Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

Essential Research finds the Greens gaining a point for the second week in a row, this time carrying Labor with it on two-party preferred.

The Essential Research fortnightly rolling average has ticked a point in Labor, their two-party lead now at 53-47 after a long stretch at 52-48. The major parties are in fact stable on the primary vote, at 39% for the Coalition and 38% for Labor, but the Greens are up a point for the second week in a row to 11%, a gain that has been well in line with other polling.

The poll also includes Essential’s occasional results on the government’s handling of various issue areas, and given the last such results were published in February, they find the government taking a considerable knock – with the telling exception of “relations with other countries”, for which the net rating has gone from minus 3% to plus 15%. However, the government is off 15 points on education and schools, 14 on social welfare and health services, 12 on climate change and nine on managing the economy.

Further questions find strong opposition to buying submarines from Japan (28% support, 51% oppose), a slight majority against providing military aid to the Ukraine (36% support, 42% oppose) and opposition to the deferral of superannuation increases (29% approve, 49% disapprove).

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.

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

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  1. I seem to remember a bludger/ pubster visiting Adelaide in October but I it has slipped my mind whom that is. The SA Chapter are in dire need of a reason for a knees-up. Can someone refreshed my mind. I know Fiona is in November but who was our October victim guest?

  5. My point was not to claim the ABC are unbiased or to deny that Julia Gillard got a shitty run from them. Rather, to point out something that took me a few seconds to Google.

    If you use things that are false as evidence, it makes all the other evidence look false too.

  7. [
    CNN has vision of Taiwanese fighter jets and other combat aircraft practising use of a highway as a makeshift air base.
    ]

    citizen

    I liked the live commentary and applause. It made it sound like a sporting event of some sort.

  8. [Have a look, a close look, at that sub photo from the link at #98.]
    Yeah, dolphins can’t take anything seriously. Tree hugging hipsters wanting equal rights for gay whales

  9. CM –

    If you use things that are false as evidence, it makes all the other evidence look false too.

    Not that I want to get involved in an ABC-bashing exercise, but the Abbott word cloud you found was done at the time that the Gillard word cloud was done, and I believe was put up a few days later and, likely, as a butt-covering exercise to balance out the Gillard word cloud after receiving complaints.

    If you want to make the case that the ABC is treating the Abbott government the same way that it treated the Gillard government, there should be an Abbott (and Shorten) word cloud published now.

    So no, you didn’t find a refutation for the accusation made.

  11. That ABbott word cloud was from his time as LOTO, and from memory emerged after much scorn and derision was sent the ABC’s way for it’s Gillard govt word cloud – see the Peter Martin post for eg.

    Equivalence would be an Abbott govt word cloud now, one year after he’s been in the job.

    And yeah, an At Home With Tony series would go far in demonstrating a commitment to that now-infamous intent for ‘balance’.

  13. Dee

    [ Politics regularly serves up ideas too bizarre for any scriptwriter to imagine. The notion that on the 75th anniversary of World War II, Australia would be buying bargain submarines from the Japanese fits this category.

    Away from the balance-sheets, the decision smacks of tunnel vision, with thousands more manufacturing jobs to leave a state already reeling from the Government’s wilful destruction of the car manufacturing industry at a time when unemployment is heading to decade-high levels.

    And while Labor leader Bill Shorten may have over-egged it on the stump, the concept of outsourcing our subs to a nation that once attacked our territories with the same hardware is diabolical – especially for older voters.]

    I would class this article as tendentious rubbish.

    The ‘bizarre’ things that politics has thrown up in relation to submarines are:

    (1) We should have half as many for the same money just so that Adelaide seats are ‘safe’.

    (2) We should have a sub force that is only around 30% operational.

    (3) The subs should all arrive late.

    (4) The subs for a lot of their life only meet various standards expected in terms of combat readiness by reducing the standards.

    In relation to outsourcing stuff, it is best to get value for money, not hark back to stuff that happened before the middle of the last century. If we applied the same sort of standard to ourselves, Indigenous people would not be asking us all to leave tomorrow because we would have left voluntarily.

    Shorten did not ‘over-egg’ the situation. He told everyone that he was prepared to risk Australia’s national security to a significant extent to get some heavily-subsidised jobs for his human mates and to secure some Adelaide seats.

    The article sets up a straw man of ‘balance sheets’ being the primary determinant. The reality is that the Air Warfare Destroyers are already three years overdue and already into $600 million worth of cost overruns. The reality is that the Helicopter Landing Ships have over ten thousand defects.

    The primary determinant in a politically unpopular decision to buy off-the-shelf subs overseas is clearly our national security interest.

    Naturally the rent seekers are out in full force using whatever spurious arguments they can lay their hands on, up to and including a spot of smearing that is seventy years out of date.

    I assume that the same people who say we should not by buy Japanese built submarines are not also saying that we should not be selling iron ore and coal to Japan?

    If not, they are in rank hypocrisy country.

  14. The statement was that there was no word cloud. I proved it wrong. End of story. It doesn’t matter what the motivation was for the word claim, the assertion made earlier was false.

    You want to know why I get really grumpy at the blind party loyalists? It’s this sort of stuff. Your conclusions are right, it’s just the way you go about reaching them are wrong.

    There is plenty of crap to prove the ABC certainly is biased to the right and certainly gave Gillard a hard time. Heck, you could make a good argument about the Abbott word cloud being an afterthought to serve as a figleaf to cover their biases. But that’s not what happened. The rhetoric was “Where is the Abbott word cloud?” arguing it doesn’t exist. It does.

    Imagine if someone from the right was in this debate. They would have a field day with this.

    Research before you make accusations is all I am saying.

  16. CM –

    The statement was that there was no word cloud. I proved it wrong. End of story.

    Rubbish.

    Talk about dismissing context.

    The context is clearly that the ABC treated the Gillard one-year anniversary in one way, and they are not treating the Abbott one-year anniversary in the same way.

    Falling back on literalism in the face of the fact that you are just wrong is sad.

  18. Jackol
    [Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2014 at 7:42 pm | PERMALINK
    CM –

    If you use things that are false as evidence, it makes all the other evidence look false too.

    Not that I want to get involved in an ABC-bashing exercise, but the Abbott word cloud you found was done at the time that the Gillard word cloud was done, and I believe was put up a few days later and, likely, as a butt-covering exercise to balance out the Gillard word cloud after receiving complaints.

    If you want to make the case that the ABC is treating the Abbott government the same way that it treated the Gillard government, there should be an Abbott (and Shorten) word cloud published now.

    So no, you didn’t find a refutation for the accusation made.]

    It is indeed what occurred. ABC copped so much abuse that they went and did an Abbott word cloud thereafter. So pathetic

  19. Carey M:

    Jesus, no need to fly off the handle. This discussion goes back days, and was raised in the context of how the media, in particular our public broadcaster has treated the former govt versus how it is treating the current one at the same standpoint into their tenure in office.

    Whether you want to see hackery or whatever in people’s concerns, or whether like me, you think we’ll see the ABC treat the ABbott govt the same way when we see an At Home With Tony sitcom aired in primetime, the point is a valid one.

  20. I have to reluctantly agree that the submarine decision is probably the right one. But I have to say that I have concerns about a future when we might be in a real war dependent upon hardware and systems we can’t produce, replace or repair.

    As for the politics, take a leaf out of the Liberal’s book. Excoriate the Government for trashing Australian industries and jobs but don’t reverse the decision when back in Government, ecept possibly to negotiate a higher level of Australian involvement in maintenance.

  24. And so it begins…

    [Bereaved families still grieving from the loss of their loved ones on flight MH17 are being denied the compensation they are owed by Malaysia Airlines, their lawyers say.

    However the airline strongly rejects their claim, saying the families will receive the full amount they are owed, as soon as normal legal processes have been gone through.

    “[Malaysia Airlines] is acutely conscious of its moral and legal obligations to those affected by the terrible tragedy which befell our flight MH17 and has never sought to avoid paying full compensation in accordance with the law,” the airline told Fairfax Media.
    …
    … now MA only contact us by letter to provide information, not to inquire how we are coping,” she said.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/mh17-families-denied-full-compensation-by-malaysia-airlines-lawyers-say-20140914-10gpc3.html#ixzz3DTNGSsjj ]

  25. [Steve777
    Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2014 at 8:16 pm | Permalink

    I have to reluctantly agree that the submarine decision is probably the right one. But I have to say that I have concerns about a future when we might be in a real war dependent upon hardware and systems we can’t produce, replace or repair.]

    This is essentially the same kind of situation whenever you build and run five of a kind subs once every generation or so.

    A thorough risk analysis would include the ‘what if’ we are separated from Japan during a war scenario.

    A spares, skills, and maintenance program would have to be incorporated into the subs program whether they are built in Australia or sourced off-the-shelf overseas.

    This is what we do now in relation to the FA-18s.

    [As for the politics, take a leaf out of the Liberal’s book. Excoriate the Government for trashing Australian industries and jobs but don’t reverse the decision when back in Government, ecept possibly to negotiate a higher level of Australian involvement in maintenance.]

    I keep hoping that when we lift the lid and see inside Labor we might begin to find an entity driven by principles, sound analysis, sound policy development, transparency, clarity, honesty, decency and integrity.

    There are some signs but these are fairly light on. Encouraging Labor to behave like the Government is not, IMHO, a desirable direction.

  27. [There is plenty of crap to prove the ABC certainly is biased to the right and certainly gave Gillard a hard time. Heck, you could make a good argument about the Abbott word cloud being an afterthought to serve as a figleaf to cover their biases. But that’s not what happened. The rhetoric was “Where is the Abbott word cloud?” arguing it doesn’t exist. It does.
    Imagine if someone from the right was in this debate. They would have a field day with this.
    Research before you make accusations is all I am saying.]

    Calm down petal and get a grip.

    We were specifically talking about Abbott’s being in power as PM for one year and comparing that to how Gillard’s first year was “feted” by their ABC.

    Apologising for their ABC’s abysmal double standards only enables them further.

  32. Perhaps the ABC listened to all the complaints that it was inappropriate to use a word cloud as a substitute for political commentary. 😀

  33. 131
    CTar1
    Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2014 at 8:33 pm | PERMALINK
    [vic

    He makes very good observations

    That’s the reason he’s unpopular with the Yanks and our current government.]

    I figured as much.

  34. [Perhaps the ABC listened to all the complaints that it was inappropriate to use a word cloud as a substitute for political commentary. ]

    Hahaha

    And I suppose they’re heeding all the calls for tacky sexist political parodies to also be discontinued and that is why production of At Home with Tony is on hiatus!

    Ha!

  35. WOT??? IS THERE SOME THREAT TO A FUTURE OF ENDLESS COAL EXPORTS?

    Hands up if you were DAFT enough not to see that coming.

    [Australian coal exporters are scrambling to clarify the fallout from changes to China’s coal import rules, which could expose the industry to billions of dollars in lost sales as China seeks to cut air pollution.

    The Chinese government is to limit the use of imported coal with more than 16 per cent ash and 3 per cent sulphur from January 1, 2015, in a bid to improve air quality, especially in the major cities such as Beijing and around Shanghai.

    At the same time, China is moving to force power utilities to slash coal import volumes, also with the stated aim of improving air quality, although this move will primarily give China’s local coalminers a lift]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/australian-export-risk-on-china-dirty-coal-ban-20140916-10hnzb.html#ixzz3DTUT6NFT

  36. [They thought about doing ‘At Home with Tony’ but:]

    My recollection is the writers, when asked about Abbott, said they had rejected an at home with Tone on the grounds that his private goings on were of little public interest.

  38. lefty e

    And clive has weighed in

    [Clive Palmer has issued some rare praise for the Chinese government, welcoming Beijing’s decision to ban imports of “dirty” coal from next year.

    Amid concern that the ban – designed to improve air quality in China’s smog-choked cities – could have a devastating effect on Australia’s multi-billion dollar coal exports, Mr Palmer said the move was “good for the environment and good for mankind”.

    “Comparatively, Australia has more clean energy than competing countries like Indonesia. It will have a greater impact on Indonesia,” the leader of the Palmer United Party said.]

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/chinas-decision-to-ban-dirty-coal-imports-wins-rare-praise-from-clive-palmer-20140916-10ht6p.html

  39. [Just as a matter of interest what do people think about the Fairfax press critique of the Abbott government performance to date?]

    So gentle as to be embarrassing? Not at pathetic and as fawning brain dead cheerleader as news is isn’t really a compliment.

  41. I’m not going to directly buy into the argument between 2 PBers here re the word clouds.

    But I would like to point out a few significant differences between the 2 sets of clouds.

    According to the ABC the Gillard cloud came from readers who identified as:
    COALition 49%
    ALP 18%
    Green 18%
    Other 12%

    That is a severe distortion from the general populace right there.

    The Abbott cloud came from the period when he was LOTO and thus renders direct comparison difficult.
    The reader breakdown was:
    COAL 32%
    ALP 29%
    Green 24%
    other 13%

    Comparing the 2 clouds directly when they come from differently composed groups and their subjects hold different positions [PM vs LOTO] becomes a tentative exercise.

    More valuable would be a cloud produced for Abbott as PM [and maybe Shorten as LOTO] after 1 year, ie now, using the same demographics.

    But the key factor is that in all cases these clouds are the perceptions of ABC readers/watchers[?].
    And therefore must, to some extent, mirror and represent the messages given to them from the ABC – at least partly [ignoring the Murdoch mob who have consistently portarayed ALP/Gillard/Rudd as various forms of toxic and Tony as wonderful].

    Which has been, still is severely biased.

    For example I can remember listening to Radio National daily for years when the subject of opinion polls was regularly highlighted in news and comment [Fran and Michelle for example].
    Those polls were of the era when the ALP and Gillard were polling badly.
    Come January 2014 and reporting and comment on the polls disappeared conspicuously from the ABC.
    Those polls were of the era when the COALition and Abbott were [are] polling badly.
    Suspicious – bloody suspicious.

  42. [ Perhaps the ABC listened to all the complaints that it was inappropriate to use a word cloud as a substitute for political commentary. 😀 ]
    And apparently the opposition doesn’t “says” as much as it once did

  43. Hugh White makes some good points. I don’t have the expertise to judge but he makes the point that Japan us new to making submarines for export, it intertwines us closer to Japan than may prove desireable and that the Government hasn’t fully considered what alternatives may be available.

  45. [Just as a matter of interest what do people think about the Fairfax press critique of the Abbott government performance to date?]

    As a commercial enterprise Fairfax can report however it likes, just like the Murdoch press does, and stand on its own commercial decision-making.

    There is no comparison with a public broadcaster, however.

  46. I am amazed that punters can still discuss The Cloud.

    And that they have access to intricate figures regarding the relative numbers that made up the Cloud participants.

    Even worse, it seems like an argument is about to start. Where is Bemused when you need him?

    OR SHOWS!!!!!!!!!!

    It’s one thing to posit that, for the sake of balance, At Home With Tony might not be a bad idea. It was a sore point that only Julia got The Treatment.

    But to expect a Cloud to go along with it… sheesh.

  47. [And apparently the opposition doesn’t “says” as much as it once did]

    And that’s the most noticeable to me, driving home listening to the ABC news broadcasts.

  49. Exactly.

    Their ABC was obsessed with polls — now all of sudden they ignore them.

    La Trioli used to be a grinning like a Chershire cat each Tuesday morning after a bad Newspoll for Labor and Melissa “Libs r us” Clarke used to join in.

    Suddenly they’ve lost interest in Newspoll.

  50. @randlight @BowlerBarrister @nanoview @denniallen See Mari your “mocked” tweet is working a treat some great results

    I tweeted earlier tonight “the coalition of the concerned” comment by TA were there some clever tweeters out there ready for “mocking” Never seen such a response an example was “coalition of the cornered” Just so many clever ones.I am now getting tweets like above

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