Essential Research: 55-45 to Coalition

Essential Research’s monthly personal ratings show a substantial weakening in Julia Gillard’s position, while the two-party preferred result ticks over a point in the Coalition’s favour.

The latest weekly Essential Research poll has the Coalition ticking over from 54-46 to 55-45, as it must have come close to doing last time, with the major parties’ primary votes unchanged at 34% for Labor and 48% for the Coalition and the Greens down a point to 9%. The monthly personal ratings find Julia Gillard taking a solid hit over the past month, her approval down five points to 36% and disapproval up six to 55%, while Tony Abbott is up three to 36% and down four to 53%. The handy lead she opened up over late last year as preferred prime minister has all but disappeared, down from 42-33 to 39-37. The poll also finds 63% support for fixed terms against 23% for the current system. Also gauged were most important election issues and party best equipped to handle them, showing no great change since the question was last posed in November.

UPDATE (12/2/2013): Now Labor cops a shocker from the normally friendly Morgan face-to-face series, which on last weekend’s result has Labor down five to 33.5%, the Coalition up 2.5% to 45% and the Greens up half a point to 9%. That translates to 56-44 on respondent-allocated preferences and 54.5-45.5 on previous election preferences.

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.

6,171 comments on “Essential Research: 55-45 to Coalition”

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  1. BB

    I am hoping that there adverts waiting for the election campaign that will hammer those points.

    End tag line. “You cannot trust Mr Abbott”

    Hammer him on the theme he has selected. Trust.

  2. tlbd

    [I have a secret: I can predict the outcome.]

    You know the drill: whack it down now so that you can then boast about how you got it right and that means that anything you say from now on must be taken as gospel.

    (Always good to make several different predictions about the same event, so you can then use the one you got right later).

  3. Mr Denmore ‏@MrDenmore
    It doesn’t take Einstein to find fault with a story – that’s a sub’s job http://gu.com/p/3dpvt/tw via @guardian

    my bold
    [What Liz’s IQ posting reminds us is that agency copy – which it surely must have been, because all the stories are so similar – needs checking.

    It also shows that being a sub is not only about correcting grammar or writing a headline. It is really about being sceptical about the totality of the copy and its underlying assumptions.

    We may be losing subs. The nature of subbing may be changing (and that may be no bad thing). But the second pair of eyes remain essential to the process of publishing.]

  4. Senator X is complaining that the only person being swapped from Malaysia is him.

    I’m willing for Australia to take 200 refugees if Malaysia agrees to keep him.

    Any advances on that?

  5. [I’m willing for Australia to take 200 refugees if Malaysia agrees to keep him.

    Any advances on that?]

    20,000 to seal the deal right off.

  6. Lizzie

    One problem I think the modern day newspaper sub-editor faces is that even though he might feel a story is full of holes and contradictions he can do nothing about it because that is the way the story has been written to suit the agenda of the individual editor or proprietor and that is the way it shall appear

    For evidence just look at The Australian.

  7. Am I the only one to think that Sen X going overseas to interfere in Malaysian elections is inappropriate. I believe he should have gone through diplomatic channels or resigned and gone as an individual.

    Any thoughts?

  8. CTar1

    I think one of us needs to get a seat in the Round Table stuff and put horse meat on the table.

    With the backing of the ACT Greens our little venture is bound to prosper.

    No wonder that gelding was looking a bit toey.

    ‘http://act.greens.org.au/content/food-production’

  9. Tricot@5976. Fran Kelly “sucks up” to Tony Abbott?!?

    How on earth does she do this? She’s invited him onto her program on umpteen occasions and he point blank refuses. She has criticised him on-air for this repeatedly. She made a big thing of the Leigh Sales interview last year and played it over and over again

    Mark Scott is probably a Liberal (although I have to say that I was impressed by the way he stood up to the Libs in the Senate the other day). I think ABC 24 displays a slight bias to the Libs.

    But all I can say to all those people on here who claim that Fran, or Leigh, or even Uhlmann are Liberals is you should go to your doctor and get a script for some blue pills.

  10. Good afternoon, Bludgers!

    Thought I’d pop in and report an interesting conversation I had with a Federal MP (a Rudd supporter who is considered part of his “inner circle”).

    He said outright that Rudd is in the media with the PM’s knowledge and blessing and intimated that some sort of meeting took place between them where they agreed on the best way to use Rudd’s skills to win Labor the next election.

    Now, maybe I’m looking at things through this prism now, but has it occurred to anyone else that Ruddy is out putting the notion of the need to reform the MRRT precisely BECAUSE the Government has plans to make changes to it part of their election platform and they want the heat of the debate out of the way now, rather than closer to the election?

    It also gives Ruddy plenty of opportunities to remind people he’s a team player and that everyone is pulling together to get Labor across the line in September.

    Food for thought …

  11. Don’t talk to me about 3D printing. Struggling with an FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) design right now.

    It’s always when you put the last piece into the mix that you find out about the mistake you made right at the start.

  12. Danny Lewis @ 6015. The only way I would believe this is if Gillard has decided to step down for Rudd in the near future. I would see this as quite possible now: Gillard, totally unlike Rudd, is a committed Labor person and would do anything to help the Labor Party. If she judges that this is the right thing to do, she’ll do it. Rudd has quite a spring in his step ATM, and he’s no sort of poker player.

    If I were advising Gillard, I would be telling her to sit down and try to nut out a deal with Rudd now. A person who knows a bit told me yesterday that the rumours that Rudd almost has the numbers again aren’t far off the truth. I think the Caucus members who want him back are deluded, but -if there are enough of them -it’s no good fighting them any more.
    Sadly, it all has the feeling that it’s rapidly slipping away from Gillard. If she hadn’t been so undermined, she might have led Labor to victory. Those who are engineering this situation might come to regret it, but it will be Australians who will ultimately lose: a choice between an egotistical ninny and a total goose with a deep commitment to a sort of millenarian Catholicism.

    As the tag line for the movie Alien vs Predator put it: “whoever wins, we lose”!

  13. Meher Baba@6014

    I am not alone in this perception, and I stress perception.

    I am given to understand, as well, that as far as FK is concerned her pedigree goes back to DLP times. Now, I know that being born into a household of Liberal voters does not mean one votes Liberal by osmosis.

    I did not make any comments about some of your other names. I think CU is not a particularly good presenter, LS is passable and I have not got clue regarding Scott’s political leanings.

    The poor ratings for the 7.30 Report and there continued fall must say something about the quality offered I would think.

    Thanks for your gratuitous advice re the blue pills.

    While I am out I will order some more effective spectacles for you – either ones with less rose colour or maybe thicker lenses which may help to improve your failing eyesight.

    As they say “My freedom fighter is your terrorist”.

    The beauty of this blog is that nobody has a mortgage on reality – including yourself.

  14. MeherBaba:

    [ all I can say to all those people on here who claim that Fran, or Leigh, or even Uhlmann are Liberals is you should go to your doctor and get a script for some blue pills.]

    I strongly suspect Uhlmann is — he does have something of a history IIRC. At the very least he is a conservative. Fran Kelly is simply vacuous and indolent, which comes off as pro-Liberal because it simply runs with the pack. Leigh Sales is a little sharper than Kelly — which, given how low Kelly has set the bar, isn’t saying much.

    Blue pills? Really?

  15. Well there you go MB – the general consensus from FB is that many of the names you mention are either/or. Liberal leaning and/or poor operators.

    Maybe I was wrong about the specs, it is contact lenses you need.

  16. [It’s always when you put the last piece into the mix that you find out about the mistake you made right at the start.]

    Is that like the thing you were looking for is always in the last place you look ….?

    😆 😆 😆

  17. Fran Kelly is certainly vacuous.

    Her pro-Liberal program is given that bent since she has not done an RN Breakfast program without the Australian in her lap. If she was even slightly interested in balance – or giving Labor a modicum of support, she would not being using a well known Liberal $hitsheet for her editorial direction.

    Not to mention the equally vacuous Grattan character she used to have on, who was relentlessly negative and had unmoderated cynicism directed to the Prime Minister on a daily basis.

    Fran Kelly may well have “moved on” from her DLP days, but her journalistic efforts (if you call it that) certainly don’t go any way to confirm it.

    And Uhlmann, well I won’t even bother, suffice to say he was a (failed) candidate for the ACT’s own flirt with Tea Party evangelical nutters in the 90s. It is no surprise he has more than a soft spot for Abbott and that is the only reason for his rise in the ABC’s ranks — another Coalition-sympathetic plant all in the name of Mark Scott’s specious quest for “balance”.

  18. Mark Scott:

    [He worked for the New South Wales Greiner Liberal Party Government, as chief of staff to the Education Minister, Virginia Chadwick and as a senior adviser to education minister, Terry Metherell.]

    His wife, Briony, is Principal of Wenona, an upper middle class private school in North Sydney.

    Chris Uhlmann:

    [He unsuccessfully contested the ACT 1998 general election for the electorate of Brindabella with the Osborne Independent Group,[3] a strong pro-life ticket with stated objectives of blocking both euthanasia legislation and legislation to decriminalise abortion. He was formerly a seminarian]

    Fran Kelly is apparently openly gay and living longterm in a gay relationship — I didn’t know this until I looked her up — so I’d be surprised if at a personal level, she were pro-DLP or socially conservative or even sympathetic to Abbott.

  19. [Fran Kelly is apparently openly gay and living longterm in a gay relationship — I didn’t know this until I looked her up — so I’d be surprised if at a personal level, she were pro-DLP or socially conservative or even sympathetic to Abbott.]

    She is probably one of the 10-20% of GLBT Australians who support the conservative side of politics.

  20. Latest circulation figures give The Australian about 120,000 copies day. Is that more or less than the audience for Fran Kelly on RN breakfast? This is a nation of 20 something million. Some newspapers and media commentators seem to have far more influence than they deserve.

  21. I was amused to observe that, when The Oz first went on line, the ABC ceased to use it as a basis for their reports.

    Sad to think that they couldn’t afford to subscribe….

    Obviously that minor glitch was fixed fairly quickly.

  22. [Latest circulation figures give The Australian about 120,000 copies day. Is that more or less than the audience for Fran Kelly on RN breakfast? This is a nation of 20 something million. Some newspapers and media commentators seem to have far more influence than they deserve.]

    The press gallery feed off each other — most people wouldn’t not hear a word from them if it were not for their “news” then being reproduced on the nightly news or drive-time radio updates.

    Two men and a dog probably listen to Fran Kelly’s show, but unfortunately she sets the tone for the ABC’s radio news for the rest of the day…

  23. And Uhlmann, well I won’t even bother, suffice to say he was a (failed) candidate for the ACT’s own flirt with Tea Party evangelical nutters in the 90s. It is no surprise he has more than a soft spot for Abbott and that is the only reason for his rise in the ABC’s ranks — another Coalition-sympathetic plant all in the name of Mark Scott’s specious quest for “balance”.

    Uhlmann’s problem is that he is married to a politician. In this case it is Gai Brodtmann, an ALP member. He has placed himself (and the ABC has placed him) in the invidious position of walking the tightrope of not being seen as to be favouring the Government and not to be seen as being too critical of the Opposition.

    In my opinion the ABC, being the public broadcaster, should have a rule that no journalist married to a practicing politician should be part of the political reporting team.

  24. Scarpat

    ‘In my opinion the ABC, being the public broadcaster, should have a rule that no journalist married to a practicing politician should be part of the political reporting team.’

    About as fair and reasonable as the rule that forced female Commonwealt public servants to resign if they got married.

  25. meher baba
    [Danny Lewis @ 6015. The only way I would believe this is if Gillard has decided to step down for Rudd in the near future. I would see this as quite possible now: Gillard, totally unlike Rudd, is a committed Labor person and would do anything to help the Labor Party. If she judges that this is the right thing to do, she’ll do it. Rudd has quite a spring in his step ATM, and he’s no sort of poker player.]

    If the “stepping down” gains traction, I suppose there will be endless speculation as to the moment. Such as – letting JG battle through the rest of the parliamentary year, and then Rudd can “do a Hawkie” just before the election.

  26. Two men and a dog probably listen to Fran Kelly’s show, but unfortunately she sets the tone for the ABC’s radio news for the rest of the day…

    and for quite a number of comments on PB…

  27. [I was amused to observe that, when The Oz first went on line, the ABC ceased to use it as a basis for their reports.

    Sad to think that they couldn’t afford to subscribe….

    Obviously that minor glitch was fixed fairly quickly.]

    Yes, my ABC Online insider said they took a month or so to work out the news.google.com.au work around to get behind the Oz’s firewall.

  28. Socrates wrote:
    [This is damning, and Peter Martin is generally non-partisan. Also the error has nothing to do with Rudd. The new Labor leadership was first arrogant (not using the skills of their more than capable advisors) and then incompetent (drafting the deal incorrectly). They deserve to lose votes over this one. Stick to rigging caucus votes and leave the governing to those competent to do so.]

    He did so in response to this article by Peter Martin:

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/how-canberra-got-diddled-20130213-2edhg.html#ixzz2L0susQBq

    Seriously folks this serial codswallop by the media is becoming annoying.

    Peter Martin (non-partisan or partisan) is focusing on sensationalizing one cog in a large wheel as media typically tend to do. For the record, no dealmaker in the world would have their support team physically lined up behind them for a top-level negotiation attended by the three solitary heads of the largest mining firms… they would hardly put themselves in that position. Players negotiate… advisers, lawyers and accountants sit in the wings. This is completely normal, as Ken Henry quite clearly says…

    [We were not involved in the negotiations, other than in respect of crunching the numbers if you like and in providing due diligence on design parameters that the mining companies themselves came up with.]

    Yet Martin prefers to dramatize it so…

    [The smartest people were kept out of the room.]
    Kept out? What nonsense! The ‘smartest’ they might be (in their field) but they are not dealmakers… which is why they were not in the room.

    [They were ferried draft agreements and asked to examine them quickly. They were unable to test with the miners the propositions they were putting to the government.]

    and goes on with…

    [The 1½-page heads of agreement signed by the ministers and executives on July 1, 2010…]

    Well, it might come as a surprise to learn that agreements can often be less than a page. Martin’s inference is, of course, that 1½ pages is representative of incompetence given the magnitude of the deal and evidently facts are the last thing he wants to introduce to ruin a good story.

    So here’s a small pearl of wisdom from me. Deal first… Detail later. If you get them arse-about you’re doomed to fail. The reason so many boardrooms stacked with lawyers and accountants end up in trouble today is that they lack acumen in the actual business and the skill to grow that business by recognising opportunities and (you guessed it) making deals.

    For everybody’s information (including Peter’s) this is the process as described from the official fact sheet on the governments web pages PDF 284KB

    [To ensure the smooth implementation of the new arrangements, the Government established a Policy Transition Group (PTG), led by the Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism, the Hon. Martin Ferguson and Mr Don Argus AC, to develop the detailed technical design of the new resource tax arrangements.
    The PTG provided a report on the implementation of the new MRRT and PRRT arrangements to Government in December 2010. The report made 94 recommendations on the technical design of the new resource tax arrangements.
    On 24 March 2011 the Government announced its acceptance of all the recommendations of the PTG regarding the new resource taxation reforms. The PTG recommendations form the basis of the design of the MRRT legislation.
    Consultation with the industry continued after the acceptance of the PTG report through the Resource Tax Implementation Group (RTIG). The primary role of the RTIG has been to provide assistance to the Treasury in resolving the outstanding design issues identified by the PTG and further issues that may arise in the legislative drafting process. The RTIG also provided feedback on the draft legislation prior to its release for public comment.
    The Bill was passed by the House of Representatives on 22 November 2011 and the Senate on 19 March 2012. ]

    Now ask yourselves… does this sound like the process Peter Martin and the entire OM herd of sheep is describing? No? I didn’t think so either.

  29. About as fair and reasonable as the rule that forced female Commonwealt public servants to resign if they got married.

    bw,

    no, my point was that the ABC, as the public broadcaster, should not only be objective in its political reporting but also be perceived to be so.

  30. [She is probably one of the 10-20% of GLBT Australians who support the conservative side of politics.]

    quite a few in the media, Alan Jones and Tim Wilson come to mind…

  31. [6033
    rossmcg

    Latest circulation figures give The Australian about 120,000 copies day.]

    And a large share of these are given away. It would be good to know what the actual paid circulation is…probably not much more than half the total.

    I know when I go to the bank there are usually 2 copies of the OO available to browse while waiting, along with the AFR and the West. Every airplane and hotel seems to have them available, free for the taking. The obvious thing is that for every person reading a paper or watching a flat-screen, there are 6 or 8 using their mobile devices, and you can be sure they’re seldom reading the “news.”

    The OO is an itch, a bug-bite.

  32. Uhlmann is just a crap journalist. His bias a product of his peers.

    sk,

    is his peer group fellow journalists or is his spouse his peer?

  33. [Uhlmann is just a crap journalist]

    I agree, but I think his bias is a personal one.

    As I said, he was a discredited Canberra Times “commentator” who was regularly trolled the readership.

    He was then taken in under ABC’s conservative affirmative action program under Scott.

    It’s a shame the conservatives cannot find competent conservatives journalists. They can only reactionary opinionistas who make a career out of being a “right wing commentator”.

  34. BW -‘An ACT Food Map’?

    I’m sure there’s an existing cheval agistment map.

    Govt assistant to the ‘project’ is expected. After all we are exporters.

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