Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor

Crikey reports the latest Essential Research survey has Labor moving to a 51-49 lead after three weeks at level pegging. Labor’s primary vote is up two points to 42 per cent while the Coalition’s is down two to 43 per cent – suggesting the two-party shift to Labor has been dampened by rounding – and the Greens are steady are on 9 per cent, weakness for the Greens being an unusual feature of recent Essential polling. We are also informed the national broadband network was supposed by 56 per cent of respondents and opposed by only 18 per cent; 63 per cent think it important the government move “quickly” on an ETS or carbon tax; and 69 per cent support legalising euthanasia for those with incurable disease and severe pain. Tony Abbott is found to be favoured over Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader by 26 per cent to 20 per cent, with support for Turnbull evidently being concentrated among non-Coalition voters.

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.

3,743 comments on “Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor”

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  1. [the national broadband network was supported by 56 per cent of respondents and opposed by only 18 per cent; 63 per cent think it important the government move “quickly” on an ETS or carbon tax]

    A beautiful set of numbers … 🙂

  2. Dio
    One of the comments Nixon made was that he should have burnt the tapes when he had the chance!! He should have taken a leaf out of Freud’s approach 😀

  3. [63 per cent think it important the government move “quickly” on an ETS or carbon tax]

    Excellent. The PM expected to announce climate change committee shortly, according to Sky News.

  4. Those figures supporting an ETS are pretty much unmoved since the Libs decided to use it as a defining difference between the parties. The problem on the pro ETS side comes when the actual solution is proposed. Some will think it good, some will think it goes to far and some will think it doesn’t go far enough. Hence the 30+% opposed from the outset is always a siignificant block on any real outcome being achieved.

  5. Laocoon

    I could never understand why he didn’t just burn them or why he made them in the first place. He kept “misplacing” crucial ones which just made him look more guilty.

  6. Toolman suggesting that there is skullduggery going on, as there are other Libs lining up (according to Labor) for job of speaker.

  7. William – why does your post say ‘supposed’ when the first entry here (correctly) says ‘supported’? (Just being pedantic…)

    And while I have you, happy birthday! (I know it’s sometime this week and I think you’re 29).

  8. Suicide is no longer illegal. I think most doctors do not have a problem with assisted suicide for the terminally and painfully ill – it is a fairly regular occurrence. My view is that this is part of the doctor/patient relationship and is best served by keeping the government and lawyers out of it. Euthanasia for those who are unable to express or give consent is obviously morally and criminally wrong. The question that I find most disturbing is the assisted suicide of those who are neither terminally ill or have uncontrollable pain and it seems to me that this is the logical end of the arguments of Nitschke and cohort – Kevorkian in the US has publicly killed people in this category. The reasons that people decide to end their lives are very complex and assisting here is something that ethical doctors and governments should steer well away from.

  9. [Crikey reports the latest Essential Research survey has Labor moving to a 51-49 lead after three weeks at level pegging. Labor’s primary vote is up two points to 42 per cent while the Coalition’s is down two to 43 per cent ]

    What did Nifty say about election? Like “you know what” ( 😉 ), you have to “feel” that it is coming on. I feel one is coming on NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  10. The ideal scenario would be for the ALP to move into a decisive lead in the next few months, for example, 54-46.

    The Rabbot would automatically stop his wrecking attempts if he knows that an immediate election would result in Julia being returned with a majority.

  11. [The Rabbot would automatically stop his wrecking attempts]
    He would work instead to bring those numbers down and then do the wrecking, so he may escalate his wrecking efforts. If he goes far enough he may well totally trash the Coalition brand.

  12. A little historical bon bon. One of the supporters of Euthanasia in Australia is a urologist Rodney Syme – scion of the great family and grandson of Sir George Adlington Syme, president of the AMA and founder of the College of Surgeons. Sir George gave the keynote address at the tri-ennial Australasian Medical Congress in 1924. The subject of his address was in support of sterilizing and euthanasing the intellectually handicapped.

  13. Looks like Katter continues to play an astute political game. The most important matter he said was confirming he won’t play Abbott’s game. If Katter doesn’t vote for the Libs and Crook runs dead on confidence motions, the Libs mission to disrupt parliament is further undermined.

  14. Whilst this Essential Report result is still within the margin of error and has moved only slightly in the Government’s favour, one can only trust to the good sense of the Australian electorate to see through the clouds of misinformation and fear mongering to the manifestly cynical and self serving actions of the Abbott Opposition.

    Sadly for our democracy, the Opposition leader has shown that it is possible to run an entirely negative election campaign, when assisted by a partisan media and a weak and debased National Broadcaster, and to con large sections of the populace into voting for your empty sloganeering and fearmongering, but it is another matter entirely to maintain the same negativity, mendacity and downright obstruction that is now being practiced by this unprincipled pack of Opposition charlatans, and expect it to translate into ongoing support across the months ahead.

    Even if the next few months remain unproductive in the Senate (until after July 1st 2011) the House of Representatives promises to produce much robust debate, and I fully expect, some substantive progressive Legislation, regardless of the doomsaying of the Coalition, their cheersquad in the Murdoch media, and their feeble echoes in the ABC.

    Now that Abbott and his strident colleagues have managed to burn their bridges with Oakeshott, Windsor, and even to some extent with the wayward Bob Katter, there is, in my judgement, no way back to a feasible ‘baton change’ that is imaginable, short of grievious governmental mismanagement.

    Abbott and his Opposition colleagues have made the bed, now they have to lie in it, and it is an axiom that, if you lie down with dogs, you’ll get up with fleas.

  15. ABCnews24 just cut off the presser while questions are still in progress so Uhlmann can tell everyone what HE thinks.

  16. The ALP have been doing better in the last week with their media message. The Tony Abbott Wrecker tag is cutting through and they are bringing in that tag a lot more naturally than they were during the election. Abbott better be careful or he’s going to find himself in a very difficult corner before long.

  17. The unhinged one must be livid watching this PC. The PM, The dep PM, Minister for Climate Change, Leader and Dep Leader of the Greens all as one

    I say what a disgraceful coverage by the 2 so called leaders in TV News The ABC and Sky. The ABC Link clicked in and out, Sky couldn’t even get a camera there and took it by a mobile phone that was barely intelligent. The ABC just pulled out of their coverage while the PC was nowhere near finished and went straight to Chris Y for his summary with that dork Joe O’Brien, where did they get him from?

  18. Ar, but these days Dio we can employ the dual purpose argument. We are not making them sterile… we are regulating their periods.

  19. From ABC News Online
    [The committee also has to decide whether Ms Gillard’s unpopular Citizens’ Assembly on climate change announced during the election campaign would be established.]

    This Q was asked during the p.c. by a journo. I thought Julia had already thrown out the Cit Comm with the “new paradigm”.

    ABC, please keep up.

  20. Julia did say that any other independents can offer to participate in the committee. I gather she was referring to Katter and Crook.

  21. 12 GG
    [Those figures supporting an ETS are pretty much unmoved since the Libs decided to use it as a defining difference between the parties. The problem on the pro ETS side comes when the actual solution is proposed. Some will think it good, some will think it goes to far and some will think it doesn’t go far enough. Hence the 30+% opposed from the outset is always a siignificant block on any real outcome being achieved.]
    I saw the same happen when living in Darwin to the NT Statehood Referendum in 1998 and of course the Republic Referendum in 1999.

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