Essential Research: 55-45 to Coalition

Bernard Keane at Crikey reports Essential Research has the Coalition’s lead unchanged on last week at 55-45, from primary votes of 34% for Labor (unchanged), 47% for the Coalition (down one to a six-month low) and 9% for the Greens (down one). The monthly personal ratings have Julia Gillard up four on approval to 35% and down three on disapproval to 54%, while Tony Abbott records his worst net rating yet with approval down four to 32% and disapproval up four to 55%. Gillard now leads 40-37 as preferred prime minister after trailing 38-36 last time. There are also the following findings on the present government’s reforms:

The introduction of a carbon price is the only major Labor reform with net voter opposition, Essential found. Only 28% of voters thought the introduction of a carbon price was good for Australia, with 51% rating it bad — indeed, 35% of voters rated it “very bad”. Otherwise, support for Labor reforms seems to split into three: highly contested reforms that have majority support, such as the mining tax (supported 49-25%); the NBN (43-28%) and the abolition of WorkChoices (42-27%); mid-tier reforms with widespread approval — paid parental leave (52-20%); stimulus spending during the GFC (54-22% – the BER program is supported 53-20%); accepting the recommendations of the Houston panel on asylum seekers (45-15%) and paid parental leave 52-20%.

Then there are the reforms with very high support: lifting the age pension (70-11%); increasing super to 12% (68-9%); lifting the tax-free threshold to $18,200 (75-4%); the NDIS (58-5%); marine reserves (controversial in some areas but with 67-8% support); dental care (77-5%) and the Gonski education reforms (54-8%).

Also canvassed are Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan and the role of unions in the wake of the HSU scandals and the CFMEU/Grocon dispute in Melbourne – matters which were also covered in a Morgan phone poll of 410 voters conducted Wednesday, results of which can be seen here and 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.

4,836 comments on “Essential Research: 55-45 to Coalition”

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  2. I mean where’s Swan just standing up saying “It takes a lot of gall to raise a question of fiscal accountability when you’ve got a $100 billion plus hole in your own costsings”.

    That’s it, isn’t it? I mean, get punchy ffs.

  3. Still beats. Me. How. Peeople in that ess. Poll could.rate
    The carbon price bad, most of us feel no different
    Does any ony here feel
    Different, of course what we will see is a difference in time
    In our atmosphere

  4. I think Turnbull is circling and while he circles I live in hope.

    Absolutely, anybody who cannot see what is going on is either a :monkey:, or living under a rock 😀

  5. Just catching up –

    Some people need to understand that not everyone says everything to everyone else on Twitter. If it’s something personal, like, say, conveying your sadness at the death of someone’s father, then you’d say it face to face, or by phone. I would, it would not occur to me to tweet.

    On Saturday Malcolm Turnbull copped a fair bit of abuse on Twitter because he had not tweeted a condolence message to the PM although he had tweeted other stuff. Eventually he had to say he had sent a private message to the PM. He should not have had to explain himself and nor should Kevin Rudd. I’m sure the Rudds have expressed their sorrow to the PM in a more personal way and warm way than by simply dashing off a 140 character tweet.

  7. Fran actually I didn’t run it but just pointed out that the issue appears to be the main remaining issue causing problems for the government. It’s the main issue that is causing the PM to remain at low levels of trust and it may end up being the issue that gives us Abbott PM. Whether it was a lie, a broken promise or a misunderstanding is less important than the political fallout resulting from the policy decision.

  8. Burgey

    I think Swanny just got there on the black hole. I tend to agree that he’s not the best defender of policy. Goes off the point a bit.

  10. Leone
    Well. Said
    Personaly it leaves me cold
    I have heard some are announcing, births and engagments

    Weddings

    I agree mr turnbull. Shows. Good manners

  12. [Leigh Sales ‏@leighsales
    Tonight’s interview is American cyclist Tyler Hamilton on doping and cheating with Lance Armstrong & why he’s blowing the whistle #abc730]

  15. leone I am old fashioned I guess but I consider a tweeted message of consolation to be in poor taste. It is one of those things that should be done personally.

  16. Parliamentary Budget Office is a problem for the Noaltion. They may not realise it until the Green use it at election time to cost their policies.

  17. davidwh:

    [I didn’t run it but just pointed out that the issue appears to be the main remaining issue causing problems for the government. ]

    Then you should either have used a neutral term {carbon price angst} or put distance between yourself and the one you used — {“the issue of ‘the lie’ “}

  18. [Swan now on to the opposition constantly talking the economy down.

    Why do they do this? Recklessness in the extreme.]

    Rudd and Swan did that for the first 10 months of their new government until the GFC hit them between the eyes. Why? Politics of course as they felt the need to try and destroy the Howard/Costello economic record.

  19. guytaur
    I don’t count you as a Greens, as per your advice. Therefore any statements I make about the Greens are not directed at you.

  21. I think it is wrong to assume that Twitter is the only method of communication available and that for anything to have validity it must be tweeted. Just because it doesn’t appear on Twitter doesn’t mean it is not in existence, and just because something is on Twitter doesn’t mean it is real.

  23. Fran I accept your admonishment however personally I do believe the PM delivered something materially different to that which she committed to during the election campaign and therefore fully understand the political capital it has caused her. It is that issue which remains her greatest challenge and “may” cause her to lose the next election.

    In reality the PM herself encouraged the “lie” claim by telling reporters they can call it a tax. The rest is history more of less.

  24. davidwh, my say
    A tweet seems a very cold and impersonal way of communicating with someone who has lost a loved one. (Or for announcing happy family events too.) I have to say, in a time of family crisis the last thing I’d be doing would be using Twitter.

  26. @TheKouk: The official cash rate is currently 3.5%. The last time a Coalition was in govt with the cash rate this low was 1965 #factcheck #auspol

    The whinging member for Stirt. That will make the news. 😆

  27. The MSM generally managed to miss the plunge in Arctic Sea Ice volume during the satellite record detected by CryoSat. It seems to have been immune to a dramatic, rather than a marginal plunge in Arctic summer minimum sea ice extent to a new record low over the satellite era. It has only marginally been interested in the US drought, wildfires and the thousands of temperature records that were broken.

    Why would it notice an el Nino?

  28. bg

    That said, the Greens are already playing silly buggers with their costings. For some reason they have persuaded themselves that programs with a cost less than $100 million don’t need to be costed.

    Could it be that the dozens of $99 million programs don’t count? Or could it be that the Greens would rather they not be counted?

  30. Using Twitter to put out a condolences is to publicly show people you did it, as an act of solidarity so to speak, not that you expect the bereaved to read it. It would not be something you would expect of people who have more direct access to the family for expressing condolences. Also Twitter is a for-profit entity, so let us not create unreal expectations for its use.

  31. In holland they still send notification of all EVENTS
    i know because we receive them
    I treasure the many hundred, small cards with pictures
    I found in my mother in laws personal effects
    They also provide wonderful family history

  33. PTMD

    Cf littering in the Philippines:

    (1) the streets appear to me to be kept clean in the face of considerable challenges
    (2) this does not apply to squatter slums where maintaining life means, inter alia, not being over-concerned about littering.
    (3) with the floods a lot of stuff from the squatter places [squatters account for around a quarter of the population of Manila (?)] was simply swept into Manila Bay.
    (4) huge swathes Water Hyacinth are carried down the Pasig River every day.

    When we left the Sun Cruises Harbour to go to Corregidor, we entered a sort of weird plastics cum water Hyacinth Sargasso Sea.

  35. davidwh:

    [I do believe the PM delivered something materially different to that which she committed to during the election campaign and therefore fully understand the political capital it has caused her. ]

    I agree that she has allowed others to take that view, but in practice she’d have had to expressly disavow carbon pricing (i.e. rescind ALP policy) to be guilty of changing what she’d committed to prior to the election. In fact on August 20 2010 she even went so far as to say that she didn’t rule out legislating a price in the coming parliament and saw would see victory as a mandate for doing so.

    [In reality the PM herself encouraged the “lie” claim by telling reporters they can call it a tax. The rest is history more or less.]

    Well yes, much to my chagrin, as I noted above, again. I could not believe what I was hearing.

    BW:

    [The MSM generally managed to miss the plunge in Arctic Sea Ice volume during the satellite record detected by CryoSat. {…} It has only marginally been interested in the US drought, wildfires and the thousands of temperature records that were broken. Why would it notice an el Nino?]

    1. Disappearing sea-ice extent doesn’t provide the dramatic pictures that are foffered by wildfires and drought.
    2. Something brutalising the US scores high on the Galtung & Ruge (G&R) news values scale (elite nation, harmed (in this case an Australian trading partners and rival in our ag markets), negative), whereas something happening to the Arctic is only a process — no countries or people are involved and nobody is the correspondent to bring us the pictures
    3. The Arctic is a long way from us.

    If a drought is threatened here, a new heat wave a new round of bushfires, then all the G&R boxes start getting ticked. (affects elite nation, elite people, negative, actions of individuals are key, an event rather than a process)

  37. I know that’s not adding much to political discussion – he just makes me angry and there’s no one here for me to complain to. Sorry.

  38. Re Turnbull and sympathy
    __________
    I agree with Leone and Bemused that sending sympathy by Twitter or Facebook is a cold and impersonal way of saying something
    The whole matter is impersonal an too public

    I find much of it is a kind of exhibitionism ,,,esp for “celeberities”
    Who gives a stuff about”Warnie “”and his love life…and Evil Rupert uses it …and in a funny way reveals just how poisonously right wing he is(did we doubt it ?)

    Hia great liking for Ryan the far-right catholic fundie whom he sees a a perfect VP candidate in the USA is sickening…but revealing too
    So good on Malcolm for sending a personal note to Gillard
    I think he has more style than many other colleages
    How funny in a way …he would be a runaway success as LOTO with none of Abbott’s faults and foibles

  41. Only < 1/2 of the people sent to Nauru under the Pacific Solution ended up in Australia?

    Scott Morrison just said that but I don't believe that it is true. Anyone know the facts?

  44. Another factor that could help the ALP would be a solid showing by Obama in the November Presidential elections and the associated congressional elections.

    The Libs here have basically done a version of the Tea Party in the US — except that there the Tea Party has fractured the Repugs. If Obama wins well, refuting the negative campaigning, then their co-thinkers here will start to get a little nervous.

    If he then proceeds to press forward on stimulus spending then the medium term outlook for Australia starts to look positive. If he presses forward on climate change action then the arguments against carbon emissions policy here are further undermined, and Abbott looks more isolated.

  46. Maybe the gov’t should do what Morrison wants. When the boats don’t stop, as they will not until we get a regional project that includes return to Malaysia and other countries in the region, that might shut them up.

  47. c@tmomma:

    [Scott Morrison just said that but I don’t believe that it is true. Anyone know the facts?]

    As I understand it, if you count those who eventually came to Australia via NZ, about 80%+ made it here. Will verify the precise number.

  48. What’s this $120 billion black hole crap that the Coalition was harping on about? And has Labor refuted it?

    I know Swan said it was wrong, but does it have substance? Or is it a figure that the Labor hating gits in the Financial Review pulled out of their arses as a number for angry LNP’ers to snarl about?

  49. The continuing focus on Medicare illustrates how the Obama campaign would rather play offense on an issue that has long been more favorable to Democrats, than play defense on the economy and jobs.

    Quote from Slate magazine

  50. PTMD@146,

    Maybe the gov’t should do what Morrison wants. When the boats don’t stop, as they will not until we get a regional project that includes return to Malaysia and other countries in the region, that might shut them up.

    Sadly, I don’t think even that would satisfy them. We’d just get the Opposition shifting the goalposts again, like they have wrt Sri Lanka.

    Or by saying that only the Howard government, and by inference them, could do it properly.

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