Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor

An uneventful weekly reading on voting intention from Essential Research, aside from a weak result for Palmer United, livened up a little by poor personal ratings for Joe Hockey.

The only federal poll for the week is the regular fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research, and it’s none too eventful: two-party preferred is steady at 51-49 after successive one-point shifts to the Coalition over the previous two weeks, from primary votes of 41% for the Coalition (steady), 39% for Labor (up one), 9% for the Greens (steady) and 4% for Palmer United (down one to its lowest level since April). Further questions:

• Joe Hockey’s net approval rating has plunged since the question was last posed in November, now at 35% approval (down 10%) and 44% disapproval (up 16%). He is nonetheless given a higher rating on trust to handle the economy in comparison with Chris Bowen, at 34% to 23%.

• The government’s plan to require 40 job applications a month from the unemployed has 44% approval and 48% disapproval, which is a poor result as these things go. As if to illustrate that point, 68% are in favour of the unemployed doing up to 25 hours community service a week, with 25% opposed.

• Most respondents would prefer that Federal Police sent to the MH17 crash site be armed, with 64-25 in favour. An unarmed option draws a slightly lower net approval of 51-38.

• Relationships with other countries are deemed to be equally excellent in the case of the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, less good but still strong for Japan, China and India, mediocre with Indonesia, and very poor indeed with Russia.

After a fallow period, I’m resuming my practice of appending these posts with preselection news. The first glimmers of movement have appeared for a federal election still two years away:

• Brad Norington of The Australian reports talk of Barry O’Farrell succeeding Philip Ruddock in his blue-ribbon northern Sydney of Berowra. In a recent interview with the Seven Network, O’Farrell responded to a question about federal political aspirations by saying it was “an option”.

• A nominee for the fraught Liberal state preselection for the Sydney seat of Riverstone, Yvonne Keane, is said by Sean Nicholls of the Sydney Morning Herald to be motivated by a desire to “gain some exposure before a possible tilt at Greenway at the 2016 election”. Greenway has twice stayed in Labor hands at the past two elections thanks in large part to the disastrous candidacy of Jaymes Diaz, whose family dynasty is a principal player in the Riverstone preselection.

Finally, a couple of links worth noting:

• The latest venture of the Poll Bludger’s benefactors at Private Media, The Mandarin, has two items of interest to election watchers – a report on the Australian Electoral Commission’s lack of enthusiasm for a substantial move to electronic voting, and one on the rights of public servants who stand for election.

• Shout out to two very good psephology blogs that took a long time to come to my notice. One is Phantom Trend by Jamie Hall, who “designed quant models for the RBA” and brings to the polling aggregation game superior statistical chops to my own. The other is Infographinomicon by “PsephologyKid”, who is presently on hiatus but has done some fine work on everything from the Tasmanian Legislative Council to the Eurovision song contest.

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.

881 comments on “Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor”

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  1. JUST ME – The word “illegal” is usually reserved for a criminal offence, not a civil wrong only involving subjects of the crown (e.g. breach of contract, etc etc)

  3. [He is nonetheless given a higher rating on trust to handle the economy in comparison with Chris Bowen, at 34% to 23%.]

    I rate both as ‘low’.

  5. Electronic voting is too risky. Pencil, paper and human counting, with no third electronic party in between the casting of the vote and the result, is my preference.

  7. Maybe Essential is practiced at polling the disengaged, delusional & uniformed

    • Most respondents would prefer that Federal Police sent to the MH17 crash site be armed, with 64-25 in favour. An unarmed option draws a slightly lower net approval of 51-38.

  10. Tim Wilson ‏@timwilsoncomau 3m
    Disturbed to hear the government has backed down on 18C and will keep offensive speech illegal. Very disturbed.

  11. BCA said the marketing company rings people up and offers them the pens. They said send them back and my Mum’s phone number will be erased from their system.

  12. Abbott ,Brandisnaps and Mesma in “security” presser.Bit odd, Abbott trying to scare us but he “wants to stress” there has been no change to the level of terror threats. Found another lazy $650 million in new spending for our secret squirrels though.

    Triple 😆 Abbott calls his decision to drop changes to 18C as a decision of “leadership” . Somehow it is related to counter terrorism . WTF ?

  13. • Most respondents would prefer that Federal Police sent to the MH17 crash site be armed, with 64-25 in favour. An unarmed option draws a slightly lower net approval of 51-38.

    Seriously !!!

    Former head of the Australian Defence Force Air Chief Marshal (retired) Angus Houston emphatically ruled out sending in armed Federal Police.

    Essentials Polling results are not worth publishing.

  15. I presume new laws to whisk returning ‘terrorists’ straight from the airport directly to jail while not passing Go.

  16. [The word “illegal” is usually reserved for a criminal offence, not a civil wrong only involving subjects of the crown (e.g. breach of contract, etc etc)]

    Fair enough. Either way you can potentially still end up in court and out of pocket though. 🙂

  19. 64-25 in favour of arming the Fed police investigators shows a serious lack of understanding by the public of the situation on the ground in the Ukraine.

    What good are pop guns against tanks, shells & aircraft.

  25. “@political_alert: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Shadow A-G Mark Dreyfus will hold a press conference at 4.30pm #auspol #18C”

  26. Has Brandis managed to do anything successfully while in Govt? Apart from bookshelves.

    He took his 18c legislation to Cabinet, who told him to piss off. He then put it out for discussion, complete with its OK to be a bigot, then the various ethnic community leaders discussed it with their MPs and said get rid of it or get rid of Brandis DH.

    So Tony gets rid of it. (Brandis is next).

  28. Does this statement mean anything?

    “Leadership is about preserving national identity and the essentials and that is why I have taken this position,” Mr Abbott said.

  30. Josh Taylor ‏@joshgnosis 5m

    The extra $630 million for intelligence agencies today will come from the budget, Abbott says. Important for national security, he says.

    He’s found money where he taken from somewhere else.

    Budget Emergency my foot.

  31. Josh Taylor ‏@joshgnosis 5m

    Brandis says the question of the cost of data retention is in discussion with the telcos.

    Cheaper, Faster, Quicker, my foot.

  32. “@kimjongeuan: so all 23 million of us are being subject to data retention laws because 150 radicals have decided to fight in iraq and syria. nice. NICE.”

  34. guytaur
    A jorno asked Brandis who will fott the bill for all this data retention. Brandis backpedalled saying it was under discussion with the telcos.

  38. Going through someone’s internet access is like tapping their phone or searching their home or office. If the authorities have reasonable cause to believe that a crime is being planned or has been committed, they can make their case to a judge or magistrate and get a warrant.

  39. I have a problem with preventing someone from leaving the country on suspicion they may go and fight with a baddie (remember baddies can become goodies and vice versa over time).

    Why not let them go and do the dastardly deed, if they survive and request entry then arrest them.

    Seems the cheaper option to me. 😉

  40. So, another $600mn of spending on ‘security’… more hardship going to be lumbered on lower income earners to fund that ?

  44. “@dannolan: don’t use tor, use a proper VPN provider like StrongVPN, and set it up at the router level at home to proxy all traffic through it”

  45. [Tim Wilson ‏@timwilsoncomau 3m
    Disturbed to hear the government has backed down on 18C and will keep offensive speech illegal. Very disturbed.]

    Another promise broken. There’s only one thing for it Tim… Resign.

  48. All this security crap yet Abbott declared that there has been no change to the level of security threat since 9/11 ….. apparently it’s “medium”.

  50. [ Steve777

    Posted Tuesday, August 5, 2014 at 4:17 pm | Permalink

    The cost of liberty is eternal paranoia?
    ]

    —————————————————-

    Posted this before – eternally relevant

    The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

    H. L. Mencken

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