Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

This week’s Essential Research records a somewhat less allergic reaction to the budget than the other pollsters, and shows little change on voting intention.

Essential Research displays its trademark stability this week by failing to record the big shift evident from the other pollsters, with two-party preferred steady at 52-48 and Labor up only one point on the primary vote to 40%, with the Coalition steady on 40%, the Greens down one to 8% and Palmer United steady on 5%. The results on the budget are also somewhat less spectacular than those seen elsewhere, with 30% approval and 52% disapproval, and 40% deeming it good for the economy overall against 32% for bad – quite a bit different from the 39% and 48% registered by Newspoll. The budget was deemed bad for working people by 59% and good by 14%; bad for those on low incomes by 66% and good by 11%; bad for families by 62% and good by 11%; bad for older Australians by 66% and good by 10%; bad for younger Australians by 55% and good by 16%; but good for people who well off by 45% and bad by 16%.

Response was also sought in relation to particular budget measures, of which the least popular was the raise in the pension age (61% opposition, 17% support), followed by deregulation of university fees (58% opposition, 17% support). Opinion was evenly balanced on making Newstart recipients wait six months (41% opposition, 39% support), while there was a net positive response to making graduates pay HELP loans more quickly (53% support, 23% opposition). Cuts to foreign aid had 64% supportive and 13% opposed, while those to the ABC had 27% supportive and 41% opposed. Fifty-six per cent believed there was a “budget emergency” against 32% who did not, but only 24% believed the budget addressed it, against 56% who did not.

The other relative latecomer to the budget poll party was yesterday’s fortnightly Morgan face-to-face plus SMS result, which was more in line with other polls in having Labor up 1.5% to 38.5%, the Coalition down 2.5% to 35%, the Greens steady on 12%, and Palmer up a point to 6.5%. Whereas Morgan polls usually combine two weekends of polling, this one was entirely from Saturday and Saturday, so all the responses are post-budget and the sample is somewhat smaller than usual. On two-party preferred, Labor’s lead was up from 53.5-46.5 to 56.5-43.5 on 2013 election preferences, and 55-45 to 57.5-42.5 on respondent-allocated 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.

1,395 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor”

Comments Page 21 of 28
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  2. It does not take a moment to dig up quotes from Abbott before the last election promising no new taxes.

    See, for example,

    ww.news.com.au/finance/economy/has-prime-minister-tony-abbott-broken-his-without-new-taxes-promise/story-fn84fgcm-1226899517162

    “What you’ll get under us are tax cuts without new taxes,”

  3. imacca and WWP

    [It is not possible for sea levels to rise…]

    [Ahhh, Rummel will be pleased!]

    I aim to please. 🙂

  7. [El Niño warming is organic warming. It’s good for the world and your family, just like all things organic.]

    Polio and malaria are also completely organic. That’s why we invented immunisation and insect repellent.

  8. What I haven’t been able to find is whether Abbott winked in response to other callers? If it’s true that this was the ‘signal’ to Faine to let the call continue, surely he would have done the same for other calls? Is there footage of the whole interview somewhere?

  9. [ Who wants their child to be hugely indebted for a degree that will not only cost more, but have higher interest rates attached to the loan. ]

    There are also the cuts to funding per student place that FORCE the Universities to either cut back classes/staff OR raise fees.

    Same mechanism with the $80B cuts to the states to get them to push for GST raise.

    Mean and Tricky is and oldie, but an appropriate goodie.

  10. Retweeted by Essential Media
    Ketan Joshi ‏@KetanJ0 3h

    .@EssentialVision’s latest polling looks at #Budget2014- I extracted the two Q’s on Env issues http://cf.datawrapper.de/Luls5/1/ pic.twitter.com/ZKfw58LTun

    Interesting, people would rather spend more money on Solar projects in local community than Green Army.

  11. [Jon faine the radio host]

    Ya reckon, Alan Pease doesn’t buy Abbott’s excuse, nor do I. It was to a staffer in my opinion.

  16. I assume boning Landcare will go down like a lead balloon in quite a few rural communities.

    But we get a Green army of sullen underpaid young people with no OH&S protections in its place! That’s bound to be a winner.

  20. citizen,

    so Abbott says the scholarship is above board. Should we take his word for that? Maybe if he signed a pledge or something….?

  21. Abbot and the wink makes the BBC:

    [First rule of politics: Don’t mock those who elect you.

    Second rule: Especially when you’re on camera.

    Third rule: Especially not grandmothers.

    Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott is not having a good week.

    Battered in the polls and facing street protests after a first budget that seems to have been badly misjudged, he’s now been caught on video laughing at an angry and distressed voter on a radio phone-in show.
    ]

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27498215

  22. Pretty sure, it was 60 minutes, years back that ran a story about the phone sex industry.

    They showed grannies knitting and crocheting whilst servicing their clients.

  25. 2 classic understatements from citizen’s link at #1021

    “…after a first budget that seems to have been badly misjudged,….”

    The wink, smirk and quick straight face:

    “It doesn’t look great.’

  26. I went down to the local Doctors surgery today, they have three doctors in the practice.
    On the front door was a notice “The $70 consultation fee for those with a pensioner concession card or a senior health card will not be charged yet as it has not been passed in parliament yet. We will let you know.”, even wit the $34 Medicare rebate that’s a lot of middies. I wonder how many Medical Practices in Australia have a similar sign on their front door.
    That and with and with the removal of the pension supplement $62.90 for singles and a combined $94.80 for couples. There are estimates that the average aged pensioner could be $2000 worse per annum. Since the pension supplement and the removal of pensioner concession cards and the senior health care cards will be embedded in the budget it looks like they will pass in the Senate . good news for those on this Bludgers who think the aged pensioners should be punished because a higher percentage of those 55 plus voted Libral “SHAME” ,as bad as your cronies Abbott and Hockey.
    I would like the budget rejected at the first reading in the Senate and sent back to the Lower House saying make it fairer and less devious. I will be writing to everyone I can think of to make this happen.

  27. Scholarship “awarded” to Frances.

    Who says it was awarded, i.e. given on merit after application?

    Not the Institute, they just say that is was “received”.

    Abbott’s office is claiming it was an award based on merit but can you believe them?

    I am afraid that the public need a little more evidence to accept that this is not a gift. Let us see the call for applications, advertised to all eligible students, and let us see some evidence of there being an application from Frances, and let us know how many other applicants there were.

  28. What the hell is News veryLtd going to do? Their hero is rapidly becoming a laughing stock, and alienating their readership by polishing the turd that is Abbott isn’t a great business model.

    Vilifying Shorten isn’t going to work – it just looks to desperate, and the hypocrisy is so obvious to anyone with half a brain.

    The problem for Abbott is that he’s got to go out and sell the pile of horseshit known as the budget, and the more he appears in public the more he makes a total arse of himself.

    It’s going to get to the stage where even Chris Ulhmann will have to give up on him.

  29. I am afraid that the public need a little more evidence to accept that this is not a gift.

    It’s an “on water” matter.

  34. Patrick B.

    [Recall in particular the “Tony, you’re not saying anything” moment. It still chills me to think that a person who can stand there paralysed by rage for that long with cameras rolling is the leader of our country.]

    Yep, I was naive enough to believe Australians would never elect a PM who would behave that bizarrely in front of a tv crew. After all, we’re not gullible like Americans who admire bullies, bulldusters and extremists. Why, even after Romney’s 47% hidden camera catastrophe, he soon was polling level with Obama because MSM applauded his trickery in first debate of “pivoting left” from major policies he’d spruiked all year. How egregriously silly I was not to grasp that whatever an expatriate-Australian media mogul decides is good for us holds more weight than what we could see and hear right in front of us.

    Now, Murdoch might go long with replacing Abbott and Hockey if the polls plummet to the brink of an abyss akin to the 2011 NSW Labor government’s record. Just as likely, however, he’ll reckon that our last Fed election proved there’s no limit to what his propaganda pros from the USA and UK can accomplish, especially if the Coalition shred the cross-media restrictions within next 18 months.

  35. On Channel 9 News, Sarah Hansen Young’s reaction immediately followed the Abbott wink slow-mo video: “What a creep!”

  36. The wink is going global. The Straits Times has published an article supplied by Agence France Press:

    [Abbott berated for winking after caller said she works on sex phone line
    PUBLISHED ON MAY 21, 2014 3:36 PM]

    http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/australianew-zealand/story/abbott-berated-winking-after-caller-said-she-works-sex-phone-li#sthash.zmBltgjr.dpuf%5D

    Time to send JBishop on mission to reassure other countries that Australia is not as crazy as its PM.

  37. I don’t think PUP are going to vote for anything that they think might advantage Murdoch.

    Unless the government do something very tricky indeed I can’t see any media reform getting up in this parliament.

  39. Abbott seems to have not read The Budget, he is making statements in direct opposition to the Budget Papers.

    I guess it is a lot to read for Tony, who seems to read nothing at all.

  40. El Niño warming is organic warming. It’s good for the world and your family, just like all things organic.

    Polio and malaria are also completely organic.

    So is strychnine.

  43. In line with the rest, Ch7 has the wink following coverage of the demonstrations. While police/demonstrators were shown, the coverage was fairly balanced.

    Another budget selling day wasted.

  45. Are you people mad? Abbott not reading the budget is what’s called “plausible deniability”. If he hasn’t read it he can’t be accused of lying about it can he?

  46. “@oliverlaughland: Whitehouse Institute say Frances Abbott was only the 2nd recipient of “Chairman’s Scholarship”, which is awarded “occasionally”. More soon…”

  50. Jackol,
    Do you know if the media restrictions are set in legislation, or are they of the genre, say, of cutting a deal with Cambodia to take the boat folks?

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