Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition; Morgan: 51.5-48.5

Essential Research records a spike on Tony Abbott’s monthly approval rating, and finds less concern about the Senate electoral system than one feels there should be.

Essential Research and Morgan are still the only pollsters back in the game, and both have shifted slightly to the Coalition this week. The regular Essential Research fortnightly rolling average has the Coalition lead up from 52-48 to 53-47, from primary votes of 44% for the Coalition (up one), 34% for Labor (down one) and 10% for the Greens (steady). Monthly personal ratings have Tony Abbott up five to an all-time high of 46% approval and down one on disapproval to 35%, and with a 41-22 lead over Bill Shorten (who doesn’t get his own personal ratings yet) as preferred prime minister. There are particularly large gender gaps in these results, Abbott having a net approval of plus 14 among men and zero among women, and leading Shorten 48-21 among men and 35-23 among women.

Pleasingly, this week’s supplementary questions look at electoral reform. A question on the Senate voting system offered respondents the option of keeping the present system (a surprisingly high 32%), introduce New South Wales-style optional preferential above-the-line voting (33%) or look into other options (20%). There also seems to be a benign attitude to the Senate’s crop of successful micro-party candidates, who despite having mostly scored very few votes are rated “good for democracy” by 36% and “bad for democracy by 26%, with 17% opting for no difference. Support for compulsory voting remains very high at 71% with only 25% opposed, closely reflecting results of a comprehensive Australian National University survey on attitudes to electoral reform from August. Essential also features a semi-regular question on same-sex marriage, with results essentially unchanged from May: support and opposition are both down a point, to 57% and 31% respectively.

The latest Morgan multi-mode poll, which will be reporting fortnightly for the rest of the year at least, is a better result for the Coalition than the last, having their primary vote up 1.5% to 43.5%, Labor’s down 2.5% to 34.5%, the Greens up a point to 10%, and the Palmer United Party steady on 4.5%. On respondent-allocated preferences, Labor’s 50.5-49.5 lead from a fortnight ago has turned into a Coalition lead of 51.5-48.5, which aligns precisely with my own calculation based on modelling of preference flows from the recent election. Morgan is also publishing previous-election preference figures, but since they have made the curious determination to grant all PUP and KAP votes to the Coalition until the AEC makes available breakdowns from the election, they are of no value at present.

In other news, I had a post-mortem on Labor’s remarkable Miranda by-election victory in New South Wales in Crikey yesterday, available to subscribers only.

UPDATE (25/10): Morgan has published results from an online poll conducted on the weekend from a sample of 1169, which limits itself to the question of preferred prime minister. Despite the similar methodology, it’s considerably better for Bill Shorten than the Essential poll, putting Tony Abbott’s lead at 40-36 compared with Essential’s 41-22. Abbott’s lead is entirely down to those aged over 50, with Shorten leading in each of the three younger cohorts. Abbott’s lead is at 43-36 among men and 38-36 among women. Qualitative findings are also featured, which you can read here.

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.

3,199 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition; Morgan: 51.5-48.5”

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  1. Mari

    I think Tism’s problem is that when he cries at night his Mummy leaves him there, thinking he’s becoming a big boy now but in fact he’s still in need of a bottle every 4 hours.

    Come on Mummy, you can’t expect him to sleep right through yet.

  2. You may well keep name calling and misrepresenting the facts.

    Under Rudd there was no “lottery” as you describe it.

    They all went.

    The mandatory sending of asylum seekers had started prior to the election of the Liberals. It was already happening!!

  3. Showbag Bill
    Bill Shockton
    Electric Bill
    Dillard
    Juliar

    and so it goes on.

    Only recently Sean was asking people not to use derogatory names when writing about Abbott.

    Sean – Hypocrisy is thy real name…

  4. Just to correct Sean at 3119. In the last four weeks of the Rudd government there were no illegal boat arrivals. Since Abbott took over there have been none. It is not illegal to seek asylum.

  5. Psyclaw..re Sean T
    __________
    Sean’s problem is that he wastes time on PB when he should be completing his Year 9 High School assignments
    As a former teacher of such wayward boys I can recognise the symptoms straight away ….I picked it first time
    sad really…,and distressing to we adults

  6. deblonay

    Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 8:04 pm | Permalink

    Psyclaw..re Sean T
    __________
    Sean’s problem is that he wastes time on PB when he should be completing his Year 9 High School assignments
    As a former teacher of such wayward boys I can recognise the symptoms straight away ….I picked it first time
    sad really…,and distressing to we adults
    ===============================================

    Year 9 – and he’s 20 years old

  7. Loaded up the new Firefox addon – Lightbeam which lets you see who is tracking your browsing.

    SMH is by far the worst -about 25 different third party trackers, but I am not sure how that works as those pages are in privacy mode. Also I am running “Do not Track” stuff.

    Crikey, ie PB has about 6 third party trackers including the one that plonks our gravatars next to our posts.

    We had pizza tonight from the corner pizza bloke and I used the web to get his phone number and check the menu etc.

    He is the only mob not tracking me.

    If interested – the Firefox addon info is here –

    http://mashable.com/2013/10/25/mozilla-lightbeam/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link

    Scroll down a bit and click on the blue word “Lightbeam”.

    It loads etc straight forward then click on “Tools” on your browser at the top then “Switch to Lightbeam Tab” in the menu.

    It gives you a new tab to look at who is tracking you.

    Various options from there.

  8. [The real test of the boat policy will be when we leave Afghanistan.]

    Yep mb. The Taliban will provide an almighty push factor when they swoop back into Afghanistan. We might even see Karzai on a boat.

  9. ruawake@3162


    dave

    Tracking cookies are so 2013, look up AdID.

    Ta Ru. Very interesting.

    [ Google will try to connect your AdID to your real ID through the use of its various products, like Gmail or Google Plus. ]

    Why would one give a them ‘real ID’ to start with?

    I don’t, purely for privacy reasons and its very easy to step around them. Location on phones and tablets another matter if you want to use maps fully etc, but privacy measures are still available.

  10. Hi all,

    Busy day at the coalface, so to speak.

    Still reeling from Abbott branding carbon pricing as a socialism masquerading as environmentalism.

    The Abbott dinner party is getting a good run on Carlton’s twitter

    https://twitter.com/MikeCarlton01

    With the web browser issues.

    We really need some way of not letting people see where you go, what you say or think on the web.

    !00% cure – pull the plug?

  11. A month before the election you couldn’t get a boat report from STisme even if you begged for one.
    Since the election, the Stisme boats report has grown in leaps and bounds.

  12. [psyclaw
    Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 7:41 pm | PERMALINK
    #3136

    I see Tism (amongst other examples) doesn’t have a clue how the East Timor option evoved and folded.]

    How did it unfold then?

    Tell us….

  13. Name-calling is something that any remotely intelligent person grows out of long before they reach adolescence. But since that isn’t you, you could at least try and work out something that makes a tiny modicum of sense.

  14. I feel sure this has been posted up somewhere today. For those who have contributed toward the climate Council I think we should feel confident. Prof. Steffen makes a lot of sense without resorting to politicking.

    We’d like to see a debate in this country that gets beyond these futile arguments about the science, which have been settled for decades in the scientific literature, and get on with the real debate about what is really the best way forward with dealing with the problem

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-debate-must-stick-to-the-science-professor-20131025-2w76n.html#ixzz2ioxzgSBr

  15. So I see Tony Abbott claiming victory over boats and banging on Carbon “Tax”.

    Nothing about budget emergency, or anything like that.

  16. [AussieAchmed
    Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 9:00 pm | PERMALINK
    Graphs of extreme events

    :large]

    Do you have a source more robust than “Munich re” by any chance?

  17. [LABOR’S track record in government managing the economy is of over-promising and under-delivering. For example, ahead of the 2010 election, then-treasurer Wayne Swan said he would produce a $4 billion surplus in 2012-13, saying it would be delivered “come hell or high water”. Instead, the 2012-13 deficit was $18bn.

    The lesson for the Coalition is not to make the same mistake.

    This is why when the Coalition hands down its first mid-year economic and fiscal outlook statement before Christmas, pessimism will dominate, giving Joe Hockey the chance to surprise the public on the upside if outcomes exceed expectations.

    – See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/coalition-should-learn-lessons-of-swans-mistakes/story-fn53lw5p-1226747044896#sthash.K7gg7Xgn.dpuf ]

    Sure, but a gloomy first coalition budget was always going to take place regardless of Labor’s mis-messaging in government.

    Rest assured however, that by Hockey’s third budget, a pre-election budget, the news will be considerably much more brighter. Unless you look at the sure-fire untold collateral damage along the way.

  18. @Mod Lib/3174

    lol.

    Hypocrisy…. Coming from a person that supports the party that said it. EARLIER this year – During budget reply…

    Then gets in Goverment, borrows $250 billion straight up.

  19. mikeh:

    I got that email the other day and got very angry. Here we are in 2013 for heavens sake STILL trying to have a debate about the best way to abate carbon emissions and transition to alternative energy sources.

    Australia already has a pretty effective measure in place to achieve this, by any indication. As far as I’m concerned the matter, scientific reality of AGW, best methods to achieve etc, has already been well and truly settled.

  20. Thirdborn

    According to Crank – no problems at Duntroon, then, now and in the future.

    Look out or he will come after you with his bayonet.

    Bastardisation was a myth.

  21. [confessions
    Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 9:16 pm | PERMALINK
    ……Australia already has a pretty effective measure in place to achieve this, by any indication. ]

    @ $5?

  22. confessions

    [Here we are in 2013 for heavens sake STILL trying to have a debate about the best way to abate carbon emissions and transition to alternative energy sources.]

    Totally with you there, & today we get a socialist conspiracy. Weird.

  23. [But Mr Abbott argues that “fire is a part of the Australian experience” and not linked to climate change.]

    Bushfire Tours, coming to a travel agent near you, and sponsored by the Australian Government.

  24. To say the boats have been ‘stopped’ is demonstrably incorrect.

    If there is a slackening off, against which criteria?

    To what extend this is due to the gunboat diplomacy?

    It can be argued that any success with boats is a direct result of the New Guinea solution – from Labor.

    Who can tell?

    Certainly Abbott badly needs to demonstrate success because his first 50 days have been pretty poor.

    It is hard to believe they are struggling so much so early.

    The conservative hacks have tried hard to keep their spirits up, but even they must be deflated by such a lacklustre performance – with worse to come.

  25. Mod Lib

    Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 9:10 pm | Permalink

    A budget emergency is something fixed once every year….why are you all getting so worked up about it over a few weeks?
    ————————————————-

    That’s why the Governments never bother with mid year budget reviews.

    If the Liberals are waiting until next year the budget “emergency” will become a reality.

    Hockey now has us paying $100 million a day in interest…in less than 50 days….at the rate he is increasing debt it will $600 million a day by the time of the next yearly budget

  26. Tricot@3186


    When Laurie Oakes starts to get at you, you know your side is in trouble.

    Yeah.. sorta.

    He is a tory. Has been all those years.

    Seriously – Is he going to change now?

    He is playing games.

    Telling abbott – put me on the drip – Or Else.

    Happy if The Oake proves me wRONg though.

  27. [Hockey now has us paying $100 million a day in interest]

    What has he spent in the last few weeks?

    We are still operating under the ALP budget until legislation is passed so any interest payments are for ALP mismanagement.

  28. Just playing around with a speech to text app on the tablet.

    reciting a bit of The Man from Snowy River etc..doesn’t go too bad

    Family are firmly of the belief I’ve lost my marbles. Again.

    But now…if that could all be linked up to PB ?

    🙂

  29. [
    Centre
    Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 11:31 am | Permalink

    Zoomster

    My point 😆

    Monkey is kicking butt. Shorten is already UNPOPULAR enough. I know Albo could fight at Monkey level. Shorten better pull his finger out!
    ]
    I have no doubt if it was Albo leading you would now be hanging shit on Albo. Your nothing more than a classic concert troll.

  30. [
    Mod Lib
    Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 9:36 pm | Permalink

    Hockey now has us paying $100 million a day in interest

    What has he spent in the last few weeks?

    We are still operating under the ALP budget until legislation is passed so any interest payments are for ALP mismanagement.
    ]
    Well he gave the RBA $8billion which treasury told him not to; for starters. That is costing 1 million a day, 7 million a week.

    Why would the clown not follow treasury advice?

  31. confessions@3183

    But Mr Abbott argues that “fire is a part of the Australian experience” and not linked to climate change.


    Bushfire Tours, coming to a travel agent near you, and sponsored by the Australian Government.

    Electricity price increases do not cause higher electricity bills! We’ve been getting electricity bills for years. getting electricity bills is all part of the “Home Ownership” experience. If we didn’t use electricity we wouldn’t get an electricity bill. That’s got nothing to do with electricity prices.

  32. [
    dave
    Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 6:48 pm | Permalink

    Ross Gittens, not holding back.

    Clear concise no nonsense –

    I doubt whether Abbott will break his promise to cut the company tax rate by 1.5 percentage points to 28.5 per cent from July 2015. But, of course, big businesses will get nothing from that. They’ll be paying the new 1.5 per cent levy on big company profits to help finance Abbott’s more generous paid parental leave scheme

    ….
    …Equally remarkable was the rest of business’s inability to see it was they who were being ripped off by the miners, not some hated Labor government. It never crossed their tiny minds that the budget isn’t a bottomless pit or a magic pudding; that if the miners get in first, there’s not much left for everyone else. It’s called opportunity cost.

    ….

    Abbott’s abolition of the mining tax is the last nail in the coffin of the case for a lower company tax rate.

    http://www.smh.com.au/business/miners-pinch-company-taxcut-kitty-20131013-2vgny.html#ixzz2ioMs2gYd

    ]
    I have concluded the age has finally decided there is no future trying to be right wing nutters. I started a digital subscription last Friday.

    Sacking Mark Baker would be a bonus, but you can’t have it all.

  33. Mod Lib

    Posted Saturday, October 26, 2013 at 9:36 pm | Permalink

    Hockey now has us paying $100 million a day in interest

    What has he spent in the last few weeks?

    We are still operating under the ALP budget until legislation is passed so any interest payments are for ALP mismanagement.
    ———————————————–

    $8.8 billion to the RBA is a start

    If there was a real budget ’emergency’ there is nothing stopping Hockey doing a mini budget.

    With no mini budget the debt now belongs the Liberals.

  34. Tones and Peta have been thinking about the first Question Time they will have to face.

    So, in light of the overwhelming success they had with their most recent soiree with all their media mates, they have decided to invite Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek to another one, when Tones can practice his answers with Peta prompting him from another room via his ear-piece. Bronny Bishop is also invited to practice her Speaker skills.

    However, the technology soon lets them down. Sing along in sympathy with Tones’ lament to Peta, that she can come to his assistance by renewing the connection and continue to play the role of Her Master’s Voice. It is to the supplicant airs of the Beach Boys’ classic, “Help me, Rhonda”.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81BjS3k_FZ8

    :- )
    Well since I got my ear-piece
    I’ve had brainwaves comin’ outta my head
    Like how to traipse around
    And ensure my expenses get paid
    :- )
    Well, Peta you’ve done so fine (done so fine)
    But I’ve come a cropper this time
    Can you help me Peta
    Help me get this contraption to work
    :- )
    Help me Peta
    Help, help me Peta
    (x 6)
    Help me Peta yeah
    The friggin’ thing won’t start!
    :- )
    Bronny calls us to order
    And the first question gives me a shock
    Electric Bill hones in on how Joe’s borrowing
    Will send us into hock
    :- )
    Then Transformer Tanya
    Causes me a whole heap of added strife
    Asks why Don Randall went all the way to Cairns
    When he couldda used skype
    :- )
    Well, Peta they poked my eye (poked my eye)
    They make me wanna break down and cry
    You gotta help me Peta
    I haven’t got a flamin’ clue
    :- )
    Help me Peta
    Help, help me Peta
    (x 6)
    Help me Peta yeah
    The friggin’ thing won’t start!

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