The latest weekly Essential Research result maintains the outfit’s record of consistency with the major parties unchanged on last week – the Coalition leads 48% to 36% on the primary vote and 54-46 on two-party preferred – and the Greens up a point from last week’s unusually poor result to 9%.
Whereas attitudinal questions often point to a social democratic bent among the population at large, questions posed this week on Newstart indicate that this particular buck stops with unemployment benefits. Fifty-three per cent agreed with the proposition that the current welfare system created a “culture of dependency”, with only 30% opting for the alternative proposition that current benefits are “the least a civilised society should provide”. In relation to Newstart benefits specifically, 33% said they were not high enough, 30% about right, and 25% too high. As Bernard Keane notes in Crikey today, variation by party support was not as pronounced as it often is in relation to such questions.
Further questions dealt with trust in various industries, with good rankings for agriculture (72%), tourism (68%) and manufacturing (56%) and poor ones for banking (33%), mining (32%), media (30%) and, tellingly, power companies (18%). Crikey will tomorrow publish Essential’s biannual “trust in media” results, which always makes for fun reading for critics of the fourth estate.
UPDATE (25/1/13): An automated phone poll for the Tasmanian seat of Bass, conducted by ReachTEL for the Launceston Examiner, has produced a dire result for Labor, with incumbent Geoff Lyons trailing Liberal candidate Andrew Nikolic 60.3-39.7 on two-party preferred. The primary votes are 54.7% for Nikolic, 26.7% for Lyons and 8.7% for the Greens. The sample size for the poll is 543.
Brough is one of the few politicians around who will just stand there and give you a blatant lie. Lots of them obfuscate, and at least cover their tracks. Brough doesn’t bother with any of that. If it’ll get him through the next minute, it’s fine with him. Admirable in a way, I suppose.
Diogenes, of course it would have affected the result by including two more pms. It spreads the 100% around more.
You don’t realise that by including Whitlam for example this obviously affects the vote?
Good ML, your rehabilitation continues, ie you accept Julia is more popular than Abbott.
Keep learning. 😉
Bottom line is Gillard is preferred PM over Abbott.
Are some people slow around here or what.
[Jessica Wright @jesswrightstuff
@BridgetOFlynn @margokingston1 @janecat60 agreed but remember outcry over Craig Thomson and reporters at his house? Can’t force to answer.]
Right, so it was okay to stalk Thomson outside his home, but heaven forbid we do the same to Brough. ‘Remember the outcry’ for heaven’s sake.
There’s one rule for Labor and another for the coalition. It’s a disgrace.
[Henry
Posted Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 12:32 am | PERMALINK
Good ML, your rehabilitation continues, ie you accept Julia is more popular than Abbott.
Keep learning]
Good Henry, your rehabilitation continues, ie you accept Keating was more popular than Howard just before getting thrashed by Howard
🙂
[Are some people slow around here or what.]
No, you got there eventually!
Good work ML, live in the past, meanwhile in the current, real word Julia is pantsing Abbott. 🙂
Gillard is losing to Abbott by around 5% where it counts (in actual voting intentions) right now…..according to Bludgertrack
It’s about 2% and closing.
The trend my friend.
OK, my beauty levels have now reached critical levels….time for some beauty sleep.
Good night all.
RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS MOFOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RED
HOT
CHILI
PEPPERS
MO
FOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Psephos@3793
Nelson wasn’t anywhere near as despised as Abbott; he just wasn’t preferred to a honeymoon-period Rudd whose party was polling through the roof.
M
O
F
O
S
R
H
C
P
Bushfire Bill @ 3644 “She’s a winner!” Here! Here! This came in my e-mail the other day.
…..I think we should start a ‘we love Julia campaign’ and become a political force – ‘we’ being we old feminists, who are experiencing some of our dreams becoming a reality – Australia’s first female prime minister and her different way of communicating with the public and her working methods with her colleagues, but still adept at political survival. I am disappointed with Germaine Greer saying trite things about Julia’s physicality etc. and more particularly Eva Cox, whom I admired, recently refuting Julia’s Tony Abbott misogyny criticism…..
I haven’t replied yet, ‘cos I’m not sure that’s the way to go, or if it is where to start in a way that made sure it took off and succeeded. I know you’re not an ‘old feminist’ but you obviously share our faith in PMJG, as do a lot of clear thinking fellahs. Any advice from you or any other Bludgers gratefully received.
Henry@3854
Bottom line is Preferred Prime Minister is a rubbish indicator unless you at least scale it for the advantage to the incumbent:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/why-preferred-prime-ministerpremier.html
I do wish people would realise this and stop drawing false conclusions from PPM. It’s like using a product that’s been proven not to work. (Of course, people who think you can read the election result reliably from relatively close polls several months out are making the same mistake.)
As for Mod Lib’s comments about the Galaxy poll, I think it could be argued that 10% of Labor supporters voting for Howard is partly a negative reflection on Abbott. If 10% of Labor supporters think Howard was a better PM than all of Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard then a possible reason for that is that some of them are actually tories who have been driven away from the Coalition by Abbott and would otherwise be Coalition supporters. The other possibility is that some of these are Labor supporters at heart who are too young to remember Hawke/Keating and don’t rate Rudd or Gillard.
Anyone know whether the public holiday will mess with the Newspoll release date? Essential are releasing on Tuesday instead of Monday because of it.
MOFOS
HAPPY RED AUSTRALIA HOT DAY PEPPERS !!!!
These are all the songs they played, but they aren’t in the right order:
Monarchy of Roses
Around the World
Scar Tissue
Factory of Faith
Look Around
The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
Snow (Hey Oh)
Universally Speaking
What in the World (David Bowie)
Under the Bridge
Californication
By the Way
ENCORE:
Soul To Squeeze
Give it Away
Chas. Freeman …on the dangers of contradictory US policy in the N East
______________
A former US Ambassador to Saudi speaks on US policy
____________
http://www.mepc.org/articles-commentary/speeches/change-without-progress-middle-east
Kevin Bonham
Posted Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 1:27 am | PERMALINK
Anyone know whether the public holiday will mess with the Newspoll release date? Essential are releasing on Tuesday instead of Monday because of it.
JW may know.
Dorrie Evans
Posted Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 2:31 am | Permalink
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
I see the pretty knitters are still letting what’s left of their lives ebb into the ether.
Some of you are bright enough to know it even if the messenger is a little shit.
All perspective is lost if you fixate and less is more simply because it has more punch. All this handbag at twenty paces stuff is nonsense, puerile and very unbecoming.
I apologise for being a jerk at times but I am very frustrated. I looked at posts from 2011 and even though there were psychos even then, there was humor and playfulness and far less bickering.
There are a number of problems going on here. We have a hard core group of posters who’s positions from the Middle East to free speech and everything in between are entrenched and even if JC descended and said otherwise people on any side of any debate would not be convinced (those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still as Mother would say).
The other hurdle is that many of them are very intelligent, have very long memories and have all day, every day to argue their case.
Unfortunately for the rest of us who are just trying to find a bit of truth amongst all the sparkling propaganda (let’s face it, most of it is), it becomes difficult to discern what is truth and what is opinion parading as fact.
The other glaring thing about some of the regulars is the hypocrisy inherent in the way they conduct themselves. They rail against the tactics used by the MSM but they have not only absorbed the tactics but ape them at every turn.
They refuse to see that they themselves are a clique and a claque that flatter each other and studiously bolster the ramparts that hold them afloat from day to day.
Interlopers are viewed as Icarus types who will be sent to Coventry if they dare challenge the prevailing orthodoxy.
Personally, I think I understand what is going on here. There are a lot of people on here who are lonely and bored who would be devastated if this blog were taken away from them.
Hence the ferocious border protection policies that go something like this- “Hi Dorie, welcome aboard. Gee Dorrie, don’t know if I agree with that. How long before Dorrie falls underneath the PB bus lol”. It has become their lifeline and they will defend it with every bit of gumption they possess.
This is problematic on so many levels I don’t know where to start.
Frankly there are about 20 regulars who should take a very long holiday.
Imagine being invited to William’s house for a party and being sat next to one of them. They talk and talk and talk and manage to say nothing (except of course about how wonderfully intelligent they are), talk over the top of each other and eventually hurl the simplest and most embarrassingly unoriginal insults at each other at the top of their voices for the entire evening.
The other more temperate guests (lurkers all),try to lighten the evening with a joke but it is immediately wrung though the post modern and entirely humorless mincer of Medusa’s molars.
The club consists of a group of people who are lamentably puffed up by being the first to report a tweet or an ‘update’ or god knows what from the 24 hr news cycle.
Some of them are so desperate for praise that they will stay glued to 79 news feeds just to be cyber patted and and clucked over by all the other headless PB chooks.
I think the blog deserves better than this. There are many people who lurk and occasionally post astonishingly beautiful things but they are drowned out by the loud mouthed and excruciatingly boring bullies who don’t know that they are bullies and refuse to shut up.
So nice. Perhaps you could advise William.
In another bulletin: recent polling results on conservative forethought were returned late and had to be abandoned.
And CW, mate I am not a troll or anything else you care to imagine. We do not know each other. That’s it. People here get carried away. Some of them do it in the most spectacular and amusing way but perspective is the only thing that will save you and me from making complete fools of ourselves. My friends like and put up with me. I presume it is the same for you.
My whole life has been a endless succession of gormless fools barking their dogma at me. I don’t have to put up with it anymore and feel enormous sympathy for those who still have to.
Well then. Don’t.
Welcome to the Internet, Dorrie.
I agree with pretty much everything there though – I would add that even as someone who may very well kill for JG to win the next election the hubris surrounding the next election from Labor supporters here is quite galling.
Ultimately lots of the people here have been alienated from the MSM and have found a small niche they kinda fit into – particularly the Labor optimist crowd. In reality these are dark days for Labor and the future looks pretty bad so I understand it. Any port in a storm and all that.
Still, a holiday for some here would be a good idea. Maybe. It wouldn’t surprise me if this blog was the only thing standing between a few posters and a complete mental breakdown.
That is almost cute cw. Do you always back away from a fight even though you might lose?
Mmmh.
Change of shift.
I am not your enemy cw. Rest son. Can you really judge me from the little we have said to each other?
absolutetwaddle
Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight cw. I am advised by another poster that you are an Ok person. Will you personally benefit from putting me down? Will it make you feel any better if you do so? A complete stranger? Can you explain how that is any good for you or me?
I don’t mind a rock hard argument but what I will not abide is a hand full of sand thrown in my face by a weak opponent who stands behind a lifelong love affair with his or her own ignorance.
New thread.