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. What is this about?

    [Latika Bourke @latikambourke 11s
    Wow. That footage of the News Ltd photographer pushing Abbott’s staffer is a bit off.]

  8. This spectacular cartoon got me thinking:

    Wouldn’t it be funny if there were some physical evidence of a two indentations on a wall, approximately head width apart. I am guessing that the SRC offices at that time would have been in Wentworth (which is unfortunate, as it is newish). Perhaps some old picture of the offices (Sydney Uni was not so pernickety on running repairs; when I was there, Wallace had graffiti which seemed antediliuvian)?? I am guessing the rooms, by now, would have long been since rebuilt

  13. SK

    They did it all the time! In our area we had Bob Heffron as State MP I am not sure but would bet he was Catholic.Pat Hills who was close the DLP and whose children who attended the same school and Church as my sister and I.

    They were interesting times and there are lots of memories about the things that happened, We were told we had to attend Mass until we left school but could do what we like there after.

    The funny thing is that I was appointed as School Captain – there was no such thing as a vote taken – by the very same Nuns who couldn’t understand my grandfather’s position on the DLP.

    For the record Senator Susan Ryan now Aged Commissioner was “appointed” School Captain of our school two or three years before me.

  14. [chris murphy @chrismurphys 56s
    Spoke to MsRamjan next day,told her I’d twtd about Abbott punching the wall. It was no problem.Repeated it was terrifying. #auspol]

  15. It’s not really that Abbott lied, although it’s pretty clear he did.

    It’s that he hasn’t grown out of thinking that threatening and intimidating people is a viable way of going about his, and now possibly the nation’s business.

    Connect the dots from his youth and his attitudes today and you have a very dangerous situation for Abbott: a man incapable of change.

    If 35 years as a journalist, cabinet minister and opposition leader couldn’t do it, how is making him Prime Minister in 12 months time going to change him?

    The Jesuit maxim is:

    “Give me a child for for his first seven years and I’ll give you the man”

    We have seen the “childish” Abbott (his word), and now we are seeing the man.

    He has the look about him of someone who has been haunted by these kinds of accusations all his life. He seems to be in deep anger management at interviews and press conferences.

    His fans know what he’s like. It was common after theRiley “shit Happens” interviewe to hear them saying “He should have decked him.”

    Abbott has made a big thing out of being a boxer. Now his tendency to be ready to throw a punch is coming back to bite him. It’s impossible to put a carefully crafted he-man image back in the bottle so easily, after all the work that’s been done establishing it.

    In a sense all these things about Abbott’s shiftiness and tendency to intimidate have been known before, even celebrated (Grattan is still celebrating them today). That they have come out into full public discussion now indicates that the discussion about the possible Abbott Prime Ministership is starting to mature. Late, yes, but it’s getting there.

    Remember that almost every single article on federal politics that it’s possible to read is underpinned by Abbott’s lead in the polls. They always come back to the inevitability of an Abbott win. It is mentioned specifically somewhere in every column you can get you hands on.

    Once this inevitability is gone, so goes the foundation of much of what passes today as “political analysis”. You can’t keep basing your entire theory of modern Australian politics on the forgone conclusion of a Gillard loss when the polls even up a little more. That vacuum will need to be filled with something.

    That’s why Gillard’s slow, exhausting, grinding progress in the polls is so dangerous for Abbott. It sows doubt in the meme of Abbott invincibility as evidenced by the polls. It gets a few journalists curious enough to explore the alternative Prime Minister and his policies (if any) in greater depth. Glib assurances that “It’ll be alright on the night” when Abbott is Prime Minister won’t cut it once the opinion poll spell is broken.

    At first a few will peel away from the pack, staking out a position of their own that’s opposed to the group think, simply to be contrary, a “unique selling point”. They won’t be the gurus, the “top writers”. They be juniors, sick and tired of having to defer to the plodding Cooreys and Grattans, the pompous patrician Hartchers and the lap dogs like Shanahan and Sheridan from the Murdoch sheltered workshop.

    Once these more junior writers in the MSM start producing alternative copy, more will become curious. The senior writers will probably be the last to abandon the group think, though. This is because they created it. Something that’s your idea and upon which you have staked your professional reputation as a leader of the pack is hard to give up. But give it up they will have to do, or else risk becoming even more irrelevant than they already are with their Ruddstoration, and “Gillard’s gorn” staples.

    There will be more witnesses and more stories. Some of the people that have been so relentlessly slagged and defamed off will fight back. They’re not going to see their hard won reputations traduced by raving loonies like Sheridan (David Marr, please step up: this means YOU).

    Sheridan is guilty of the same thing as Abbott: he thinks he is bullet-proof. He believes that he can bluster and filibuster during interviews because he’s untouchable. Jennifer Byrne told him, quite directly, to shut up yesterday on ABC radio. “It’s my turn, Greg” she said.

    The whole right wing strategy has been based on untouchability, on terrible revenge being exacted upon whomever questions the meme.

    In an already fraught and fracturing media environment, there might be a few younger, less senior journos, snowballing to an avalanche, hopefully – who’ve had enough of seeing their friends and colleagues sacked or shifted out the door, while the hackneyed time servers and group thinkers stay – who will, indeed must (if they are make their own marks) decide to say “No” to the conventional wisdom and who decide to seriously explore the contrary position.

  16. I was at Sydney uni in the 80s, and St Johns college was bad news then. Helped along by the Sancta Sophia girls, it has to be said. A nasty little gang.

    Doesn’t sound like much has improved.

  17. I wish the anonymous source who saw Abbott throwing punches would come out and identifiy themselves and make a stat. dec. of the incident. It is in the national interest that Abbott be brought down over this.

  19. MySay 3956

    [Now if. You. Have to row your boat
    I will happily come to the wharf and say. Welcolme]

    So I wouldn’t have to go via Nauru or Manus Island??? 😉

    Must admit Tassie is very tempting at times – has so much to offer

  20. Bushfire:

    In many ways the Liberals under Abbott lived by the Tea Party tactics sword, and so can die by the Tea Party tactics sword.

  21. This thing about Abbott’s past is instructive for the way the apologists who, a few short weeks ago were lining up to have a crack at the PM about Slater & Gordon, are now saying there’s nothing to see in it.

    It will really begin to take on some momentum if someone like Laurie Oakes were to take up the cudgels. He’s still the Sphere of Influence.

  22. [The Sydney barrister who corroborated a woman’s claims that Tony Abbott behaved in an intimidatory way towards her in 1977 has rejected claims by the Opposition leader that he was put up to it by a Labor dirt unit.

    And the woman involved, Barbara Ramjan, has also recjected the claims, saying the incident ”absolutely occurred” and she has never belonged to a political party.]
    http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/abbott-accusers-refute-claims-of-labor-links-20120914-25w6o.html

  23. From: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/21852/20051208-0000/www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/17/1089694611874916f.html

    An investigation by The Sun-Herald into Mr Abbott’s controversial student days reveals that he spawned many more enemies than friends during those heady days.

    “He was a very offensive, a particularly obnoxious sort of guy,” said Barbie Schaffer, a Sydney teacher who was at Sydney University with Mr Abbott.

    “He was very aggressive, particularly towards women and homosexuals”.

    Published university reports show that after a narrow defeat in the university senate elections in 1976 – Mr Abbott’s first year of an economics-law degree – he kicked in a glass panel door.

    In the ensuing two years, he was repeatedly accused in the university paper of being a right-wing thug and bully who used sexist and racist tactics to intimidate his opponents.

    Lawyer David Patch, who is a Labor candidate in the federal seat of Wentworth, recalls an AUS conference in the mid-1970s, which had initiated a special “women’s room” for females to discuss political issues.

    “Tony used to stand outside the women’s room with his right-wing mates and loudly tell sexist and homophobic jokes,” he said.

    Another ex-student, Peter Murphy, who described Mr Abbott as a “warrior on the Right” believes he was the one most responsible for creating the atmosphere of terror that reigned on campus in 1977.

    In August 1977 students on every NSW campus were preparing to vote in a referendum on the future of the AUS. That’s when Ms Wilson’s and Mr Abbott’s paths crossed. Both were addressing a rally of students, held in the Ku-ring-gai campus dining room.

    The incident that prompted Ms Wilson’s accusation occurred while she spoke.

    When it came to court the following January, Mr Abbott was flanked by his parents, a legal team including a QC, and seven witnesses.

    Advocates for Ms Wilson are to this day flabbergasted at the firepower Mr Abbott wheeled in, which left their under-represented side wilting.

    The incident didn’t seem to break Mr Abbott’s stride, although his second tilt at election to the Student Representative Council (SRC) – which was happening at the same heady time – ended in tears.

    Barbara Ramjan, now a social worker, who defeated Mr Abbott for the SRC presidency that year, remembers the night of September 7, 1977 when officer elections were held.

    Two letters she wrote then to Honi Soit, a student newspaper, outlined her version of the evening. One letter described how throughout the evening Mr Abbott and his mates, including a dentistry student, harassed and insulted the women standing for election.

    Outside the meeting, one woman “was confronted by J [the dentistry student], who decided to ‘have a bit of fun’ and exposed his genitalia to her as well as urinating against a tree,” Ms Ramjan wrote.

    “He dropped his pants [perhaps for Abbott’s entertainment, he seemed highly amused] and bowed in Abbott’s direction, flashing his bum towards the woman,” the letter said.

  24. [spur212
    Posted Friday, September 14, 2012 at 10:01 am | Permalink
    Commentators who get sensitive when Abbott’s DLP history is mentioned:

    Greg Sheridan, Paul Kelly, Dennis Shanahan, Angela Shanahan, Gerald Henderson
    ]

    Apparently Fran Kelly grew up in a DLP household, and used to hand out HTVs for them

  25. Re NSW Health cuts. I’m terribly worried for my darling wife, who only recently – after two years of putting up with the “temp to perm” scam in the recruitment industry – scored a middle level management job in NSW Health.

    She loves it. She works hard and is admired by all who work with her.

    To the minister, who did a “tour” of HI’s office and associated wards only last week (and who simply smiled and said nothing about what was to come), such dedication and professionalism will mean nothing, I fear.

  27. [This thing about Abbott’s past is instructive for the way the apologists who, a few short weeks ago were lining up to have a crack at the PM about Slater & Gordon, are now saying there’s nothing to see in it.]

    Apparently “questions need not/i> be asked.”

  32. [chris murphy @chrismurphys 17m
    Now Ms Ramjan,a bystander eyewitness, a Supr Ct Judge(now husband) & a Crown Prosecutor back her up v a weak Tony Abbott denial #auspol]

  34. [Anthony Chisholm @AnthonyChisholm 3s
    Looking forward to hearing @AlboMP speak tonight @QLDLabor conference dinner, theme is I like fighting tories! #ALPQConf]

  35. @AnthonyChisholm: Looking forward to hearing @AlboMP speak tonight @QLDLabor conference dinner, theme is I like fighting tories! #ALPQConf

  36. Tea Party

    Which will occure first, Obarma elected for a second term or Abbott dumped as Liberal Leader?

    Let the unhinging continue. May the internet save us from right wing rags like the Australian!

  39. [Peter Costello has defended the Queensland government’s decision to sack 14,000 public servants.

    The former federal treasurer has launched a spirited defence of his audit of the state’s finances, which has recently faced criticism.

    He told ABC Radio it was conducted in accordance with relevant accounting standards and practices that have always applied in Queensland, including under Labor.]

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/14852203/costello-defends-audit-job-cuts/

  43. [ This thing about Abbott’s past is instructive for the way the apologists who, a few short weeks ago were lining up to have a crack at the PM about Slater & Gordon, are now saying there’s nothing to see in it.]
    Bet there is a few right wing nutters that now wish they had played that differently. They really set themselves up for nowhere to hide.

  44. One thing to keep in mind, is that people already dislike Abbott. I’m not sure if punchgate is going to shift any more people away from the LNP, though I’d like to think so. I doubt anyone who intends to vote LNP because of Tony is likely to be worried about him intimidating young women, sad to say.

    I think the cuts happening in Health and Education in the states are more likely to help swing votes back to Labor.

    The tide has turned, but the key to Labor winning the next election is for swinging voters to accept Gillard.

  50. Lynchpin, if you are still about, are you going to the Dinner tonight as well?
    Albo should have plenty to say.

    Also have you heard if the PM will be at conference for certain?

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