Essential Research: 52-48 to Coalition

This week’s Essential Research survey finds Labor copping a forceful backlash from the carbon tax, with the two-party vote flipping from 51-49 in favour of Labor to 52-48 in favour of the Coalition – a very sharp turnaround given that a) Essential is a two week rolling average, so half the sample is that which contributed to Labor’s strong result last time, and b) even a part of the more recent week’s sample was surveyed before the tax was announced. The major parties have swapped two points on the primary vote, with Labor down to 37 per cent and the Coalition up to 45 per cent, while the Greens are down a point to 10 per cent. Respondents to this week’s segment of the survey were also asked to nominate their preferred Liberal leader, and contrary to the recent Morgan poll it had Tony Abbott in front with 24 per cent against 18 per cent for Malcolm Turnbull and 16 per cent for Joe Hockey.

The remainder of the survey was dominated by a complex exercise to gauge attitudes to religion and multiculturalism. Fifty-seven per cent of respondents initially professed themselves “concerned” about the number of Muslims in Australia, while only 38 per cent were not concerned. They were then asked to estimate the number of Muslims in Australia (perhaps a problematic exercise in a poll conduct online, where participants have Google close at hand). Logically enough, concern was found to be associated with the size of the estimate. Sixty-five percentage had the number too high (it’s 1.7 per cent). When the real figure was pointed out to them, the number of concerned moderated to 50 per cent, and the not concerned rose to 45 per cent.

In other questions, 57 per cent rated the contribution of multiculturalism to Australian society as positive against 29 per cent negative; 65 per cent opposed rejecting prospective immigrants on the basis of religion, while 19 per cent were supportive; and 61 per cent agreed that “some politicians raise issues of race and religion for political purposes just to generate votes”, with only 27 per cent believing “these politicians” (who ever could they mean?) were “genuinely concerned about Australia’s future”.

UPDATE: Essential has issued an explanatory statement regarding the questions on Muslim immigrants, evidently anticipating criticism that its approach amounts to a political statement. Results from a further question on Muslim immigrants will be unveiled on Channel Ten this evening.

This week we take the unusual step of providing a justification for the questions we have asked in the Essential Report.

Two things that drive our research and communications practice are – really understanding how people feel and finding communications solutions to problems.

This week we have asked a series of questions about Australia’s attitude to multiculturalism and Muslims in particular. We debated whether it was worth giving voice to some of the attitudes we might find. But we also wanted to show how research can find different responses on a range of issues, and how politicians make choices about the attitudes they wish to promote, provoke, perpetuate or even prevent.

We also wanted to show how simple bits of information can change people’s attitudes and responses. For too long some conservative politicians have been running agendas that purport to directly reference the community’s fear or anxiety, but because the polling has remained hidden in a desk drawer they have been able to claim they are merely debating an issue.

This small poll shows the choices politicians can make in discussion and leading an issue.

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.

6,132 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Coalition”

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  2. [jenauthor

    are you referring to Morrison’s debate with Wong this morning?]

    That was the last straw. These Liberals have no manners — they talk over everyone. They think if they make their lie louder than the truth it’ll somehow make the lie more true. Not possible. Something is either a lie, or truth. It can’t be half true, despite what people say.

  3. victoria,

    Morrison vs Wong. She’d eat him for dinner and come back for seconds while his is just tucking into his entree.

  4. [Henry

    Posted Friday, March 4, 2011 at 11:44 pm | Permalink

    the local wogs do like him William (why did you drop the word like when quoting) , what is your issue with that?
    Or are you that precious. Do you live in the electorate?
    ]

    He lives in Fremantle – which is full of them. 🙂

  5. jenauthor

    he really is a very unlikeable man. I notice that most of the Libs are bullies. They are loud obnoxious, and damn rude to boot. They are nasty in every sense. I am gobsmacked that people appreciate this nastiness. Maybe people by nature like f wits!

  7. just to rattle off a few examples

    Abbott, Pyne, Hockey, Morisson, Bishop, Robb, Mirabella, Bernardi, BRANDIS, Dwyer, Billson, and the list goes on. Turnbull may be polite, but he does not stop yapping.

  8. [You mean Angelo Tsirekas. A very decent & honourable man. I hope he gets elected.]

    Unfortunately — the loud liars always have the advantage of honourable men.

    Ran into him on Monday in 5 Dock … he was there with Balmain Footy players, drumming up members for the club. He came over and handed me the brochure and said they were on a membership drive — not a word about politics … he was there for another purpose and didn’t take advantage.

    Alas I am no longer in the electorate. My local is the pretty blonde woman with the nice smile. Fair Trading minister — can never remember her name. I hope she is returned.

  10. Why is that bullying at school is considered a big no-no but in the workforce and in politics it is considered ok and if you can’t handle the heat get out of the kitchen?

  12. SK

    I don’t think bullying is acceptable in the general workforce, but due to the adverserial nature of politics, it is generally par for the course.

  15. jenauthor

    how else can we explain that a gentleman like Windsor gets death threats, and those nasty blowhards get away with gutter mouths and gutter politics.

  16. SK

    I am sure there are bullies in the workforce, but I don’t think it is generally acceptable. There are very clear codes of conduct these days.

  17. I live in the seat of Epping and I’ll vote for the Labor candidate – a young lady who’s a researcher at Macquarie University.
    She won’t have any chance in a blue ribbon Liberal electorate, but Amy Smith is the sort of person Labor needs in its ranks over the next few years or so.

  18. Hi all

    Big day at work. Too hot.

    Got an email today from a close US friend. I emailed them this statement by Julia the other day:

    Let me explain in detail our mechanism for pricing carbon. The first proposition is an incredibly simple one. At the moment carbon pollution can be released into the atmosphere for free. There is no disincentive for doing that. We will put a price on carbon, a price on every unit of carbon pollution. It will be paid for by businesses and as a result, because our business community is smart and adaptable and innovative, they will work out ways of pursuing their business and generating less carbon pollution. They will work out ways of making sure they pay less of a price when carbon is priced.

    Then they will enter into contracts, they will make investments on the basis of understanding the rules and understanding that carbon will be priced. And as they go about making those transitions, innovating, making the new investments of the future, we will work with those businesses in transition to a clean economy.

    Having priced carbon and seen that innovation, yes, there will be pricing impacts; that is absolutely right. That is the whole point: to make goods that are generated with more carbon pollution relatively more expensive than goods that are generated with less carbon pollution. But because we are a Labor government this will be done in a fair way. We will assist households as we transition with this new carbon price.

    What that means is that people will walk into a shop with money in their pocket, the government having provided them with assistance. They will see the price signals on the shelves in front of them—things with less pollution, less expensive; things with more pollution, more expensive—and they too will adapt and change. They will choose the lower pollution products, which is exactly what we want them to do. Between the business investment and innovation, between households who have been assisted in a fair way by a Labor government responding to price signals, we will see a transition to a cleaner economy, to a low-pollution economy.

    They work in the international environmental legal/accounting world. The response – was Julia at our last conference in Cleveland? Brilliant!

  19. Gweneth

    It is a concise explanation. Question is how does it get translated into a soundbyte for our attention deficit society?

  20. [how else can we explain that a gentleman like Windsor gets death threats, and those nasty blowhards get away with gutter mouths and gutter politics.]

    Shows a lot about the desire for power, and the nature of people who so want it when they have no altruistic goals to match that desire.

    Explains people like Murdoch as well – nothing is altruistic … anything charitable is generally done as a means of self-aggrandisement.

  23. Mod Lib @ 5804

    [I live in NSW and like the 80%, I will NOT be voting ALP, rest assured! If you want to vote ALP because you think the Coalition would be worse, thats your right. I am guessing you are another blogger here who has always voted ALP- no?

    I think if you would vote for this state government you are basically saying you don’t care what they do or don’t do you will find some excuse to dislike the other side more and still vote for them. Approximately 10% of NSW electors feel the same (50% of 20% primary vote is reported to be solid)

    I posted a list of the 2007 ALP Ministry and their sordid last 4 years but can’t find it now and its not worth wasting time over….no-one here (or in the state) is for changing!]

    These same tired arguments were trotted out by Liberal boosters in 1988 when a long standing Labor State Government in NSW was on the nose with the electorate and were voted decisively out of office to be replaced by … the Greiner Liberal/National Government.

    What was the result? – massive public service staff cuts, ideologically-driven assaults on health, education and public housing, and National Party hacks in charge of exploiting National Parks and green-lighting unbridled development up and down the NSW coast.

    Those of us with memories back to this dark period that ended in the corrupt Greiner forced from office, and even further back to the even more corrupt Askin Liberal Government in the 60’s and 70’s, would choke on their ballot papers, rather than sign our state over to these Coalition charlatans.

    Better the zero of Keneally than the minus of O’Farrell.

  25. Gweneth,

    I reckon it would be worth paying to put a full page ad in all the major dailies with that explanation. This is the missing link for many people because the schock jocks took them straight to GREAT BIG NEW TAX and bypassed the detail.

  26. It doesn’t. I have emailed it to everyone I know with an ounce of sense and the response is heartening. Most people just need the opportunity. And they don’t get to listen to parliament like we odd balls do. 🙂 Circumvent the media. Use technology. You know it makes sense. 😉

  27. SK

    I believe Labor need to get the brightest ad people in the business to come up with a brilliant advertising campaign when all the detail is finalised and legislation is passed (if it gets to that stage). Hard to know how flexible the Greens are going to be and what the Indies will be happy with. It is by no means a done deal.

  30. Post 6042
    What’s different from any other night. Just the usual pejorative descriptions of any one on the other side as to their looks, intelligence etc it’s all very sophisticated repartee. I suspect all the urging and ranting is some kind of attempt at proselytizing I doubt if it is very effective though.
    My particular favourite with PBers though is when the polls go against The Labor Green heroes the group think is always polls dont’t matter this far out blah blah blah or Newspoll’s rigged blah blah. Conversely when the polls go well the group think suddenly discovers that the polls really mean something after all and their heroes have been brilliant , beating up on the evil baddies.
    A final comment about the PBers is that the language on this blog is pretty profane and the comments are overtly personal from too many PBers and a lot of smug self righteousness.

  31. victoria,

    That is the question. Will the greens realise the error of their ways being so pedantic last time? I am sure the indies will be looking for a sensible, workable approach and wont be so pedantic about arbitrary numbers.

  33. [stanny

    Posted Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 12:09 am | Permalink

    Post 6042
    What’s different from any other night. Just the usual pejorative descriptions of any one on the other side as to their looks, intelligence etc it’s all very sophisticated repartee. I suspect all the urging and ranting is some kind of attempt at proselytizing I doubt if it is very effective though.
    My particular favourite with PBers though is when the polls go against The Labor Green heroes the group think is always polls dont’t matter this far out blah blah blah or Newspoll’s rigged blah blah. Conversely when the polls go well the group think suddenly discovers that the polls really mean something after all and their heroes have been brilliant , beating up on the evil baddies.
    A final comment about the PBers is that the language on this blog is pretty profane and the comments are overtly personal from too many PBers and a lot of smug self righteousness.
    ]

    diddums – don’t like it – may I recommend ABC Kids 🙂

  34. [POLLYTICS | 5 minutes ago
    Honestly, some of you people need a f hobby

    POLLYTICS | 6 minutes ago
    In Australia, we get the #PeoplesRevolt in the middle of our biggest ever boom & after 20 consecutive years of growth O_o

    POLLYTICS | 6 minutes ago
    Each of those was driven by the fallout from serious economic dislocation in or following recession.

    POLLYTICS | 6 minutes ago
    The US had 3 big conservative grassroots movements. The 80’s under Reagan, Contract with America in 94 and the Tea Party]

  35. [even more corrupt Askin Liberal Government in the 60?s and 70?s, would choke on their ballot papers, rather than sign our state over to these Coalition charlatans.]

    Alas, people forget “Spiro” Askin and the Lib/Nats of the next generation. If this current generation knew half of it they’d be amazed and appalled.

    No institution is squeaky clean — but there is corrupt, and there is “CORRUPT”

  36. Victoria: I think only 500 people so far have signed up to attend the Radio Liberal/Labor Is Evil Rally.
    It’ll be a monumental fizzer! 😀
    And who’d want to hang out with a bunch of racists, pensioners, Young Liberals & nutjobs? 🙂

  37. evan14

    the shockjock will need to ramp it up during the next few weeks then. They will need to scream louder and scare the crap out of their listeners.

  40. [A final comment about the PBers is that the language on this blog is pretty profane and the comments are overtly personal from too many PBers and a lot of smug self righteousness.]

    William — have you been letting Truthy use assumed names again?

  41. Victoria: 2GB were back on race baiting & villifying Muslims, not a mention of the dreaded Carbon Tax today.
    I guess then we should expect more xenophobia from Morrison and Bernadi next week. 😀

  42. Victoria @6078 I come from a very long line of people who have no respect for authority or the powerful. We believe in community and we know that to win you have circumvent, subvert and, most important, laugh at the powerful while you do what has to be done. I am a student of ancient and medieval history – as well as modern – and in the long game – we are winning. Sometimes we go backwards. But mostly we are edging forward. The assault of the right in the last decade has been ferocious. I don’t deny it. But there are very promising signs globally that the internet is mastering them. This will not end in my lifetime but my children will take up arms – already have. Maybe it never will – what is that excellent catch phrase of the right? The price of liberty is eternal vigilance?

  45. hello Stanny,

    We havent met. But I am intrigued by your comment. I do not comment on polls but your obsession with PB ers comments is intereating. If you disagreewith individuals comments why cant you comment at the time?
    Maybe Im thick but the generalisation is puzzling. No offence intended.

  48. [victoria

    Posted Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 12:14 am | Permalink

    evan14

    the shockjock will need to ramp it up during the next few weeks then. They will need to scream louder and scare the crap out of their listeners.
    ]

    The Rally is on March 23rd – which m eans they have less than 3 weeks to muster the numbers – #OhMike tonight and Tomorrow night will be flogging it for sure.

  50. @ Henry

    And I guess if there were Africans living in the electorate you would use the n word as you use ‘wog’ ‘…the local n like him….’ charming.

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