Essential Research: 52-48 to Coalition

The weekly Essential Research remains the only regularly reporting opinion poll in town, and it continues to show the Coalition with a weaker lead than they scored at the election.

Essential Research is still the only opinion poll operating to its regular schedule, Morgan having sat out last week and Newspoll presumably holding off at least until Labor sorts out its leadership. The latest weekly result has the Coalition’s two-party lead steady at an unspectacular 52-48, from primary votes of 43% for the Coalition (steady on last week), 35% for Labor (down one) and the Greens on 9% (steady). Other questions relate to internet privacy, including a finding that US surveillance programs such as Edward Snowden revealed are opposed by 45% and supported by 24%, and the importance of our various foreign relationships, showing “very important” ratings of 56% for New Zealand, 51% for the United States, 46% for China, 42% for the United Kingdom and 35% for Indonesia.

UPDATE: And now Morgan comes through with its normal multi-mode poll which was skipped last week, carrying the striking headline that Labor leads 50.5-49.5 on respondent-allocated preferences. However, Morgan produces a strikingly different result from preference flows as per the recent election, with the Coalition lead at 53-47. But I find this hard to reconcile with the primary votes: the Coalition is at 42%, 3.5% lower than at the election, Labor at 37%, which is 3.6% higher, and the minor parties only slightly changed at 9% for the Greens, 4.5% for the Palmer United Party and 7.5% for others. Somehow though, two-party preferred comes out as very similar to the election result, which as best as anyone can tell is about 53.5-46.5.

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.

1,828 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Coalition”

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  1. psyclaw
    I can assure you that Abbott did not open the Port Macquarie event and did not have any official duties here at all. Nor did he attend any ‘community events’. He flew in on Saturday 5 November, did his event on the Sunday and flew out that evening. He managed to visit a couple of bars while he was here, but that’s it. He was here purely and simply for his own entertainment. He’s now lying about what he did.

  2. Seems Hasse’s hitting the top 5 was not due to size of his former electorate.

    [Now-retired Liberal backbench MP Barry Haase travelled to Canada, Mongolia, and the US in the last six months of 2012 on study trips, and in addition to the AU$91,066 he charged to the taxpayer for those trips, he also accrued $32,712 in global roaming charges on those trips between August and September that were charged back to the taxpayer. His bill was higher than any other MP listed.]

    http://www.zdnet.com/aussie-taxpayers-fork-out-for-backbenchers-global-roaming-bills-7000021794/

  3. I was just trying to drive the google car around Brunei but no luck, doesn’t seem to have been mapped yet which is odd. I bet Abbott is spending 90% of his time there just swimming, grog monstering & some sort of extreme sport event to get his rocks off.

  4. [Parliamentary stuff OK, Committee stuff OK, electorate stuff OK.]

    Yes.

    All the above expenses are related to that position of the MP.

    Entering a fun run or a cycling or swimming event are a great big fat NO NO.

    Do you understand Tisme?

    Are you there?

    😆

  5. Centre

    With that I certainly agree.

    Once the details of each claim are known, easy peasy.

    So the actual MP making the claim should have no difficulty …..the “it’s unclear” excuse we’ve widely heard in recent days is crap.

    Yes, from the claimant’s perspective at the time of claiming, in the vast majority of cases it is black n white for sure.

  6. I’m advised that Kim Carr and his orcs are not lifting a finger to help Albanese. This increases the chances of Shorten winning the members’ ballot. He’ll certainly win the Caucus ballot by a wide margin.

  10. Psyclaw

    Yes.

    As I said in a previous post; I personally don’t believe mistakes are innocently made when pollies claim expenses against the taxpayer.

    Well unless they are very new to parliament anyway!

  11. [After initially charging the taxpayer over AU$13,000 for global roaming charges accrued in the second half of 2011, now-Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull paid back the money to the government, and was left to negotiate his bill with Telstra.]

    Couldn’t the Wentworth Forum come up with the bucks?

  13. The expenses associated with Abbott promoting his book Battlelines, by the way in it he said we should just have a carbon tax instead of an ETS and be done with it, are clearly an unallowable claims.

    Rotten Monkey :mrgreen:

  15. [Ha Ha must be driving the Journo’s mad.]

    Melissa Clark asked a Labor bloke involved in the ballot process whether anyone would leak results of members’ vote before 2.30pm. He said no but members would get email before media presser which surprised her.

    BTW Melissa was another one who prattled on about a mess for the next 3 years if Caucus and Member votes are different.

  16. [Ha Ha must be driving the Journo’s mad.]

    Melissa Clark asked a Labor bloke involved in the ballot process whether anyone would leak results of members’ vote before 2.30pm. He said no but members would get email before media presser which surprised her.

    BTW Melissa was another one who prattled on about a mess for the next 3 years if Caucus and Member votes are different.

  18. Well I think the members are certainly more than capable of getting the leader right.

    I believe, them being on the outside, are more in touch with voters than inside of the caucus.

    Shorten, admittedly very capable and talented, won’t win the next election, I’ll tell you that now!

    Voters will vote for Albo.

    Will the caucus get it right?

  22. [He said no but members would get email before media presser which surprised her. ]

    And that’s as it should be, given we voted this time around. Maybe it might encourage the press gallery to join the ALP! 😀

  23. Centre

    Albo is there as a runner in the first member ballot, without him there would be no ballot. All credit to him.

    He will not win.

  28. rua

    Well, at the last term of government, I made it clear that Labor should keep right away from the Greens in implementing its policy on climate change.

    There is no way, Labor will win the next election with Shorten as leader – no way.

    They will be competitive – that is all!

  30. and let’s not forget Tony Abbott using his taxpayer funded office to give his daughters a leg up

    [When The Sun-Herald called the Australian Turf Club to speak to Ms Abbott about the trend of politicians’ children taking up modelling, the paper was referred to Mr Abbott’s press secretary and told Ms Abbott does not have her own agent. ”[Bridget] is being managed by Tony Abbott’s media agents,” the BMW Sydney Carnival’s PR agency, Torstar Communications, said in an email.

    Asked on Friday whether taxpayer dollars were being used to foot the bill for media inquiries about Ms Abbott’s activities, a spokesman for Mr Abbott said his office was not acting as her agents.
    The Sun-Herald understands, however, that there are concerns that the media could exploit the young woman’s inexperience to make a ”political gotcha moment” for her father.

    Torstar Communications has frequently pitched story ideas involving Ms Abbott and the racing carnival. When The Sun-Herald sought Ms Abbott for this story, however, a promised interview was cancelled. Mr Abbott’s spokesman stressed his daughter was not a model but an ambassador.
    The radiography student piqued the interest of the racing world last year when she was photographed attending Derby Day in Melbourne. The Australian Turf Club then contacted Mr Abbott’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin, about hiring the teenager to help promote its autumn carnival. Ms Credlin used to be the head of public relations for Racing Victoria.

    Mr Abbott’s office said it had not initiated the discussions but had ”embraced” the opportunity when it was presented.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-oversees-daughters-pr-20120331-1w52l.html#ixzz2hJPIbVN2

  31. Melissa Clarke, saw her interview some bloke for the AEC over the WA senate recount today sans makeup it appeared. A real net ball girl with a bad nose and an equally bad idea about what real journalism is. What a cheek to try it on getting inside info on the Labor leader ballot after her performance during the last election.

  32. There’s an interesting point about Abbott and the Port Macquarie triathlon that no-one seems to have noticed.

    November 2011 was the third time he’d been here for a triathlon. He had also competed in a half iron man in November 2009 and a full iron man – in a huge blaze of publicity – in March 2010. He did not claim any expenses for those two visits, so why did he try it on in 2010?

    He’d been here on genuine official business a few days before the March 2010 event, for which he had legitimately claimed expenses, but he went back to Sydney then came back at his own expense for his race.

    All the triathlon visits were the same – purely for private reasons, just for the event, no official business at all. So if Abbott knew he could not claim in 2009 and 2010 why did he think he’d get away with a claim in 2011?

  33. Neither Albanese nor Shorten will be the next Labor PM.

    As for a Deputy to Albanese, if he wins the ballot, I doubt anyone from NSW, or from the Left faction, would be chosen.

    How about Dreyfus from Victoria, or, as a long shot, Alannah McTiernan from WA? Bit fanciful with the last one, I suppose, but plenty of experience and a straight talker.

  34. Ms. Abbott jnr

    When it came to media requests, she said her father ”hasn’t said no to anything so far. If anything extreme came up, I’d probably have to discuss it a little bit.”

    Would extreme would be $8,000 private flights to Tamworth & back. Or $x,00000000 to stand on top of Mount Kilimanjaro for an ambassadorial shoot for Nike.

  35. [Neither Albanese nor Shorten will be the next Labor PM.]

    You say that with such conviction, despite the last 2 federal elections, and the known limitations of Abbott’s Liberals.

  36. Mikehilliard I think the journos have their negative stories ready to roll no matter who wins the ballot .

    I’ve not been a Bowen fan over the past 3 years but I’d be fine about him being Deputy. He’s handled Interim Leader well.

  38. leone

    I can only guess that by 2011 Abbott had lowered the bar so much that even he thought no political accountability mattered, unless it was associated with Labor. The media were playing his tune so what the f.

  39. OMFFFG ! Just saw PM Toady Abbott on the news with the intro saying he was the only leader that did not know that they (leaders) were all to link hands. Embarrassment maximus. Truly cringe worthy to watch. He was totally clueless

  40. Yes it is easy to write the next ALP leader off but i recall after 2007 many predicted that the next Liberal PM was in year 10 at Scotch.

    I believe such student might be in their final year at uni or be just starting out in the corporate world and yet we have a Liberal government

  41. mexican:

    Remember too that Abbott attempted to placate voters with the line that his team were ‘ready for govt’.

    I think based on what we’ve seen that that isn’t true.

  42. I’d warn too much about declarative statements… there’s no reason why whomever wins will not be the next ALP PM. Did anyone think in 2007 that Tony Abbott would push them to minority government? Or that Kevin Rudd would come back? If anything, the last three and a bit years have taught us to not make long-term statements, lol

  43. Confessions

    I don’t state it with conviction; rather, the political reality that we all face.

    Abbott is in the first month of a 3-year term, and much of the current stuff will be a mere memory come the next election.

    Let’s not forget 70% or so of the media are right behind him and will forgive and forget and gloss over all his stuff-ups, as opposed to if Labor was in power.

    That is what is behind my thinking at the moment.

  44. Ready for government. What crap, most of them had already served in government so whats the ‘ready’ bit. Talk about firing up the old steam engine.

    They are serial liars the Libs

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixn9fFatdcs

    If Abbott wins the 2016 election expect min 17.5% GST across the board. It’s the only way he’ll pay back all his debts.

  47. feeney, I get your point… but I don’t think anyone expected them to be this terrible this early. Is this early jitters/teething problems… working through issues… or is this a case of systemic problems?

    To me this is a two-term prospect.

  48. Well, I reckon that Labor’s best chance at the next election, which is only winnable because the Monkey is a misfit, would be to pit someone popular (Albo) against the unpopular Abbott.

    Shorten has blood on his hands – had to say it 😎

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