Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition

This week’s Essential Research poll has the Coalition’s two-party lead narrowing slightly from 54-46 to 53-47, although the primary votes are little changed: the Coalition is down one to 46 per cent, while Labor and the Greens are steady on 34 per cent and 12 per cent. As Bernard Keane reports, voters were also asked who was to blame for rising cost of living, which produced results dramatically polarised by voting intention, with Liberal supporters blaming the government. There are also questions on which party is most trusted to handle various issues, which finds Labor going further backwards on economic management but the results otherwise showing little change since January. Thirty-nine per cent of respondents say the minority government arrangement has been bad for the country against 28 per cent good, with Liberal supporters predictably being most negative. I should have the full report up within the hour.

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.

5,142 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition”

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  1. How on earth can the coalition be rated better economic managers after the debacles which have been the hole in their budget, the stuff up over finding savings to avoid a flood levy, their appalling budget replies (incl Hockey’s woeful performance at the NPC), and the holes in the costings over their climate policy?

  3. [How on earth can the coalition be rated better economic managers after the debacles which have been the hole in their budget, the stuff up over finding savings to avoid a flood levy, their appalling budget replies (incl Hockey’s woeful performance at the NPC), and the holes in the costings over their climate policy?]
    Lack of evenhanded scrutiny.

  5. So we have the opposition ramping up the hysteria, and their numbers simultaneously going south.

    I wonder which one is ’cause’ and which one is ‘effect’?

  6. Confessions,

    I wouldn’t let the coalition look after a chook raffle. The coalition party’s coffers are very light on (don’t know why this has not been made a bigger issue in the press) which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

    Besides the only way they know is to strip cash off the peeps and sit on it or give it to high-end business friends.

  7. [How on earth can the coalition be rated better economic managers after the debacles which have been the hole in their budget, the stuff up over finding savings to avoid a flood levy, their appalling budget replies (incl Hockey’s woeful performance at the NPC), and the holes in the costings over their climate policy?]

    Because the right wing philosophy hinges on the belief that good economic management is about being frugal. Despite not being true of the modern Liberal party, the RW philosophy of “Cutting taxes + stop spending + ending national debt = productive economy” makes sense on a superficial level.

  9. [45% of men think he is performing the role of Opposition leader well compared to 38% of women and 51% of those aged 55+ think he is just opposing everything compared to 40% of those aged under 35.]

    Interesting. I would’ve thought it would be the other way around for the age groups.

  11. SK:

    I wouldn’t trust them either, but people who aren’t paying attention to politics aren’t seeing the stuff ups and inconsistencies. People also rate the Liberals as better to handle interest rates by a substantial margin. This doesn’t make sense either as interest rates were higher the last time they were in govt compared to what they are now.

  13. 1996 to 2007. THIS is why the Libs are always perceived to be the best Economic Managers (even though favourable domestic and international economic conditions gave them a dream ride).

    Having studied Economics, I’m always shocked that the Liberals can portray this whole Surplus at all costs approach without ever being called on it. They can also take credit for 11 years of Sunshine while PJK is still regarded among those who aren’t political tragics as the worst PM ever.

    As Pebbles said, Liberal policy sounds like common sense on a superficial level (“households tighten their belts so we’ll tighten ours”) when in reality that very basic approach to economics would be devastating to an economy facing a downturn.

  14. Dr Good
    [It is not clear to me that the Minister of Immigration becomes the official guardian of a child just because she or he turns up on a boat near Australian waters without obvious accompanying parents. This raises all sorts of questions.]
    Fact
    [Unaccompanied minors are covered by the Immigration Guardianship of Children Act 1946 (IGOC Act). The IGOC Act ensures that minors who arrive in Australian territory unaccompanied, and with the intention of settling in Australia permanently, have the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship as their legal guardian.

    Unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Australia and certain children who were adopted overseas or enter Australia for adoption purposes come within the operation of the IGOC Act.]
    http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/69unaccompanied.htm

  15. [Bob will get it done this time, I reckon. The smart elements of the Greens know that even the unfair perception that they have shot this down twice would be very dangerous for their future and would confirm that view in many people’s minds that they will never be anything more than a fringe party.]

    Spot on. I have voted green in the senate on a few occasions, but if they cock this up I will never consider doing so again.

    That said I am very confident they won’t cock it up.

  16. Well, with a complicit media allowing Rabbott to repetitively chant negative slogans without being challenged you get brainwashing on a mass scale.

  19. [How on earth can the coalition be rated better economic managers after the debacles which have been the hole in their budget, the stuff up over finding savings to avoid a flood levy, their appalling budget replies (incl Hockey’s woeful performance at the NPC), and the holes in the costings over their climate policy?]

    Year upon year of sloganeering and spinning by the Liberals and their media choir have washed the mind of the electorate. Erased apparently is all memory of the Liberals’ performance when it really matters – during time of economic adversity.

    The Liberal Trifecta of Misery (under Treasurer Howard, in early 1980s):

    double-digit unemployment
    double-digit interest rates
    and double-digit inflation

    …. all at the same time!

    Debt and deficit climbing steadily year after year … and Australia’s worst recession since the Great Depression!

    http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20070627-Why-John-Howard-never-made-the-cover-of-Euromoney.html

    The Liberals – economic dunces and spin champions.

  20. [Well, with a complicit media allowing Rabbott to repetitively chant negative slogans without being challenged you get brainwashing on a mass scale.]

    Don’t forget to mention a healthy dose of suspicion out there in the marginals of anyone that:
    – Lives in the inner city
    – Is tertiary educated
    – Enjoys drinking coffee other than Instant
    – Doesn’t suffer “cost of living pressures”

    You can thank the MSM for that meme too. I reckon it’s hilarious. “How dare all these highly educated people have an opinion”

  21. Pegasus
    How do unaccompanied minors who come from the poorest families get to Indonesia crossing many borders,then board boats where, by all accounts it cost thousands of dollars?
    Just asking! 🙂

  23. Dee
    [Are we looking at something else here, such as child trafficking?]

    This comprehensive report (223p.) may be of interest to you:

    Seeking asylum alone: unaccompanied and separated children and refugee protection in Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. / Jacqueline Bhabha and Mary Crock in collaboration with Nadine Finch and Susan Schmidt, 2009.

    The report compares and contrasts policy and practice in the three countries, highlighting points of divergence and examples of good practice as they emerge from the research. It describes the nature and scale of the migration of unaccompanied and separated children, and the reasons why children flee from their homes and travel alone, enduring the trauma of separation from family and the hardships of the journey to seek out a place of safety.

    (Have to go…)

  24. [You can thank the MSM for that meme too. I reckon it’s hilarious. “How dare all these highly educated people have an opinion”]
    Another term is ‘elitist’.
    Makes the mind boggle as ‘elitist’ used to be a term reserved for those who voted Liberal.
    Now it seems if you are a lefty, you are a latte sipping, highly educated elitist. 😆

  28. Otiose
    I cannot bring myself to watch it. Could you let us know how it goes – particularly with respect to the tenor of the questions and how long Tone sticks it out.

  30. Interesting!
    [mumbletwits Peter Brent
    Asylum seekers in Malaysia are generally free to mix with general community, unlike here. #justsayin
    2 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply]

  31. Thanks Pegasus

    I was looking for an International Agreement which says something along those lines.

    I guess that the government may:
    1) change this law to some extent so that it no longer encourages child trafficking;
    2) make sure that children brought in by people smugglers are looked after
    well during the UN approved processing at a regional centre; and/or
    3) note that the determination of identity, whether they are unaccompanied
    and whether they seek to settle in Australia may have to be undertaken
    at a processing centre.

    It is also interesting that again commentators are forgetting about the unaccompanied refugee children who can not afford to support people smugglers and are
    struggling to survive in and out of refugee facilities for many years in Malaysia.
    Surely Australia needs to be targeting assistance to these children
    in preference to the ones that are paying large sums of money to come
    through quickly and supporting a dangerous criminal activity on the way.
    My understanding is that staying for a while in Malaysia while waiting
    for refugee resettlement can be much more
    comfortable if you have the kind of money that is needed for
    paying off a people smuggler.

  32. [SpaceKidette Space Kidette
    @TonyAbbottMHR does so many backflips do you really know what his policies would be under a LNP led govt? #noidea #emptypolicycupboard
    ]

  33. From previous thread!

    [All children and unaccompanied females should be returned to their PARENTS.
    why the government does not make this statement defies logic?]

    1934pc. 1. Because there have been, at least for the last 100+ years – and still are – situations in which returning all children and unaccompanied females to their PARENTS is in the same category as sending trainloads of Jewish children back to their parents just as WW II erupted. Almost all of them died in Concentration Camps! In the last year, I’ve seen a documentary on the reunion of a handful of survivors of a trainload turned back from the UK on the very eve of the WW II

    2. Probably because Australians always have accepted unaccompanied children! Even in the early post 1787 fleets to New South Wales there were children. After Germany’s Kristallnacht (9-10 Nov 1938) unaccompanied Jewish children were sent (by the train load as war loomed closer) to seaports for transport to UK, Canada, USA … even Australia. People in war zones, or during “ethnic cleansing” of whatever type, care primarily about saving their children’s lives; trusting that strangers will take them under their wings.

    ** Neville Shute’s “Pied Piper”, based on fact, describes unaccompanied children fleeing ahead of the 1940 German invasions of the Low Countries and France. It’s many decades since I read it; but because it tallied with my memories, it’s still vivid.

    3. WW II left many thousand of orphans with no known adult relatives (especially Jewish, and from Eastern Europe whence children had fled with the huge numbers heading West ahead of the Soviet army). Some (possibly many, but I can only swear to two) came to Australia. One of my class mates during Grades 4-6 (Ziggi) was the elder of two orphan Lithuanian brothers (spoke very little English) who were unaccompanied migrants. In Australia – and, I guess elsewhere – Red Cross, churches and ethnic communities looked after them and tried to find homes for them.

    4. There were certainly unaccompanied children (some quite young) on the boats after the US & its allies pulled out of SE Asia, and, from memory, among Latin American refugees. During the Yugoslav Wars c1991-5 children fled – there was at least one gut-wrenching episode of Spooks on that theme. I’d be surprised if there weren’t also some among African refugees.

    5. What would you do 1934pc, if you found yourself in a situation like WW II, or Croatia under Ratko Mladic’s leadership? Surely you saw last week’s TV coverage of his deportation to The Hague where he’ll be tried for War Crimes. Given his troops worked on the principle: Murder the men; rape the women, would you apply the principle All children and unaccompanied females should be returned to their PARENTS. so they’d be murdered or raped on their return? Would you have sent the Kurds back to Suddam’s Iraq, so he could test his chemical weapons one them?

  36. I love it when claims of “elitism” are levelled at left-leaning but poor members of the community by millionaires like Alan Jones and John Laws.

    One wonders what their listeners would make of an expose of their houses, cars and wine collections, especially when stacked up against the lifestyle of an “elite” like me. 😉

  37. a dodgy poll (news?) of 500 who were NOT all against the GOVT gets more coverage than aust-wide demo of approx 100 times as many VOLUNTARY rally attendees? what a WONDERFUL service we get from the msm 🙁

  44. Ozpol Tradgic

    [5. What would you do 1934pc, if you found yourself in a situation like WW II]

    Are we now into Hypotheticals.

    How did the children get on the boats, who paid for them, did the smugglers let them on for FREE. geez, some people!.

  46. Have you got any analysis on the accuracy of polls as actual predictors of eventual voter behaviour? Let alone on-line polls?
    To be honest I’m pretty fed up with the “tweeterisation” of politics and the poisonous influence constant polling and the distorted “feedback” it provides is having on timid politicians. Labor’s pathetic mishandling of asylum seekers is purely poll and focus group driven. I think it is unfortunate that Crikey feels obliged to compete in this murky marketplace.
    That said, it might be more interesting to keep the same 1000 respondents for a few years and track attitude/intention changes over time. But only ever so slightly.

  48. govt backbenchers telling him ‘they are unhappy re boatppl – refuses to name names – nauru is ‘more humane’ – ‘pick up phone to nauru’

  50. How can he state categorically that no-one was ever caned on Nauru? Was he there the entire time?

    Oh, and there wasn’t cruel and unusual punishment related to Nauru then why did so many asylum seekers kill themselves?

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