened. I expect Garrett’s resignation/pushing isn’t far off.

  29. Good move by Rudd. When progress reports are to be announced then Combet wil be the man – Garrett would simply remind people of the problems.

    Combet is PM material. This additional exposure is a good thing for him and for the party.

  32. Ratsars

    The cheapest way is to use you own money up front and negotiate a discount on the price. It costs retailers money to use GE Finance type schemes – (the longer the interest free the more it costs as well).

  33. [This is what happens when you let latte sipping lefties set immigration policy]

    which raving right wing politicians agreed with in parliament.

  34. I think Rudd made the decision to demote Garrett in that 3 second silence at the end of Kerry’s interview.

    The Opposition and MSM will be ecstatic.

    It has to be asked if he is such a “first class minister” just why is he being demoted?

    And if he’s done nothing wrong as so many people keep telling us, why had he been removed from Energy Efficiency?

  35. [2) Overplaying the point helps detract media attention away from insulation/Garrett/7:30 report.]
    Squiggle, I’m surprised you would expect a government in some difficulty not to report on such an important matter and even use it to their adavantage. The Howard government were past masters at it. Did you complain when they were doing it?

  36. [Next year it will be 10,000 just as Ruddock predicted. The people smugglers and boatpeople think this government is a limp wristed joke, and you know what? They are right!]

    And the Liberals will save us all with TPVs. It’ll be 10,000 to 0 just be reintroducing TPVs.

  37. [It has to be asked if he is such a “first class minister” just why is he being demoted?

    And if he’s done nothing wrong as so many people keep telling us, why had he been removed from Energy Efficiency?]

    They’re just sharing the load Diogenes ;).

  38. [It has to be asked if he is such a “first class minister” just why is he being demoted?]

    Yes, the question will be asked and blocked with a straight bat. This is a smart move by the PM and it will take a lot of heat out of the issue.

  39. Interesting Aljazeera story on the Dubai job. Was it Ernst Blofeld or:
    [So if this isn’t Mossad then who could it be? An organisation desperate to discreetly kill a Hamas member and make it look like Israel’s work?

    An under-reported fact of this story is that al-Mabouh’s murder was oh-so-close to being ruled as “natural causes”.

    It took 10 days for foul play to be determined and the coroner told local press that determining the exact cause was “one of the most challenging cases” he’d ever faced. (We’re still waiting for the final official autopsy results.)

    Police sources tell me heart medication was also planted beside al-Mabouh’s bed to lead investigators down the wrong path.

    If it had been ruled a heart attack then Dubai Police would have had no reason to trawl through 1,000’s of hours of surveillance footage.]
    http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2010/02/25/if-not-mossad-then-who

  40. [I treat it as a no interest loan from the seller and the day before interest starts I pay it off in full. With all things I work on the basis of not paying interests but that is not going to stop borrowing “free cash” and using it for what I want.]

    Ratsars – our kids do that too. And it is because all of you can handle that but before I retired I saw the devestation in family law matters. People who didn’t understand how it works , or have the ability to handle money, were in dreadful situations. No matter how carefully you explain contracts to some people they never seem able to retain the info.

    I’m with you that it is a great saving if you have the cash and the nous behind you.

    My gripe is for the number of naive people that Harvey entices when he doesn’t believe in the process for himself.

  42. Diogenes
    Posted Friday, February 26, 2010 at 3:39 pm | Permalink

    “Given Psephos’ absence, I’ll play Devil’s Advocate on the passports thing”

    do not hide behind Adam , he can speak for himself & I do not assumen what he may think on Mossad assination

    You can give your opinon , so ?

    Mr Squiggs
    #2882
    You assume Rudd and Smith did not chek there ASIO etc souses ist , suggest unlikely

    If Netanya admitted its was Israel , there wuld be still Israeli suporters saing he mis-spoke

    Kill squad lived in Israel and used othr country citizen’s false passports
    So theseassassins lived in Israel , without mossad notising them , flew out to kill a Hamas leeder , and were per you & Diogenes “alegedly representin AN OTHER Country
    (who hated Hamas) ,

    and whch country wuld that be , and how did they liv in Israel un detected , jingle bells

  43. Truthy,

    I agree. We need more. All those jobs Labor is creating has produced a manpower shortage. We need these law abiding Asylum Seekers. All they wan’t to do is work hard and create a better life for them and their families.

  45. [It has to be asked if he is such a “first class minister” just why is he being demoted?
    And if he’s done nothing wrong as so many people keep telling us, why had he been removed from Energy Efficiency?]
    You’re right but it is not about now. If it wasn’t dead before it will be within days.
    Just a few questions though.
    If he is not a first class minister why would he still be in cabinet? So he must be.
    Would you expect a PM to say anything else about his ministers?
    By still being in cabinet doesn’t that show he has done nothing wrong?

  46. Vera –

    [ALP slips slightly but holds big lead: ALP 56.5% (down 1%) – L-NP 43.5% (up 1%)]

    Thanks.

    Combet is a good move. He will handle it well and it will leave Peter Garrett time to handle the things he likes.

  47. I pity Pete on QANDA this Monday night. It will no doubt descend into pink batfest with the usual stacked audience of young libs. And to make matters worse, the incessant whining of poodle Pyne.

  48. [which raving right wing politicians agreed with in parliament.]

    Hey Labor voted for the Pacific Solution, so why did they cry about it so much?

  49. I have to agree with Diogs on this question mark over Mossad.

    26 agents photgraphs plastered all over the world’s media, hotel footage for all to see…..its almost as if a trail of bread crumbs is being left behind on purpose

    There is more…..

    the owners of the passports involved are real Israeli citizens…why use passports of real people? (i’m no expert onthis, but can’t identities be faked?). If you can fake a passport, why not fake the identity as well?

    Some of the stolen identities are french and german. The phones used were Austrian. Have you heard outraged comments from these countries?

    I would prefer it if Rudd/Smith tone down their aggessive outrage until more facts are known.

  50. Does this mean the Rabble can no longer ask Nude Nut questions in parliament over batts – given it is no longer in his portfolio?

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