Essential Research: 51-49 to Coalition

The weekly Essential Research poll has the Coalition with a 51-49 two-party lead for the fourth week running. The Coalition primary vote is up a point to 45 per cent, with Labor steady on 38 per cent and the Greens steady on 11 per cent. Respondents were also presented with a series of “party attributes&#148 to respond to, of which my favourite findings are that the Coalition is both more moderate and more extreme than Labor. The Liberals are thought to have a better team of leaders, understanding of the problems facing Australia, to be clearer about what they stand for and to be less inclined to make promises to win votes. However, they are also thought too close to big corporate and financial interests. Labor’s lead on “looks after the interests of working people” is narrower than one feels it ought to be. The two most emphatic responses were the 50 per cent who believed Labor would do anything to win votes and the 39 per cent who thought the Greens “extreme”.

Scepticism about climate change seems to have increased since the question was previously canvassed a year ago, with 45 per cent believing it to be happening and caused by human activity – down from 53 per cent – and 36 per cent believing “we are just witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate” (up from 34 per cent). Nonetheless, 61 per cent are willing to rate the issue as “important”, including majorities for each party support group. Labor are rated as best party to deal with the issue by 23 per cent, the Coalition by 29 per cent and the Greens on 19 per cent, representing little change on a year ago.

UPDATE: Roy Morgan has unexpectedly published results from its latest face-to-face poll on a Monday rather then the traditional Friday. These show Labor’s lead narrowing from 54-46 to 52.5-47.5, from primary votes of 40.5 per cent Labor (down half a point), 42 per cent Coalition (up two) and 12 per cent Greens (unchanged). This is Labor’s weakest result in a Morgan face-to-face poll since a week before the election, when their lead was 52-48. The poll was conducted on the weekends of November 20-21 and 27-28, from a sample of 1829.

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.

442 comments on “Essential Research: 51-49 to Coalition”

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  3. [dont cross that DMZ]

    Gus, not with THAT newsreader on the other side. i stick to Juanita Phillips 😛

    [Diog – good work with the rainmaker]

    Amigo, i asked him to do the rain dance which he chickened out. so i did that myself :kiss:

  4. I threw some €s to Wikileaks on the weekend.

    I paid by credit card. So if the government goons want to look through my financial records they will be able to identify me as a subversive element.

    If you think that Wikileaks is performing an important and courageous service, you might want to consider donating too. Pretty good bang for your buck I reckon.

  5. [And it is a massive as yet unproved assumption that any pro govt anti lib stuff will ever come out.]
    OH said exactly the same. He seems to think the leaks will only reveal information to hurt left leaning governments.

  6. I believe if we were still under the Howard and Bush regimes peoples attitudes to this issue would be different. Govts are not always benign.

    I don’t think foreign affairs policies have changed much with the change of govts anyway.

    And the Bush tax cuts are now back on the agenda, expected to pass since the Repubs got control of the house

  7. Quo Vadis Vera? To sit on the fence with the Wikileaks project condemns you to the realm of the brain dead maggot brigade. The only point McClennand made today was that he was well and truly in the ‘suckhole’ to the US Club. Have mercy.

  8. [Gus has crossed to the dark side and is all but a fully fledged Greens Cultist]

    Frank no, the Greens are the Loony Side. A side not difficult for Gus to cross 🙂

  9. [Is there some point to these silly polls?]
    It’s about painting a picture for the swinging voters that the Rabbott & his miserable band of thugs are winners. 😆

  10. [So what is the answer diog?]

    It would depend from whose POV you should consider the question.

    There is no correct answer.

    It’s like the aphorism about one man’s terrorist being another man’s freedom-fighter.

    Bottom line from me is I agree with Vexnews; leaks good, risking lives bad. But how and who makes that judgement is the real question.

  13. [ Honest Bastard
    Posted Monday, December 6, 2010 at 6:25 pm | Permalink
    I threw some €s to Wikileaks on the weekend.

    I paid by credit card. So if the government goons want to look through my financial records they will be able to identify me as a subversive element.

    If you think that Wikileaks is performing an important and courageous service, you might want to consider donating too. Pretty good bang for your buck I reckon.
    ]

    Your Fimnancial Records will be next to appear on wikileaks after someone with a grudge decides to to leak banking documents.

    I love how the La La people believe the fairytales .

  14. For goodness sake send the money to william and NOT wikileaks. No matter how misguided and paranoid you are you gotta be able to see William does more for our democracy every day than wikileaks ever will!

  15. [I don’t think foreign affairs policies have changed much with the change of govts anyway.]

    The issue I guess I’m referring to is not allowing there to be an environment that would-be leakers lived in absolute fear and required great courage to be a leaker. Part and parcel of having such an environment is that some leaks would be pointless or just mildly interesting.

    We certainly don’t want to go down the path of persecution which was the knee jerk path the Govt was heading.

  17. asked him to do the rain dance which he chickened out. so i did that myself

    finns
    you are one cool dude, with all the moves 😀

  18. TP

    says Rudd did only mild criticism of Wikileaks that I quoted , is you a total moron

    “MR RUDD:
    I don’t believe anyone has profited from what has happened with the unauthorised release of classified information.

    You see diplomacy is necessary. Diplomacy is done in secret because diplomacy seeks to solve problems for which there are no other public solutions. Therefore what is at stake here is the essence of how we deal with international problems; the machinery through which we deal with international problems – the mechanism through which we deal with international problems, in the language in which we deal with international problems.

    And when this is all put into the public domain, it’s a problem for all of us to combine our efforts to deal with some of our fundamental challenges.

    Therefore we in Australia CONDEMN the release of this material. It helps nobody.”

    no caveats

  19. [ Centre
    Posted Monday, December 6, 2010 at 6:30 pm | Permalink
    Gus has crossed to the dark side and is all but a fully fledged Greens Cultist

    Frank no, the Greens are the Loony Side. A side not difficult for Gus to cross
    ]

    Loonies can also be cultists 🙂

  20. [So what is the answer diog?]

    One obvious partial answer is for the US to sack every person responsible for a pathetically shoddy computer security system and outsource it to the Chinese.

  21. Wikkileaks is a great service and part of the armoury of healthy democracy and deserving of donation and they put themselves at risk and mostly have no pay.

    I gather William is party of Crikey empire and gains income via there.

  23. [WeWantPaul
    Posted Monday, December 6, 2010 at 6:31 pm | Permalink
    For goodness sake send the money to william and NOT wikileaks. No matter how misguided and paranoid you are you gotta be able to see William does more for our democracy every day than wikileaks ever will!
    ]

    Wuikileaks will NEVER release material which puts the right in a bad light.

    The Wikilovers are actually ensuring that Tony Abbott will have enough dirt to assume power.

    Fools 🙂

  26. That is pretty mild stuff, no suggestion of actions to be taken against Assange, no hyperbole about deaths and so forth. It is about as mild as you could get from a serving Minister.

  30. [But at the end of the day you either believe in your govt or you don’t. ]

    It takes a genuinely brave or foolish person to “believe” in their government, whatever its complexion, these days, WeWantPaul. Those who do often unfortunately seem to me to have a quasi religious faith in one side or the other.

    The best that you can really hope for is perhaps that you believe in one side more than the other. There can, indeed, be good reasons for doings so, but it certainly isn’t something that any person would be wise to do in this age of spin with any real certainty.

  31. If it were part of a healthy democracy it would be subject to the laws of our healthy democracy. It would respect those laws and institutions and not encourage or condone the breaking of laws or the weakening of the aforementioned healthy democracy.

  32. I don’t think it is right that confidential material should be leaked to the public unless it involves matters of illegal activity.

    Rudd saying to Hillary that China should be attacked if they comply with certain matters as a last resort is not an illegal activity.

    Declaring war on another country by pretending they has WMD’s, on the other hand…

  35. Gusface
    Posted Monday, December 6, 2010 at 6:30 pm | Permalink

    “your amigo ronnie sure crossed it”

    I do not give a stuff what a lite Green like you thinks

    “amigo gg has kept his distance”
    BS

  36. If you don’t believe in democracy which is our form of govt there is no point discussing it – in case wasn’t clear I believe in our govt as an institution not as Howard or Rudd or gillard in particular.

  37. Centre:

    A lot of the wikileaks material simply looks like trivialities designed to embarrass rather than force accountability. I don’t think that stuff should be leaked. Is it important in the scheme of things? Not in my view.

  38. shepherdmarilyn,

    [Is there some point to these silly polls? ]

    When I first read it I thought you said “silly posts” and thought, “not really” and then I realised it was actually “polls”.

    Funnily enough, my thoughts didn’t change much! 😉

  39. Frank
    Gawd Frank, you & my other half are on the same page.
    [Wuikileaks will NEVER release material which puts the right in a bad light.

    The Wikilovers are actually ensuring that Tony Abbott will have enough dirt to assume power.]
    OH believes that either the papers in cahoots with Wikileaks are censoring the info received or Wikileaks itself is nothing more than a manipulative political tool. After all, it wouldn’t be hard to set up selective information & feed in to Wiki to maximise damage.

  41. Centre

    [Declaring war on another country by pretending they has WMD’s, on the other hand…]

    One problem is even that wasn’t illegal.

    I think a better test would be if an action was unethical rather than illegal.

    The worst thing in never what is illegal; it is what is legal.

  43. Diogs the same can be said to what is ethical?

    The “coalition of the willing” attacked another country without approval of the UN. Surely that makes it illegal?

  44. onfessions
    Posted Monday, December 6, 2010 at 6:44 pm | Permalink

    Centre:

    “A lot of the wikileaks material simply looks like trivialities designed to embarrass rather than force accountability. I don’t think that stuff should be leaked. Is it important in the scheme of things? Not in my view.”

    I agree

    My view is th Kevin Rudd/Hillary Clinton confidential FA cable conversations cause at best embarassment (and at worst we dont yet know , except Kevin rudd condemns it and says it makes diplomacy harder)

    However leaking on Iraq War mark 11 , rendering , Downer/Howard wheat offers to Iraq , full background on Haneeef & Hicks cynical politcal resons etc is legit info public should know

  46. Dee

    The papers that are releasing the stuff are left-wing papers; the NYT, the Guardian, der Spiegel, le Monde and el Pais.

  47. Are there any leaks pre the Obama and Rudd govts that have been released?

    Seems all Kev and Hillary making the news
    No howie and bush?

  49. [ Diogenes
    Posted Monday, December 6, 2010 at 6:52 pm | Permalink
    Dee

    The papers that are releasing the stuff are left-wing papers; the NYT, the Guardian, der Spiegel, le Monde and el Pais.
    ]

    And who best to destroy the Left than the Left themselves 🙂

  50. [Gusface
    Posted Monday, December 6, 2010 at 6:30 pm | Permalink

    “your amigo ronnie sure crossed it”

    I do not give a stuff what a lite Green like you thinks

    “amigo gg has kept his distance”
    BS]

    I sometimes wonder how long it will be before Ron decides that everyone (from Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott down) apart from himself and Joe DeBruen are “Greens” of one shade or another, and therefore bound to spend the rest of their lives in the purgatory that he personally reserves for such heretics! 😉

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