Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

A move in Labor’s favour in Essential Research this week, but further questions find support for a tougher regime on disability support and the government’s handling of boat arrivals.

The only new federal polling result we look to be getting this week, the regularly fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research, has Labor up a point on two-party preferred to lead 53-47, as the bad result which saw them drop two points a fortnight ago washes out of the system. On the primary vote, Labor is up two to 40% and the Coalition down one to 39%, with the Greens and Palmer United steady on 9% and 6%. We also have Essential’s monthly leader approval ratings, which have Tony Abbott down one on approval to 34% and steady on disapproval at 58%, Bill Shorten down two to 36% and down one to 39%, and Shorten’s lead as preferred prime minister shifting from 40-36 to 37-34. Other questions find approval of the government’s handling of boat arrivals up two since March to 41% and disapproval down three to 35%, with 27% thinking the government too tough, 18% too soft, and 36% “taking the right approach”. Another result suggests paring back the disability support pension to be a relatively popular cost-cutting measure, with 46% supporting recent recommendations to that effect and 37% opposed.

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.

941 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. Thanks poroti

    I find it truly astonishing that Abbott would come out with such sycophantic crap to the leader of a nation which has never truly acknowledged or apologised for its horrendous war crimes. The Chinese have every right to be appalled at such insensitive behaviour.

  2. [Unit 731. Comfort women. Nanking. Pearl Harbor. A fucking alliance with Nazi Germany?! Yeah. Skill and honour in spades.]

    Abbott was very specifically referring to the submariners in Sydney Harbour, so I suggest this sort of thing is a mite overblown.

  3. I heard that the next Direct Action Plan is targeting crime. Paying criminals not to commit crimes, the more you don’t commit the more Abbott will pay you

  4. William

    Perhaps while we are admiring the skills of the submariners we might also reflect on what carnage might have happened if the people who sent them had managed to complete their attempted invasion. Whichever way you look at it Abbott has made a complete idiot of himself – again.

  5. First we had Pig Iron Bob, and now we have Haematite Tony.

    The sting in that Xinhua article about Abbott’s speech was the last two sentences:

    [The attack by Xinhua is unprecedented from a nation that rarely ventures publicly into the internal affairs of another country.

    Such is the level of feeling in Beijing against Japan that it approved a ferocious written attack that would never be tolerated inside China itself. ]

    And even more telling is that it was on the News.com web site.

  6. Abe and his old militaristic mates
    ________________
    In a long line of fairly detestable Japanese leaders Abe is closer to the old militaristic crew than anyone else

    His infamous visits to the Yasukuni shrine where the ashes of the war criminals executed after 1945 are kept, says a great deal about his views
    Lately there are moves to revoke the the apology to the comfort women passed some time ago in the Jap Parliament
    Let’s sees how he responds to that ?
    Like them all he cannot be trusted behind that screen they always operate behind,and in a way little has changed

    Hugh White and Malsolm Fraser have both spoken recently on the folly of our military treaty with the Japs and the way in which their attitudes may causea a major clash with China in which we would be involved on the side of the Japs…there’s an irony

    Odd in the 100th anniversary of WW11 that we are involved in such dangerous treaties

    The Japs should tread very carefully with China which I suspect whould relish the chance to teach them a very harsh lesson,,,and who would go to their aid then ?…and how many would welcom seeing them get such a lesson

    Some years ago my wife and I did a tour of Japan,and found it interesating and well run…however nowhere did I see anything refering to WW2 ,except at Hiroshima…where the event is presented as a stand-alone…no reference to any of the causes that led to that event…and our guide when I questoned her had no knowledge of such events as Pearl Harbour or the Burma Railway or the Rape of Nanking…so cleverly have the political class kept people unwaware of these events

    By contrast in Germnay one is always aware of the locals knowledge of events in WW2

  7. I am certainly glad that Tom Uren wasn’t around anymore to hear that speech. Or Weary Dunlop, or any of the thousands of Australian service men and women – soldiers, nurses, civilians – who died for Japanese “honour”.

  8. Bushfire Bill@914

    I am certainly glad that Tom Uren wasn’t around anymore to hear that speech. Or Weary Dunlop, or any of the thousands of Australian service men and women – soldiers, nurses, civilians – who died for Japanese “honour”.

    I had not heard Tom Uren had died and could find no reference to it with a quick google.

    It seems your comment inferring his death my be a trifle exaggerated.

    He is 93 now and it is a while since I recall hearing anything from him. But if he is up to it, I sure would like to see him comment on this latest Abbott idiocy.

  9. Bemused, I stand corrected on my mistake about Tom Uren.

    When you think about it, it’s a miracle he survived past 1942.

  10. Bushfire Bill@916

    Bemused, I stand corrected on my mistake about Tom Uren.

    When you think about it, it’s a miracle he survived past 1942.

    Yes indeed, but it seems many who survived privations and worse during the war went on to live long and productive lives.

    I have wondered if it has anything to do with experiments about reduced calorie diets leading to longer life.

  11. deblonay@913

    Abe and his old militaristic mates
    ________________

    Odd in the 100th anniversary of WW11 that we are involved in such dangerous treaties

    Must be in a ‘correcting mood’ tonight.

    That would be WWI.

  12. Boerwar @ 832

    Agree. Can see now why labor did not even come close to a surplus whilst in Govt. Poor old Swannie never had a chance. The proposed fuel excise increase is one example.

    Not sure how they counter the perception of “poor economic managers” if they keep going the way they are. Abbott will have a field day closer to the next election.

  13. The Japanese ruling circles think they’ve gotten away with it.

    They’re promoting their war efforts and even celebrating them.

    Idiot sycophants like Abbott are at the end of a very long line of crawlers and bum lickers who think “the oriental” is a fool for flattery and can be best handled by kow-towing to them obsequiously.

    Abbott’s family studiously avoided participation in any of the nasty bits of WW-2, and so may have little direct family involvement in the horrors of that time.
    But real soldiers, airmen, sailors and ancillary services, as well as civilians copped the notion of Japanese honour – an “honour” that condemned thousands to a slow death – simply for surrendering… or at least that’s the official explanation. It was probably just sheer exploitation.

    We can have cordial relations with Japan without Abbott-type revisionism, where murder and torture are euphemistically passed off as something we “didn’t like”, and the systematic slaughter of millions is redefined as “honour”.

    I hadn’t heard Abbott’s speech much beyond the sound grabs on the radio and TV – something about “my friend Shinzo” – but after reading more about it tonight, it’s just another example of Abbott’s blundering club-footedness when it comes to diplomacy and his overweening propensity to call anyone he passes by his “best friend”.

    People notice a routine and insincere flatterer. They notice a liar. They notice a sociopath who does not seem to care what damage he causes in pursuit of his own self-edification.

    Pretty soon his lies, flattery and promises fall on deaf ears. His insincerity comes to define him and any country unlucky enough to have him and his gang at its head.

    He is the absolute worst person to have as a Prime Minister, perhaps the worst ever Prime Minister as well. A lout and a braggart, someone who seeks to tear others down to make himself look tall is never a good choice for a leader.

    Abbott has never grown up. He’s a thug, a bully and a shameless toady. He wasn’t even an Australian citizen until he was in his 20s, I hear. He has no right to forgive, or even half-forgive Japanese atrocities, to euphemize them away as things we “didn’t like” perpetrated under a system of perverted,murderous “honour”.

    The Chinese are upset. They can see how he two-times them and just about anyone who crosses his path. The list is long of those he has betrayed and then cast aside.

    Lambie was right: a political psychopath.

  14. Wow. A delayed reaction to last night’s speech. As a whole for Abbott it was not too bad.
    I do understand the outrage and agree to a large extent.

    I much preferred Bill Shorten’s speech. He showed how you do it.

  15. [812
    confessions

    “We admired the skill and the sense of honour that they brought to their task although we disagreed with what they did.”]

    This almost defies belief. These remarks are profoundly misplaced and betray either an alarming ignorance or an even more troubling willingness to deceive himself and his audience.

  16. “@JulianBurnside: Big question: is it acceptable for Scott Morrison to keep us in the dark as he toys with Australia’s international reputation?”

  17. [874
    Greensborough Growler

    Boerwar,

    You are the one with the fixation on this train (it’s at least three or four mentions today). So how about you stick your strawman where the House of the Rising Sun does not shine. At least have the honesty to own your pathetic obsession instead of passing it off to me who has never seen it, has never visited it and basically doesn’t care about it.

    The Japanese are a great friend to Australia these days and most Australians recognise this.

    You should learn to deal with reality.]

    Both Japan and China have been friends of Australia. Abe has now succeeded in getting to Abbott to choose between Tokyo and Beijing. Worse than that, he’s actually induced Abbott into flattering Japan by lying about their past, especially their past in North Asia.

    boerwar is basically right on this. Japan is making a show of engaging us in a military alliance that has one-way benefits in favour of Japan. There is almost nothing in this for Australia, and to the extent there may be gains they come at the expense of our relations with China.

    This recent departure in our foreign relations, so quickly embraced by Abbott, bears all his usual hallmarks. It is impetuous, ill-considered and ill-argued; and it has been grasped for political and ideological reasons rather than for real reasons of national interest and strategic gain.

    Implicitly, Abbott has signed us up for something we cannot deliver (military force) in the pursuit of something that is not in our interest (Japanese military revival) and which may earn us nothing but the disdain of our most important economic partner, China.

  18. I have little doubt Abbott will be just as shameless in toadying up to the next Chinese dignitary he comes across, so I wouldn’t be overbothered about his obsequious attitude to Mr. Abe. The Chinese will get over whatever diplomatic irritation they’re feigning right now.

  19. Tony Windsor ‏@TonyHWindsor 2m

    Mantra of the “right”once was all new Australians should respect the history of land they have chosen . TA is a relatively new Australian

    lol.

  20. Much as I think well of Tanya Plibersek, she failed to convince me about anything to do with Labor’s other than it is and maybe a yet to be developed policy on asylum seekers or suicidal mothers.

    Labor is absolutely cleft and nowhere to go on this.

  21. [People notice a routine and insincere flatterer. They notice a liar. They notice a sociopath who does not seem to care what damage he causes in pursuit of his own self-edification.]

    A couple of years ago I started referring to Abbott as a borderline sociopath. Lots of people thought that was over the top, but the evidence is there. Especially when you see the liar that seems to have no sense of the moral dimension of lying, only the personal ramifications.

    I wonder how long its going to take people to overcome their shyness and reluctance on this issue and see Abbott for what he is?

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