Essential Research: 51-49 to Coalition

The ever-reliable Essential Research still has the Coalition with its nose in front on two-party preferred, but down two points on the primary vote. However, expectations for the future of the economy and various other indicators paint a very worrying picture for the government.

Crikey reports that Essential Research, which looks like the only poll we’re getting this week, is once again unchanged on two-party preferred, with the Coalition leading 51-49. However, both parties are down on the primary vote, the Coalition by two points to 43% and Labor by one point to 37%, while the Greens are up one to 9% and the Palmer United Party is steady on 4%. It should be noted that this result compares a two-week average with last week’s debut figures derived from one week of polling only, so a two-point primary vote change from this notoriously stable series is less striking than it would be normally. Also featured are results on asylum seeker policy (broadly favourable to the government) and climate change (51% caused by human activity, 39% part of a normal fluctuation), on which more shortly.

UPDATE: Full Essential report here. Another figure to emerge is a deterioration in perceptions of the state of the economy, with the total good rating down six points since immediately after the election to 34% and poor up one to 26%. Thirty-eight per cent now believe it heading in the right direction, down six, against 33% for the wrong direction, up seven. Respondents were asked whether things would get better or worse under the Coalition government across a range of measures, with remarkable results – large majorities of respondents expecting pretty much everything to get worse, with the singular exception of company profits. The figures are worse across the board for the government than immediately after the election, most remarkably so in relation to unemployment (from a net rating of minus 10% to minus 23%) and cost of living (minus 13% to minus 35%).

On asylum seekers, only 30% believe most are genuine refugees against 47% who believe most are not, and 22% believe the government too tough versus 25% for too soft and 35% for taking the right approach. Fifty-two per cent think recent extreme temperatures likely to be related to climate change, versus 34% who think otherwise.

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.

1,416 comments on “Essential Research: 51-49 to Coalition”

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  1. LSL

    “I was thinking more that we would utterly destroy their navy and air force and then bomb their infrastructure until they cried for mercy.”

    As long as you didn’t have to do any fighting though, right?

  5. So the Indonesians would fight a war for the right to keep transmitting third country illegals through their country into Australia ?

  6. I know you bludgers are too intent on hating the present Australian government to look at things logically, but I will just mention that rather than sending its warships down to potentially clash with Australia’s, all Indonesia needs to do to resolve this entire situation is to stop the people smuggling trade which they allow to operate from their territory. It is by far the easiest option, but they refuse to do it.

  7. I just want to say, that I think advocating actual war should not be tolerated by people on this blog. I think the Idiotic war-mongerers should not be tolerated.

    Now you may be disappointed with me reverting to name-calling Display Name, but heck advocating the deaths of thousands of people to ‘prove a point’ deserves name calling.

    ESJ and LSL and stupid cowards.

  10. For goodness sake he, Lead Suite Lorry, is taking the proverbial.

    Ignore him.

    At least the other one was an illiterate idiot. This one appears to be literate.

  11. Leisure Suit Larry

    Posted Wednesday, January 22, 2014 at 8:00 pm | Permalink

    Some of you are living in the last century. We don’t want some sort of protracted ground war with Indonesia. We don’t want an invasion of their crappy islands.

    I was thinking more that we would utterly destroy their navy and air force and then bomb their infrastructure until they cried for mercy.
    =================================

    You are an oxygen thief.

  13. I’ll just ignore Edward St. John. Jingoistic people are just that and to be treated with the contempt they deserve, because it will always other people who go and die or are maimed for their beliefs.
    It’s difficult to know how this will end if Abbott and Morrison keep this up with Indonesia. Certainly, Indonesia have today indicated that placing ships and planes in position to repel “turn backs” with their expectation that the major threat is from Australia, is a very worrying development.
    We certainly don’t have “adults” in charge of the polity, we have dangerous and embarrassing idiots.
    How long before the electorate wakes up to this, I ask?

  15. Astrobleme, I am not some sort of forum police.

    I’ve already said my piece and done so in the belief – it may be mistaken and if so I’m sure I’ll be corrected – that William thinks this forum is better off both without such comments and if people say as much when they occur.

    The rest, if anything, is up to William.

  18. [How long before the electorate wakes up to this, I ask?]

    Ironic, isn’t it ?

    For all the noise that Tony and his merry crew have made over the past 6 years about stopping the boats, for all the dogwhistling and making the boats such an election issue for them, it is quite likely that it will be Boats that will sink this pathetic, incompetent Government.

  20. Edward StJohn,

    [I think it might be time to consider threatening in private bombing runs of illegal asylum camps in Indonesia so the message gets home to the smugglers and Jakarta that we aren’t going to cop this anymore.]

    Your mentor, St John says, “…God is love” (1 John 4:8).

    Not much love around tonight, is there?

  21. Wow, PB is a hoot tonight. The slower learners of the chimpanzee cage are in playing with the pretty blocks.
    Actually, I reckon there is nothing much above their brainstems. I have met dried flower arrangements with more nous.

  22. [The strong do what they will the weak do what they must. We are the former Indonesia is the later. Let’s drop the pretence Otherwise.]

    Oh goody, ESJ has finally come out of the closet and confirmed it is a complete and utter idiot whackjobby deserving of no respect whatsoever.

  24. The bludgers felt on strong ground mocking my testosterone-flavoured warmongering posts, but the potency of the truth I was telling in post 1156 has fixed them all up real good. I’m declaring victory.

  26. Just wait – we led the way here on poll bludger on the Dsp crackdown. This thing is going to worse before it get better with Indonesia. Look for an announcement on Sunday by DM.

  31. How big, or rather how small, is Sam Dastyari ? Flicked over to “Richo” on Sky and the camera angle makes him look like a midget. Tom thumb would look like a roid rager.

  33. EdWard St John and his militaristic nonsense
    _____________________
    His Bomb/Bomb/Bomb? stategy must be derived from this Israeli friends and their endless attacks on the defenceless Palestinians

    The Indonesians however are not a defenceless occupied people subjected to endless attacks as are the Palestinians…and they …well armed would soon have us in major conflict…and btw stop telling lies om this Blog as you did a few nights ago re Burma and my supposed comments about jews there
    I have NEVER commented on either topic…but you attacks on me are a familiar zionist tactic to invoke the horrors of the past as a defence against the endless Israeli attacks on the Palestinians..and the wish to silence pople who raise the issue
    You lies will not silence me…as you hope they might …and you ludicrous writings here re Indonesia…and your love for the Abbott gang will alienate most posters…but I think you are to stupid to see that

    Keep it up and nobody will give your writings much thought……

    and stop telling lies about me on this site

  36. LSL

    [all Indonesia needs to do to resolve this entire situation is to stop the people smuggling trade which they allow to operate from their territory.]

    It’s far from clear why they should, in effect, imprison non-nationals on their territory just to suit the sensibilities of reactionaries on Australia’s urban fringes.

  38. FB @ 1055…

    [And you can do the last by imprisoning someone until such time as they are no longer considered an unacceptable risk to others.]

    But of course, with a few exceptions only, we do not lock people up on the off-chance that they might offend. We lock people up when it’s been proven they have already offended. If that seems too generous to the violent criminal, it is still a protection for all of us who rely on the law for protection from arbitrary arrest.

    [Punishment is …not compensation and can’t be. It’s a fantasy within the culture that the imposition of a custodial sentence signifies solidarity with a victim of crime and that the length of the sentence amounts to the community evaluation of the loss suffered by the surviving victims.]

    Of course. Punishment is not reparation, compensation, restitution or redemption. It is none of these things or any of their cousins. But it is a token – sometimes a weighty token – of a sort. Perhaps it is the obverse of loss. Perhaps it is where depravity and conscience attempt to reconcile with each other. These things are very complicated. Mostly, I think they stem from shame, guilt, fear and grief. This is a no-man’s land for most of us – a Heart of Darkness in our culture.

  39. [It’s far from clear why they should, in effect, imprison non-nationals on their territory just to suit the sensibilities of reactionaries on Australia’s urban fringes.]

    Fran this is low quality stuff you’re spouting here. I expected better from you.

  40. Fran Barlow

    Fran Maaaate the Indians were lucky that Corey Anderson ,he of the world’s fastest century, when going for the world’s fastest 50 was caught a couple of metres from the boundary 🙂 Was on 44 off 17 balls.

  41. briefly

    [Of course. Punishment is not reparation, compensation, restitution or redemption. It is none of these things or any of their cousins. But it is a token – sometimes a weighty token – of a sort. Perhaps it is the obverse of loss. Perhaps it is where depravity and conscience attempt to reconcile with each other. These things are very complicated. Mostly, I think they stem from shame, guilt, fear and grief. This is a no-man’s land for most of us – a Heart of Darkness in our culture.]

    As someone who is grieving the loss of a relative due to a vicious unprovoked attack, this is indeed a spot on observation.

  42. 1. No lies. Plenty of lies.
    2. No suprises. Dozens of excuses.
    3. No pathetic excuses. Dozens of pathetic excuses.
    4. More transparency. Less transparency.
    5. More accountability. Less accountability.
    6. You can trust Abbott. You can’t trust Abbott.
    7. Downward pressure on the COL. Cost of living is going up.
    8. 200,000 jobs per annum. Jobs are being destroyed.
    9. Surplus in real time. Surplus has disappeared over the horizon.
    10. Good relations with Indonesia.

    Running score for the Abbott Government: zero out of ten.

  44. [I’ll just ignore Edward St. John. Jingoistic people are just that and to be treated with the contempt they deserve, because it will always other people who go and die or are maimed for their beliefs.
    It’s difficult to know how this will end if Abbott and Morrison keep this up with Indonesia. Certainly, Indonesia have today indicated that placing ships and planes in position to repel “turn backs” with their expectation that the major threat is from Australia, is a very worrying development.
    We certainly don’t have “adults” in charge of the polity, we have dangerous and embarrassing idiots.
    How long before the electorate wakes up to this, I ask?

    by Harry “Snapper” Organs on Jan 22, 2014 at 8:10 pm]

    Hola HSO.

    People generally were no too keen on Abbott. It was just that people thought the other rotten apple was rottener. Abbott is now the only rotten apple in town, so his turn for the heave ho next. The polls have gone from 54/46 to 48/52. And that is before rising unemployment, a destroyed manufacturing sector, rising inflation rate, rising cost of living, falling value of the dollar etc, etc, etc really start biting. He’s a dead man walking.

  45. briefly

    [But of course, with a few exceptions only, we do not lock people up on the off-chance that they might offend.]

    I’m not proposing we start doing so. OTOH, once someone has offended, we should relate imprisonment very closely to prospective risk.

    And as felicitous as is your last paragraph, I’m unconvinced it actually makes a testable claim or offers a framework within which punishment can be ethically evaluated.

  46. victoria @1191….I’m so sorry to learn about your loss. My thoughts are certainly with you and your family. If there’s anything I might be able to do, please feel free to message me thru William.

  47. 8. 200,000 jobs per annum.

    The 12 month target went up to 230,000 with 30,000+ full time jobs lost last month

    and still the 50,000 to be lost when Ford< Holden and Toyota close

  49. Mari

    Thanks for the link to the reith story. I emailed Fairfax earlier in the week pointing out that their new columnist was not the man they should be using if they wanted any credibility. I will do each week after his column appears.,

  50. So obviously ESJ and LSL are reliving their glory days as members of the 101st Fighting Keyboards, who called so lustily and bravely for our young men and women to go fight, be maimed and die in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    And how well and how gloriously those two engagements worked out.

    I see that the next front in their exciting postcolonial adventure is the Dutch East Indies.

    ESJ’s and LSL’s courage and judgement know no bounds, and no beginning.

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