Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition

Crikey reports the latest Essential Research poll has the Coalition lead at 53-47, up from 52-48 last week – which managing director Peter Lewis indicated Labor was lucky to get to because of rounding. On the primary vote, Labor is down two points to 34 per cent, with the Coalition and the Greens up a point each to 47 per cent and 12 per cent. I should have the full report shortly, but in the meantime Bernard Keane of Crikey summarises the other findings thus:

Voters strongly support Labor’s moves to trim middle-class welfare, according to today’s Essential Report.

Fifty-two per cent of voters back Wayne Swan’s budget night measure to continue the pause in indexation of the thresholds at which family payments are phased out, to 28% who oppose them. Even Liberal voters back them, 47-38%. Voters were strongly of the view that households earning more than $150,000 a year don’t need family payments — 67% of voters agreed with that, and only 27% disagreed.

Only 35% agreed that all taxpayers should be eligible for some form of payment, regardless of income, compared to 57% disagreeing. However, most voters distinguished between family payments and welfare, with 61% agreeing that family payments to middle-income earners were different to welfare payments to low income earners (we’ll discuss Essential’s results on views toward middle class welfare in more detail tomorrow).

There has also been a further rise in support for the Government’s plan to impose a price on carbon. After reaching the nadir of support at the end of March, when support was just 34% and opposition 51%, support grew in April and last week was at 41% support and 44% opposition, with Greens voters now strongly in favour of it after initially being lukewarm.

The poll also revealed a quite remarkable ignorance of one of the government’s key reforms, its scheduled increase in the compulsory superannuation rate to 12%. Around 53% of voters said they had not heard of the proposal and a further 27% saying they had heard little — a damning indictment of Labor’s efforts to sell what began as a key part of its mining tax package, particularly given there was strong support for the proposal across voters of different stripes.

UPDATE: Full report here.

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.

8,354 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition”

Comments Page 164 of 168
1 … 163 164 165 … 168

  1. Another Abbott lie for the record.

    In Parliament today he said “Hollywood has no carbon tax”.

    Er no, California has a Carbon tax in place to commence in 2012 at US $13 per metric ton to rise to $75 in 2020.

    Next.

  2. Jon Blake is famous in legal terms for receiving the highest ever award of $33million damages which almost wiped out the SGIO (South Australian General Insurance Office) but which was reduced to $7million on appeal.

  7. GG @ 8144

    [A tragic story and I hope he is with peace with God.

    A salutory reminder for all that look to tomorrow.]

    I know the fellow who was driving the other car. He didn’t get a scratch, felt terrible for years, and is, I think, soon going to be feeling it all again.

  8. Thefinnigans The Finnigans
    There you are. It is not halal. so dont sell the cattles. it is that simple #4Corners
    16 seconds ago

  10. vic

    [Wilkie and Xenophon will tomorrow call for an immediate ban on live exports to Indonesia. Interesting to see what the big parties do.]

    That’s easy. Announce an investigation and vote against the ban.

  12. CRAZYJANE13 | 2 minutes ago
    [So, who thinks the News Ltd papers are going to call for @ABCTV_Australia and @abcmarkscott ‘s heads tomorrow morning? #cynical #4corners]

  13. sprocket @ 8146

    wilkie said he wants a price on carbon, but wants special treatment for a zinc processing plant in his electorate with 600 employees – nod, wink
    said industry needs to clean up their act, also said this 3 times

    And what was this all about? Is Ulhmann stupid or is Wilkie or both?

    Wilkie mentioned that in Tasmania their electricity is hydro. How much carbon dioxide is emitted by that? Why goodness me, zero! So the zinc refinery will have zero emissions and incur zero carbon tax. This is want we want isn’t it?

  14. Yes, I accept that correction, as I posted that link about Fiona Stanley Hospital I had a recollection that it was a Labor initiative. Not a surprise really.

  17. [Thefinnigans The Finnigans
    There you are. It is not halal. so dont sell the cattles. it is that simple #4Corners
    16 seconds ago]
    Finns
    I saw the 4C reporter being interviewed on ABC24 and I’m sure she said that the cattle were killed in an horrific way that was not in keeping with the required quick single cut of halal.

  18. One of Boerwars pet subjects, ocean acidification workshop last weekenk.

    [The workshop, held last week on Vulcano, is part of the campaign to understand the likely impact of ocean acidification. Dozens of young oceanographers, geologists and ecologists gathered for the meeting run by the Mediterranean Sea Acidification (MedSeA) programme.]

    [That discovery is highly revealing, and worrying, because Vulcano’s afflictions are being repeated today on a global scale, in every ocean on the planet – not from volcanic sources but from the industrial plants, power stations, cars and planes that are pumping out growing amounts of carbon dioxide and which are making our seas increasingly acidic. Millions of marine species are now threatened with extinction; fisheries face eradication; while reefs that protect coastal areas are starting to erode.

    Ocean acidification is now one of the most worrying threats to the planet, say marine biologists. “Just as Vulcano is pumping carbon dioxide into the waters around it, humanity is pouring more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” Dr Jason Hall-Spencer, a marine biologist at Plymouth University, told a conference on the island last week.

    “Some of the billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide we emit each year lingers in the atmosphere and causes it to heat up, driving global warming. But about 30% of that gas is absorbed by the oceans where it turns to carbonic acid. It is beginning to kill off coral reefs and shellfish beds and threaten stocks of fish. Very little can live in water that gets too acidic.”]

    http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=132419

  21. “So, who thinks the News Ltd papers are going to call for @ABCTV_Australia and @abcmarkscott ‘s heads tomorrow morning? #cynical #4corners”

    They shouldn’t. They could not be any more compliant than they already are.

  22. Pegasus @8155, even the Greens feel the oppressive weight of shall we say.. “peer group pressure”.. when it comes to its animal rights polices.

    After all they’re prepared to say what everyone knows and that is, eventually we won’t be able to burn coal.

    What they don’t have the guts to do just yet is acknowledge that meat from dead animals is a luxury this planet can’t afford. Of course that is one of those things that “can’t be said” because its one of those things people dare not speak or think about.

  23. [BK, the Halal way reported was that the cattle must be still alive before it is killed.]

    Finns
    Can it be dead before it is killed?

  24. Finns

    There might be a few fundamentalist Muslims in Indonesia who object very strongly to finding out the beef they have been eating is not halal.

  25. [I think the productivity commission’s report will be very important. If it finds that enough of the world has moved/or is moving on climate change, then that will determine Windsor’s support and will completely undercut the point that AUS is out in front.]

    Absolutely. From the comments i have heard attributed to Windsor so far its going to be THE critical document in getting his support.

  34. There’s been some discussion over several days recently about the range of debate on PB. If my tracking of the debate is correct, it was prompted by what amounted to a sigh from William that he wished there were more dissenting voices to the prevailing political orthodoxy. He didn’t seem to me to be making any demands, and his discipline of the site seems very gentle. I guess my inference is that William’s interest was in establishing the PB Board in the first place was in having lively but civil debate with voices from across the spectrum.

    It does seem to this old lefty a bit like an online branch of the benighted Party (of which, for my crimes and sins, I’m a life member).

    That’s not a criticism. I dip in and dip out, and especially come on board when the political struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness is at its most intense. And, as one does on any site, I respect the knowledge of some posters, the wit of others, and the commitment that enables some to stick with radio or television programs which they don’t like in order to keep everyone on the board informed.

    So to a certain extent I share William’s lament, PB could provide a medium for an exchange of ideas across the political divide(s?). It doesn’t and probably won’t, but it does serve a useful function as it stands. I think William is a remarkably tolerant host, and I recall others who have tired of offering a (virtual) room to people who test the limits of hospitality.

    I participate in a number of boards with an entirely different focus – usually sport. Many of these allow civil political discussion. As a general rule I don’t initiate political debates, but I try to get my oar in, if some-one starts spruiking false or misleading stuff. I think it’s a way to be politically effective.

    Those sorts of discussions do demonstrate the reach of the MSM memes. I spend a fair bit of time correcting misapprehensions about the Insulation program, for example.

    I don’t encourage people to join say their football club’s supporters’ discussion boards on political issues, without establishing themselves as a commenter on the football (or whatever the board’s general subject matter happens to be). I consider that a version of astroturfing, and highly unethical. There’s also the occasional reservation about joining those conversations on the basis that “I would hesitate to engage in intellectual combat with an unarmed opponent” in some instances. However, it can be an effective way of engaging in political discussion, that replicates, what in an earlier less atomised society was the way people interacted in pubs and clubs and workplaces.

  37. My say & Arunta it must be costing Rupes a bomb to give away a “bomb of a paper” I have not called it a newspaper that would be an insult to the good ones wherever they are.

  38. If Rupe carks it and the ‘new” management” decides to close the Oz, who will every media conspiracist have to blame?

  41. Peter @8183, that’s a tough one..

    The core problem is, can you have a conservative opinion that is ultimately based on fact and supported by evidence?

  43. Finns,
    Several pages ago you jested about agreeing with William (still on the issue of the diversity of views on the board).
    I find that on controversial issues, when I’m alone, I can usually find agreement – on a bad day I can even lose the argument then.
    If two people are present, we’re evenly divided, and with three or more, I’ll be in a minority of one.

  44. [If Rupe carks it and the ‘new” management” decides to close the Oz, who will every media conspiracist have to blame?]

    Every other News ltd outlet, plus the ABC.

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 164 of 168
1 … 163 164 165 … 168