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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  2. Ha!

    I was having a bit of a reminiscence about the Hillary/Obama wars today and wondering…

    1. How many of those who slapped me down when I objected to the appalling language used in reference to Hillary are outraged at present at the way Julia Gillard is being treated?

    and

    2. Whether the attacks on Hillary were a sort of warm up for those on Gillard..

  4. http://www.care2.com/causes/top-7-lies-of-the-first-debate.html?page=2

    [“The second topic, which is you said you get a deduction for getting a plant overseas. Look, I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant.” — Mitt Romney

    Romney really should fire his accountant, because the tax code definitely allows companies to deduct the cost of moving jobs overseas. You would think with the experience Romney has in outsourcing that he’d realize this, but in his defense, maybe Romney and Bain had a really bad accountant working for them.]

    Oh dear. I think the Democrats should run with this one, especially given his dodgy income tax returns and very low rate of tax payment.

  5. swamprat

    [poroti

    Are you a McLeod via Nova Scotia.. truly fascinating.]
    Not a McLeod. One of the religious loon followers of him. Mind you my great great granny’s bro married one of his sons.

  6. swamprat
    [Not a McLeod. One of the religious loon followers of him. Mind you my great great granny’s bro married one of his sons]
    A big whoops. GG Granny’s sister married McLeod’s son.

  25. Puffy,

    I be the messenger. William might be able to offer some of his wiseness.

    Hey for a psephy type joint it is oddly empty in the chamber!

  29. davidwh,

    With those extreme numbers in QLD there had to be a bit of elasticity but I hadn’t thought there would be that much.

  33. Going back three months and averaging old polls seems pointless to me.

    It’s just an excuse to write more belly fluff about fanciful figures that don’t really bear too much scrutiny.

  34. Puff,

    The funny thing about Newman is that he is not backing off. These LNP dudes are too arrogant to even attempt to soft soap what they are doing.

  36. SK yes the bounce back to Labor has been stronger and quicker than I expected however given the inability of the LNP to communicate properly it’s not so unusual I guess. The next three months will be very interesting.

  37. [Going back three months and averaging old polls seems pointless to me.]

    Yeah, i think something like Poss’s treatment of them give a better idea of the state of play.

  38. http://tinyurl.com/9vhz8sm (click google link)
    [Labor wipeout averted but sex still plays, according to Newspoll
    by: Dennis Shanahan, Political editor
    From: The Australian
    October 05, 2012 12:00AM

    THE Gillard government no longer faces a wipeout in Queensland after a dramatic lift in support in the past three months – but Labor would still lose an election based on swings in seats in the Sunshine State and NSW alone.

    In the past three months, Labor’s primary vote has lifted almost across the board in each state, with the biggest gain – eight percentage points – in Queensland.]

    http://resources.news.com.au/files/2012/10/04/1226488/523494-121005-newspoll.pdf
    Cumulative Newspoll table

  40. A reminder that ugliness is not confined to our politics:

    Gay Couple’s Civil Union photo used by Repugs in homophobic political campaign

    [The engagement photograph showed Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere at their happiest, celebrating their love and upcoming marriage. Two years later, they were shocked to see it used in an advert opposing same-sex union.

    “This case is about the defilement of a beautiful moment,” say the New Jersey couple’s lawyers – in the typically dry language of a lawsuit lodged with a federal court.

    Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere learned in June that a shot of them sharing a tender kiss had been used in a political mailshot, in a state far from their home. {…}]

  42. Desperate times…..

    FED up with claims that her husband has a problem with women, Tony Abbott’s wife of 24 years has taken the extraordinary step of speaking out against his critics.

    Margie Abbott will make a public appearance in Western Sydney today with an Abbott’s Angels-style line up, which will include their daughter Frances, his mother and two of his sisters.

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/margie-abbott-says-husband-tony-does-not-have-a-problem-with-women/story-e6freuy9-1226488428431#

  45. “He was emotional (at their births) and if I may tell you a very personal story there was an occasion where I actually had a miscarriage between daughters one and two,” she said.

    “I kept it all together, but Tony was a wreck.

    “Having a child is a very happy time, but I don’t think tears were part of that (when their daughters arrived safely). Certainly he felt it when I miscarried.”

    http://www.news.com.au/national/tears-and-downton-abbey-abbotts-other-side/story-fncynjr2-1226488508684

  47. Now they’re after Nicola Roxon.

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/power-of-attorney-and-its-misuse/story-e6frezz0-1226488433769

    She must be scaring them. The double-speak and hypocrisy is truly sickening.

    I mean, the DT sadly commenting on “day-to-day mudslinging” has got to be the height of chutzpah, hasn’t it?

    [Both sides of politics have always had their attack dogs and dirt units. But even in these uncertain times some public offices are expected to be above the day-to-day mudslinging and dirty tricks that sadly now characterise political contests.

    One of those is that of attorney-general – the nation’s chief law officer and the one politician who is entrusted with protecting and maintaining the integrity of our legal system.

    Convention has it that the holder of that office is someone whose judgment is impeccable and whose character is beyond reproach…

    Yet in recent times we have seen an concerning willingness by the current office-holder Nicola Roxon to not just weigh into the political quagmire – such as her leading role in the “handbag hit squad” mission to paint Tony Abbott as a woman-hater – but to actually interfere in legal proceedings as she has done in the case of Peter Slipper.]

    This is a new one for me.

    According to this tripe, the Attorney-General is supposed to resign from politics upon assuming the office. This is apparently some “convention” that the Daily Telegraph has just invented.

    It’s wonderful how the Right invents reasons for Labor politicians not being allowed to be political.

    Labor politicians have to shut up and just get on with being good little model citizens, free from and above the rough and tumble of the daily political grind.

    If they are not they suffer the wrath of the mighty Daily Telegraph, and get called part of a “handbag hit squad”.

    Meanwhile, of course, the ratbag media, the ranters, the ravers and the Opposition – who of course hold no office to be “conventional” and “institutional” about – can get on with swinging baseball bats.

    The push to reinvent Abbott as a woman loving (and beloved of women), wholesome guy who never punched a wall or slagged off a man in a wheelchair, who never trashed the economy, or who doesn’t have a negative bone in his body, who always tells the truth while others about him lie and cheat… and all by this weekend’s Newspoll data gathering… is rather touching.

    They don’t care who they hit. They don’t even bother to camouflage the Liberals’ slogans, like “handbag hit squad.”

    While it’s annoying and angering to me that people are actually this nasty and obsessed, it’s no surprise.

    Anyway, it really only means one thing: the shit’s hit the fan and they’re over the edge of the cliff, holding the anvil… they just haven’t started on the way down yet.

  49. Some disappointingly personal comments on Margie Abbott in the twitter sphere this morning. Attack the transparency of the strategy ffs, not the lady herself.

  50. George Megalogenis‏@GMegalogenis

    A leader doing media with his wife when Newspoll is in the field, but election still a year away, is a coincidence I never thought I’d see.

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