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”

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  1. More pledging:
    http://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/2013-tony-abbott

    I make this pledge to you the Australian people.

    I will govern for all Australians.

    I want to lift everyone’s standard of living.

    I want to see wages and benefits rise in line with a growing economy.

    I want to see our hospitals and schools improving as we invest the proceeds of a well-run economy into the things that really count.

    I won’t let you down.

    This is my pledge to you.

    Should I stop posting or do I continue?

  2. mikehilliard

    What an ornament to Australia Tony has been. He has gone global viral as “The misogynist guy” after JG’s speech and now he goes viral global as The Creep. Multiple virals. What an effort.

  3. poroti

    [You snuck in just in time to beat the $7 doctor tax]

    No way, I’d prefer to pay my. Cheque is in the mail & that’s an Abbott promise. 😉

  4. The purpose of this budget is to ambush us with the start of a Thatcherite revolution, involving in due course dismantling Medicare, running hospitals and educational institutions as businesses (privatised where possible) and rationing health services and education according to ability to pay. In due course social security, including especially single parent support and unemployment benefits, but also aged and disability pensions, will be repaced by low paid work (well below the current minimum wage) and prisons. This will be further enabled in due course by draconian industrial relations laws.

    Most of this Fedeal Government, especially Hockey, are Thatcherites. Of course the Rural Socialists are’t but they hardly matter. And of course the Liberal Party’s main backers crave a Thatcherite revolution. They want to make lots of money, not pay tax, pay their workers as little as possible and not be regulated.

    Abbott is, he’s not a Thatcherite, more a weathervane. He’s heading the revolution, but he’s just a fugurehead. If he proves too stupid or accident prone the Liberal’s bankrollers will have him replaced.

  5. [Four bacteria of the apocalypse
    Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is growing. Existing drugs for TB (pictured, left) cure only about half of those treated for MDR-TB. Only one new drug has been introduced in 40 years, despite global efforts.

    MRSA – or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus – has been joined by a staph that resists another last-resort drug, vancomycin. Livestock reared using antibiotics can develop MRSA infections. Such strains can spread among humans, as shown by recent human cases in Denmark even though it has banned antibiotic growth-promoters in livestock.

    CRE – or carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae – is a group of gut bacteria that resists carbapenems – antibiotics of last resort. One set of CRE genes was first seen in India in 2009 and has since been found around the world. The bacteria can cause urinary tract infections, and the resistant strain is making this widespread ailment untreatable.

    Gonorrhoea – a sexual infection also known as “the clap” – is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Untreatable cases have emerged.]

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25599-superbug-crisis-global-push-to-save-antibiotics-begins.html#.U3xyV_mSwbA

  6. Guys, before you assume that this winking business will hurt Abbott’s image out in voterland, you should remember how “no means no” and “sex appeal” both seemed to boost his standing.

  7. Holy moly what in hell has happened today? Abbott winking sleazily at the prospect of speaking to a sex line caller, Hockey all over the shop AGAIN, and fancy arsed university scholarships for Abbott’s daughter plucked out of thin air and donated with no mention of it in the PM’s register of declared interests?

    Rather than the adults being in charge, we got Teen Boy Town instead. And what in the name of all that is control freakery has happened to that tight as all get-out media control that Team Abbott had in opposition? We’re back to Tony Abbott circa 2010. Any day now I’m expecting to see him break out the budgie smugglers and start scaring the crap out of kids.

  8. A Labor MP should be given the job of mentioning Abbott’s wink and smirk and suggesting that he is the leader of the Bunga Bunga Party in Australia. Compare him directly with Berlusconi’s sleeze.

  9. confessions

    Its what happens when you have got a product to sell you know punters are rejecting in droves.

    You lose confidence and discipline and make mistakes

  10. I have no recollection of Abbott’s ‘no means no’ remark about the former PM boosting his standing. IIRC he was roundly criticised for it, particularly by women, and came off looking like a total douchebag.

  11. [Dee
    Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 7:08 pm | PERMALINK
    Citizen

    If not you, I apologise!

    The other night Rabbott said the economy was stuffed, we heard ‘economy’, if you, you typed ‘budget’.

    Either way, doesn’t matter but we’ve heard no more about it.]

    That would have been me. I thought it I heard ‘budget’ but of course my memory could have been playing tricks. As you say, we’ve heard no more on that subject.

  12. @itsthevibe/1108

    Not when he’s making fun of people in the budget.

    The last one was not in during or after budget night.

  13. “As I was speaking we had some people – I think they were Young Libs – came up and expressed the view that only the rich should be able to go to university, but it was pretty clear that the rally didn’t agree with them.”

    Sounds like the Young Lib’s all right.

    Coming from an incredibly privileged background in one of the top private schools in the country I see this sort of sentiment expressed by my ex-school colleagues all the time.

    They hide behind weasel terms such as ‘laissez-faire capitalist’ and ‘equal opportunity not equal outcomes’, but their message is plain as day: we deserve to be here, and all those others don’t.

    My FB wall has been a depressing read ever since budget day.

  14. guytaur:

    Since being elected they have totally lost their ability to ‘cut through’ so to speak.

    At one point I thought Morrison may have been doing okay, but then he offers up the idiocy that is Australian Border Force for a govt agency.

  15. Kohler just pointing out that real wages are falling and that entitlements are as well.

    No wonder consumer confidence is the pits.

  16. “we had a fire, and the budget is the fire brigade, and sometimes it knoscks over a few fences”

    Like Clive: its just a fairy tale. Doing far more harm than good by the looks of today’s consumer confidence.

    I mean seriously: compare Rudd in 2008 to these bozos. Theyll single-handedly tip us into recession by talking the economy down.

    These people are HOPELESS economic managers. We need to get that message out.

  17. confessions

    The Yes Minister team would have a field day with this mob.

    Thats how bad they are turning out to be. They are making Jim Hacker look the definition of competence and excellence

  18. guytaur
    Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 7:29 pm | Permalink
    This could mean some big changes if its proven to be true.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2634045/Is-paedophilia-illness-Brains-wired-differently-offenders-study-claims.html

    It’s a claim that’s been around for yonks guy.
    There’s a stack of ‘experts’ who don’t want to admit that we have a social problem with male aggression and who want to individualize and pathologize a public problem so that can make money with therapy.
    I’ve met a couple of the proponents of this stuff, they ‘belong to the look and ye shall find’ brigade
    File appropriately.

  19. [
    Since being elected they have totally lost their ability to ‘cut through’ so to speak.
    ]

    confessions

    Abbott is “cutting through” alright, that wink is all over the news. He’s just not getting the right message out. lol

  20. [itsthevibe
    Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 7:35 pm | PERMALINK
    Guys, before you assume that this winking business will hurt Abbott’s image out in voterland, you should remember how “no means no” and “sex appeal” both seemed to boost his standing.]

    The fact that the object of Abbott’s wink was a 67 year old very sick pensioner might turn people off.

  21. [1000
    victoria

    You know things are crook when even sky news commentators reckon the changes to higher education should have been put to the electorate sooner. Pat karavelas news ltd journo believes the changes to higher education is a real sleeper and will end up being a bigger issue for the govt than even the medicare co payment. I agree. We are talking about a huge sea change to the way universities operate. It will cross the Labor Liberal divide. 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.]

    I agree victoria. Among my own children, nieces, nephews and their partners, the changes to HELP loan terms will cost nearly $30,000 per year. And those who follow them, who have not yet completed school, will have to make up their minds whether they want to take the risk…unless of course the measures are defeated, which it seems they will be.

  22. poroti:

    I recall vividly the no means no comment. What I have no recollection of is that in making it his standing with voters improved, as was originally asserted.

  23. Just remember “wages explosion” “bad unions” “workplace flexibility” “ALP mess” “cut penalty rates” “cut minimum wage” “kick people off welfare”

    The LNP have all the answers dontcha know?

  24. No Tax Cuts Excuses ‏@geeksrulz 53m

    Bazza O’Fazza resigns over failure to declare a $3,000 bottle of wine. Abbott says $60,000 benefit from a donor of no concern to voters.

    Andrew W. Elder ‏@awelder Protected Tweets 1h

    Fancy working in the PM’s office and having to come up with bullshit excuses for bad policy and dumb errors every day

  25. madcyril:

    Did he forget that vision was being captured? It’s just bizarre. And to try to make the analogy of the budget being akin to fighting a bushfire, when the narrative about the budget is low income households being screwed over in favour or rich bastards? I mean, WTF?

  26. Dutton caught out on 7:30 apparently

    “@4Qpolies: ABC 7.30. LNP don’t just Lie they don’t answer Direct Questions and Blame everything on JG. She must Still be Prime Minister!”

  27. “@abc730: “Our intention was to strengthen Medicare… (so) more people can bulk bill,” says @PeterDutton_MP on the budget. #abc730”

  28. confessions

    Sorry about that. I imagine that any supposed rise in popularity could only have occurred amongst the Parrot’s and Hadley demographic. Faithfully reported in The Tonygraph of course.

  29. [1036
    citizen

    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]

    It’s time for a new nickname for Abbott…

    I think he should be called Ooh-La-La

  30. Jimmyhaz@1116


    Coming from an incredibly privileged background in one of the top private schools in the country I see this sort of sentiment expressed by my ex-school colleagues all the time.

    Good on you Jimmyhaz!

    I admire people like you who have thought about things and formed your convictions contrary to your background.

  31. guytaur@1137

    “@abc730: “Our intention was to strengthen Medicare… (so) more people can bulk bill,” says @PeterDutton_MP on the budget. #abc730”

    The operation was a success … but the patient died!

  32. [Guys, before you assume that this winking business will hurt Abbott’s image out in voterland, you should remember how “no means no” and “sex appeal” both seemed to boost his standing.]

    They probably did with a certain group of voters.

  33. [“@abc730: “Our intention was to strengthen Medicare… (so) more people can bulk bill,” says @PeterDutton_MP on the budget. #abc730”]

    That is some chutzpah. Except it’s Dutton, so I suspect it’s just a failure to understand the policy implications of the GP Tax.

  34. STEVE777 – The Torygraph front page was the most hopeless I’ve ever seen. You needed to be an economist to understand it. Maybe Col Allan has gone back to New York.

  35. poroti:

    From memory the comments section at PB blew up at the no means no crap. If anything it would’ve turned a lot of women off, esp given he was remarking about Australia’s first woman PM.

  36. Zoidlord 1103

    Funny timing that you should mention that particular set of Abbott lies. They are contradicted by the official economic forecast contained within his own budget (paper no.1).

    Despite all the personal pain in the budget, what is the official estimate of the economic gain in return? Answer: rising unemployment, below trend GDP growth and flat eage growth, with no increase in employment participation. See:
    [The unemployment rate is forecast to continue to edge higher, settling around 6¼ per cent, consistent with the outlook for real GDP growth. ]
    http://www.budget.gov.au/2014-15/content/bp1/html/bp1_bst2-01.htm

    This also gives the lie to the claim that those youth denied assistance will be able to work. The budget clearly shows there is not expected to be any increase in jobs for them to fill. Korey Gunnis was right – its official.

    No wonder business and consumer confidence is down.

  37. “@abc730: “Our intention was to strengthen Medicare… (so) more people can bulk bill,” says @PeterDutton_MP on the budget. #abc730”

    Does Peter Dutton think 7:30 viewers are stupid? In the unlikely event that he believes this crap he’s a complete imbecile. More likely, he’s lying.

  38. The fire brigade analogy: you have a small fire in the kitchen, you call the fire brigade who come and demolish your house and put up a shiny new block of units that you can’t afford to live in.

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