Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition

Essential Research has been slow to catch the trend to Labor detected elsewhere, but it finally falls into line with a two-point shift in its latest weekly survey.

Troy Bramston of The Australian has just announced on Twitter there will be no Newspoll this evening, so I’m giving the weekly Essential Research its own thread instead. The result finds Essential maintaining a recent record of taking a while to catch up with the trend, even after accounting for the stabilising effects of its two-week rolling average methodology. Labor has made a two-point gain on two-party preferred to now trail 53-47, from primary votes of 36% for Labor (up one), 47% for the Coalition (down one) and 9% for the Greens (steady). This is Labor’s strongest two-party vote from Essential since June last year, and its strongest primary vote since a month previously. There’s even been a move in favour of the carbon tax, up three on support to 38% since June and down six on opposition to 48% – although there are now 69% who say they have noticed an increased in costs compared with 52% in August, with no increase down from 36% to 24%.

On the question of whether a seat at the UN Security Council would be of benefit, 44% say it would and 24% say it wouldn’t, which interestingly compares with 66% and 14% when the question was last posed in September 2008 (right when the global financial crisis was erupting, if that means anything). The poll also finds clear majority support for implementing higher taxes to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme, dental health scheme and Gonski reforms, but not the purchase of new submarines (although Lindsay Tanner might have something to say about that). Sixty-eight per cent responded that a budget surplus was important “for the country as a whole”, but only 46% for them personally.

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.

3,953 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition”

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  1. Australian voters are generally pretty good at sniffing out mendacity when it comes to unscrupulous politicians trying to exploit their own families for political gain, but the propaganda assault mounted by the News Ltd tabloids and Channel 9 today in a despairing attempt to arrest the free fall in Tony Abbott’s approval amongst women must rank as the apex of such naked attempts at mass manipulation in this country.

    This feeble farrago of fiction foisted on the public today will almost certainly backfire on the diminished LOTO, actually reinforcing the already near concrete negative perceptions amongst especially women that Abbott is a scheming and devious bully who would wheel out any female props he can lay his hands in a vain attempt to polish his tarnished image.

    It will be counterproductive, and ultimately futile, as the jury has already returned their verdict – guilty as charged, m’lud …

  2. So… its all on the back of a major improvement in QLD.

    Thanks Kev, (…oh, and thanks Newman).

    Just need to shift a few points NSW and WA and its goodnight Abbott. Any ideas?

  3. bemused
    Posted Thursday, October 4, 2012 at 8:24 pm | Permalink

    crikey white

    JUST TO PUT ON THE RECORD BEMUSED is did not post
    3748
    I have no idea, who said that, as i have not posted for some days, its nothing i know about
    i hope william can fix it please.

    bEMUSED WHEN YOUR COPYING WHAT PEOPLE SAY WILL YOU PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK.

    thank you in advance

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