Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

No real change in Essential Research, but some interesting findings from both parties’ internal pollsters have emerged in the media this week.

This week’s fortnightly rolling average result from Essential Research has both major parties up a point on the primary vote (the Coalition to 40%, Labor to 38%), both minor parties down a point (the Greens to 9%, Palmer United to 5%), and two-party preferred unchanged at 52-48 to Labor. The poll also has 57% saying the threat to Australia from terrorism has increased over the past few years with only 6% saying it has decreased, and 33% opting for stayed about the same; 56% approving of government spending to reduce the threat of terrorism versus 24% disapproving; 57% rating the contribution of multiculturalism to Australian society as positive versus 30% negative; 63% believing prospective migrants should not be rejected on the basis of religion versus 21% who say they should; and strong support for a greater emphasis on solar, wind and hydro power in providing for domestic energy, a neutral result for gas, and highly negative results for nuclear and especially coal.

Federal electoral news nuggets:

• John Ferguson of The Australian reports Senators Stephen Conroy and Kim Carr are facing opposition within their respective Right and Left factions over their determination to seek another term at the next federal election. Partly at issue is Labor’s affirmative action requirement that at least 40 per cent of winnable seats go to women. Under a party rule to take effect on January 1, a spill of all preselections will occur if the requirement isn’t met. Rosie Lewis of The Australian reports that some in the ALP believe the Carr and Conroy preselections are being fast-tracked to lock them in before the rule takes effect. Carr is quoted saying the requirement will be satisfied by giving the third position on the ticket to a woman, but the result of the last election suggests the winnability of a third seat for Labor is doubtful for as long as the existing electoral system remains in place.

• The Courier-Mail reports that“federal Liberal and National MPs unhappy with the performance of Nationals deputy leader Barnaby Joyce” are planning to thwart his succession to the Nationals leadership by drafting Lawrence Springborg, the Queensland Health Minister and former Opposition Leader. This would be achieved by having Springborg succeed Bruce Scott as member for Maranoa, a seat Joyce had his eye on last term as he sought to make his move from the upper house to the lower.

• Andrew Probyn of The West Australian reports a Labor internal poll of 600 respondents by UMR Research shows it leading 54-46 in the eastern Perth electorate of Hasluck, held for the Liberals by Ken Wyatt on a margin of 4.9%. Primary votes are cited of 40% for Labor and 37% for the Liberals. Aggregated polling for the three months after the budget, from May to July, is reported to show swings to Labor in WA of 12 points on the primary vote and 7.7% on two-party preferred.

• The Financial Review reports results from Coalition pollsters Crosby Textor showing a surge in support for the Renewable Energy Target, an increase in the salience of the environment as a political issue, and a decline for immigration.

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.

833 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor”

Comments Page 13 of 17
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  2. lizzie
    [Posted Wednesday, September 3, 2014 at 4:13 pm | PERMALINK
    victoria

    A judicious selection of those panellists might be interesting, but as a group they’ll all be fighting for supremacy. And of course Tony J will win!]

    That goes without saying

  5. History shows it is safer to leave the Eastern Europeans alone to solve their problems. Nothing good will come from the West getting involved military.

    Just too scary to contemplate.

  8. Apologies if this has already been linked but Peter Martin says workers will actually be better off with the super changes scrapped.

    [We’ve dodged a bullet. Had compulsory super contributions climbed as legislated, Australian workers would have lost 0.5 per cent of wages from their next pay increase, 0.5 per cent from the following one then 0.5 per cent from each of the following three. By 2019 they would be earning 2.5 per cent less than if the government had left compulsory super alone.]

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/superannuation-the-coalition-helps-the-workers-20140902-10bfmg.html#ixzz3CESmtMaD

  10. Dio it’s not as straight forward as that as some of the increased super will be absorbed by business. However the general point is valid. Having said that I still support a gradual increase of SGS up to at least 12%.

  17. One way to slow Negative gearing is to end “interest only loans”. Investors should be forced to pay off a % off the capital each year.

    This reduces interest paid (tax deductible) making the negative gearing advantage less year on year.

  19. Diogenes

    The problem is in the southern third they are.It was officially part of Russia until after the Revolution Lenin gave it to the Ukraine SR. Apparently to provide Ukraine with a supply of coal Of course back in the good old USSR that didn’t really mean anything.

  20. [I’m in favour of acting against ISIS given the real risk of genocide (and us helping fark up the country in the first place) but there is absolutely no reason to get involved in Ukraine.]

    Let Russia carve out a slice of Russian-inhabited Ukraine. Give Russia those useless bits of Georgia that Putin so desperately wants. Then the rump Ukraine and Georgia can join NATO. The US gets two more allies, and Russia gets its tinpot empire. Everyone’s happy.

  21. Dee

    [And who are Russia’s allies?]

    Good question. Most are border states that Putin has browbeaten into becoming Russian satellites – like Armenia, and a few of the -stans in Central Asia. Belarus, under its petty dictator, is a willing satellite.

  25. 621

    Russia is also generally on the Russian side, while definitely not a satellite, in most disagreements between Russia and the West.

  29. Kakuru

    At the present moment Russia’s main ally is China.

    Armenia hates turkey so is an ally of Russia. The Belorussians speak Russian so they are also natural allies, regardless of who rules them, just as we are allies of other English speaking countries.

  30. Speaking as someone with a well-documented want of interest in any form of football, I would say that i’m in a fair position to make an unprejudiced call on the merits of each code.

    That’s not to say I’m free of all potential bias of course. I’m an egalitarian, and, so I’m probably going to favour the sport that seems most easily imaginable as an expression of the simple pleasure of idle diversion in open space with a ball.

    For mine, the AFL lends itself most easily to that paradigm. Potentially a half dozen or so folk might start kicking a ball around to each other in a park and then start playfully trying to dispossess each other of it and kick it through some makeshift goals. Eventually, as the numbers grew you’d have some loose rules covering boundaries and tackling, and you’d probably end up with something a lot like Aussie Rules.

    The other codes look much too contrived to be ‘natural’ things humans would do, though I suppose soccer probably reflected the quite limited physical spaces open to people in the crowded cuties of Europe.

    As a viewer spectacle, AFL looks like the sort of caper that would be good to attend, if you like that sort of thing, and as a child I quite liked the League in the days when you could show up close enough to the sideline at Redfern Oval for sweat from Johnny Sattler’s brow to splash you as two large fat men tried to flatten him. As a TV thing though, RL works far better, probably because the field fits the screen better and one team is running left to right and facing defenders all on the other of the screen.

    Rugby Union however is way too disjointed to be watchable at all.

    So my rankings would be:

    1. AFL
    2. Soccer
    3. RL
    4. RU

    Last note. I was very glad neither of my kids wanted to play football. I had a substantial investment in them not getting injured. That said, if they had insisted, I’d have opposed them playing either of the Rugby codes. Tellingly though, No 1 son went on to play ice hockey, which is basically football on ice with large sticks, ignoring my concerns. Luckily, he kept all his teeth.

  31. Personally I think the interest deduction allowed on any specific investment should be limited to the net return on that investment and disallow any excess interest as a deduction on the taxpayer’s other income.

    To me negative gearing has always been one of those counter-intuitive things even though I have found myself in that situation post-GFC. I prefer not to have the investment but just can’t afford to dispose of it given current market conditions. It will be gone as soon as I can dispose of it at a level I can afford.

    Basically I made the dumb mistake of committing to a new home in the July prior to the GFC hit insanely thinking I could dispose of asset 1 when asset 2 was ready to move into. However I eanded up with two properties both of which fell in value significantly in a short time period.

    So for now I am stuck living in one and renting the other.

    Life sucks sometimes.

  32. [people will see that they didn’t get back all the money Abbott promised that we will save, and will indeed lose out more due to the policies and budget measures that he is pushing out.]

    Yeah plus even Crosby Textor have worked out Australian support renewables in overwhelming numbers.

    What I dont think the LNP has worked out is this: its not just environmental concern, its more often price. These days, everyone knows someone whose power bill is much lower with rooftop solar.

    People realise renewables will bring prices down over time – and there’s growing awareness that coal-fired power is ramping up its charges hand over fist, and almost of none of that will be recouped by the CO2 tax getting chopped.

    The ALPs message should be: renewables = jobs = lower power prices over time = less pollution.

    If you want to go ever so slightly more complex: renewables keep coal fired prices down by reducing the need for UNBELIEVABLY EXPENSIVE infrastructure – the real reason youre currently getting your butts kicked by those power bills.

  35. Abbott’s proposed military incursion into the Ukraine seems to be completely out of step with the EU and US where there is considerable debate over what to do next.

    [American and European officials are struggling to devise a response as Russia bears down on Ukraine, searching for new measures that will have more impact than the economic sanctions imposed so far, without risking major damage to their own industries or a military escalation that could spiral out of control. New York Times ]

  36. Can I suggest that PM Abbott look at declaring war on the Vatican – in order to seize documents needed for Royal Commission. Lets see whose side God is on!

  37. dtt

    China and Russia are allies of convenience, because both regimes share a common belief that democracy and self-determination should be trampled whenever convenient. They both have each other’s back on that one.

    Belarus has Belarusian as an official language, as well as Russian. Although there are strong historical ties between Russia and Belarus, if the country was allowed to choose it’s own destiny, it may not choose to remain as close as it currently is to Russia.

  40. Abolish compulsory superannuation. It creates a legislated captive market for the financial services industry, which leads to complacency, high fees, and low returns. The tax concessions connected with super are already as large as expenditures on the age pension. Super doesn’t save the government money – it just shifts part of the cost of supporting retirees from the cash transfers part of the budget to the tax expenditures part of the budget. It doesn’t generate wealth so much as extract it from low and middle income earners and transfer it to funds managers and the highest income earners who get the biggest tax breaks.

    Abolish compulsory super, the age pension, Newstart, disability support pension, sickness benefit, Austudy, and all other income support schemes. Replace them all with a Universal Basic Income, paid out of national tax revenues to every adult citizen, fixed at 25 percent of per capita income. The UBI would be guaranteed and unconditional. If you’re an adult and a citizen, you get it. Employment status, marital status, other sources of income would be irrelevant. It would be a basic floor of financial security below which no citizen would be permitted to fall. It would be a foundation on which every individual could build. It would liberate people to lead lives which they value. It would be easier to start a business, devote time to education and training, work as a full-time unpaid carer to children or people with disabilities. People would be free to pursue non-remunerative but socially useful activities such as community volunteer work, art, music, writing. People could devote more time to leisure, family, friends, exercise, study, self-improvement, public affairs.

    I’d fix the full-time minimum wage at 30 percent of per capita income.

    The UBI would be tax free.

    Every dollar earned between 25 percent and 100 percent of per capita income would be taxed at 20 percent.

    Between 100 percent and 200 percent of per capita income: 30 percent.

    Every dollar above 200 percent of per capita income would be taxed at 40 cents in the dollar.

    Income from all sources would be combined into one sum and taxed according to this structure. Labour income, capital gains, interest, dividends – all would be combined into one sum and taxed under the 0-20-30-40 structure.

    There would be a national tax on unimproved land value. This would be structured progressively: 1 percent on the first 200,000 of unimproved land value; 1.5 percent on the second 200,000 etc. People who are cash poor can defer their annual liability and let it accumulate. It can be paid down at any time and any outstanding liability becomes payable as a lump sum upon the death of the owner, or upon the sale or transfer of the property. Stamp duties would be abolished because they are economically inefficient. People who have already paid stamp duty on a property would have that sum deducted from their unimproved land tax liability.

    There would be a wealth tax of 1 cent on every dollar of wealth above 50 times per capita GDP. If necessary, high net worth individuals would liquefy some of their assets to pay this tax.

    Company tax would be 20 cents in the dollar. Higher rates would apply to large companies (100 workers or more) where the CEO compensation to median compensation is above 25 to 1; to medium sized companies (20 to 99 workers) where the ratio is above 15 to 1; and to small companies (19 workers or fewer) where the ratio is above 10 to 1.

  42. Soccer is the only ball game I know where all you need is two people, a ball and a ‘goal’ (two marks) to play. Three can have an excellent game (with three goals – ‘three sided soccer’ is the best fun).

    As for egalitarian, in AFL it’s quite possible for someone (especially at junior levels) to go through a game without touching the ball – that’s nearly impossible in soccer.

  43. [ Diogenes
    Posted Wednesday, September 3, 2014 at 4:38 pm | Permalink

    dave

    Abbott shouldn’t militarily go near Ukraine with a barge pole. Humanitarian aid is fine, although I doubt they need it. Military aid is ridiculous. ]

    He is a total grub – any war will do for him. At the sametime he is cutting aid to poor countries.

  44. Fran
    What could be more natural and human than kicking your enemy’s head around in the dirt: ”polo on horses, ‘football soccer’ on foot? You want not want to put your hands on it because it would get rather messy after a few passes.

  45. Diogenes

    Still call a Godwin on Hilary. The E Ukraine pro Russian forces go very hard on comparing their fight with the fight against Adolph. Fascist Junta being the term of choice for Kiev forces. Kiev meanwhile likes to use “Russian terrorists” for the rebels. Adding “thugs” an optional extra.

  46. 627

    The developing world democracies are not strong allies of Russia and China, they are just on the same side as Russia and China when they see western imperialism. India is also no ally of China (they have border disputes and fought a war in 1962) and that should help move them away from Russia in the even of Russia siding with China. Brazil`s agreement with Russia and China is often the Monroe Doctrine coming back to bight the West and specifically America. South Africa`s agreement with Russia and China is often Western support for Apartheid South Africa coming back to bite it.

  47. citizen@568

    The repeal of the mining tax will receive a very ho-hum reception in voter land (after all, it was directed at mining companies and Abbott told us many times that nobody paid it anyway).

    While the response to the CT was rather lukewarm and people have only slowly started being receptive to it right before its repeal, I think the Mining Tax had some support if I recall in the polls they had about it. Most people think it was justified that the big miners were taxed for it, with only some people buying the drivel about how negatively the MT will affect the economy.

    I have to go find one of those polls.

    Rex Douglas@583

    So, the Vic Govt previosly saved Geoff Shaw and now want him expelled, but the Oppistion who previously wanted him expelled now want him saved… ??

    Idiocy engulfs us.

    I think Vic Labor was originally for calling a vote of no confidence until it realised that doing so will reverse positions and put it in the same deadlocked position when it has to appoint a speaker.

    Labor then hoped that if they expelled Shaw, they could win back that seat, but then the moment they appoint a speaker they will still be deadlocked.

    Of course the Vic Coalition know that if Shaw was out of the equation without replacement, then it could use its speaker to put in a casting vote, and is trying to continue that knowing now that Shaw has reconsidered its position on the EW tunnel. There will be no replacement until the Nov elections.

  48. zoomster,
    Soccer can be played by two kids with a empty can and a couple of rocks to make a goal.

    Or one kid and a wall. It also is very easy for poor kids to play, as no purchased equipment is needed and barefoot play is common.

  50. Fran Barlow@630

    So my rankings would be:

    1. AFL
    2. Soccer
    3. RL
    4. RU

    Being born overseas, naturally soccer is my favourite team sport.

    I bet you’d put Soccer higher up the list if they give you points for missing the goal.

    And I bet you think some of the players play it like they get points for diving and feigning injury too 😀

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