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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  2. Labor MP hits out at Australian “birthers”

    [
    Prime Minister Tony Abbott has found an unlikely defender against online attacks claiming he is a dual citizen and ineligible to hold office.

    Labor MP Tim Watts has hit out at the “Australian birthers” and labelled their allegations a “conspiracy theory” aimed at undermining confidence in Australia’s political system.

    ]

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labor-mp-tim-watts-defends-tony-abbott-against-online-birthers-20140917-10hy1m.html

  3. Funny the fibs think there are kiwi votes here for the Nutunuls . Most kiwis I know are refugees from years of economic rationalism and pretty firmly in the left of centre camp. Perhaps the mining boom has lured more conservative rural voters. Amazing interference in another democracy, but the neocon movement is international in the English/rupert-speaking world.

  4. mari:

    I remember when the allegations first came public, either last year or the year before, and they got coverage then. I gather this latest round of reporting is because the accused are getting their day in court.

  6. [the Harvey incident was an accidental head clash. there is no way to eliminate these from a violent contact sport. They will happen. Its unavoidable and I don’t know if there is an answer that doesn’t involve removing all contact from the game. Hawkins held a player by the jumper then punched him in the jaw. He should have been charged with striking and suspended.]
    I see Boerwar has already dealt with this.

    The issue fans have is the inconsistency. E.g. Paul Chapman was rubbed out for a critical final when playing for Geelong because of incidental head contact. Nat Fyfe may well miss out on the Brownlow. Yet Harvey gets off for arguably a worse incident in terms of its consequences.

    Not many people would disagree that the rules need to change. But until they do, they should be applied without fear or favour (just writing that makes me laugh, thinking of the AFL).

    As for ducking heads, the rules were specifically changed this year to counter this and it has been fairly effective. In principle if a player ducks into a tackle the rule is now that they do not get a free kick.

  7. In many countries outside Australia, among the ones that allow their people to hold a land title, there is the practice of leasehold rather than the freehold we have here.

    They may only be allowed to hold it for 99 years before the title is withdrawn and be made for sale once again.

    In a way this may allow their governments to redevelop the land for other purposes or make changes to their density.

  9. On another note, Jon Faine this morning discussed Labor’s principal support for extending the lease to the Crown Casino. A number of callers purporting to be members of the Labor party expressed their dissatisfaction of this action.

  11. Re the latest war in the Middle East, the really disturbing thing about this one is that it is not a big deal for Australians. We are literally off to bomb and invade another country, and it’s a sort of by-line to random local news. This shows a very concerning level of desensitisation to the concept of war, which we should regard as an absolute last resort.

    The fundamental question should (as usual) be: why on Earth would an island nation at the bottom of south east Asia be bombing militants in a war torn region of the middle east? What the hell does it have to do with us? What could be so dire about this situation that it justifies us declaring war?

  13. I would still like to know how Abbott can have been born in England and according to Abbott himself, under the Australian Flag.

    It must be that old white magic.

  14. I wouldn’t be really happy if an Australian approached me and tell me which party I should support back in the motherland.

    Sustainable future@408

    And well said tim watts. Abbott’s likely dual citizenship is a non issue. Shorten should have made that statement

    I don’t think he cares about it. This is something easily resolved by the PM himself.

  19. [As for ducking heads, the rules were specifically changed this year to counter this and it has been fairly effective. In principle if a player ducks into a tackle the rule is now that they do not get a free kick.]

    If we are protecting heads there would be a free against the ducker / shrugger. Now the risk a holding the ball which along with push in the back has an interpretation so random as to be ridiculous. So if I receive head contact genuinely needing to have my head down to get the ball my free – all other times free against me.

    I would also like to see a free kick against any action or words by players try to get a free kick – soccer could benefit from this as well – but the sight of selwood or buddy who are supposed to be stars staging and begging for undeserved frees is pathetic. You could fill a team of all Australian sooks with top line players. The problem would be picking the biggest sook coach, Buckley, Malthouse etc but the Scott brothers lead the field and would be hard too split.

  21. [This is something easily resolved by the PM himself.]

    I wasn’t interested in this as an issue until FOI requests for proof were sought from both Australia and in the UK, and in both cases were denied.

    Obama showed his birth certificate and put the non-crazy sceptics to bed; all Abbott needs to do is to provide proof of when he renounced his British citizenship. It shouldn’t be hard.

    I don’t give a rat’s arse if he did it after he was elected, as long as he HAS done it now. My concern is he may still not have done it at all, which is the reason behind all the obfuscation.

  22. Matthew Rimmer ‏@DrRimmer 5m

    Free Speech: Just as he blocked #RDA submissions, #Brandis is now blocking the publication of #copyright submissions. #copdis #copyrightau

  23. [359
    guytaur

    briefly

    You are wrong. The demand is for living close to the city.]

    It’s not possible to account for changes in the property market and in the distribution of the population in urban areas simply by attributing everything to demand for inner-urban dwellings. While these locations are certainly a locus of demand, obviously they are not the only ones, not by a long shot.

    Consider how the shape, housing designs and population distribution/densities of cities have changed over the last 30-40 years; consider how much more expensive (in real terms) housing is now than in, say, the 1980s; and consider the changes in the lending market.

    Median Australian property prices are among the most expensive in the world when considered against median incomes. This cannot be explained by demand for inner urban dwellings. For one thing, the same kind of demand also exists in other markets/ jurisdictions that have not experienced such persistent elevation in prices as has occurred here.

    There is no necessary causal relation between demand for inner-city locations and generalised (median) prices across our cities.

  24. If Abbott hasn’t done his paperwork it will be a formality for him to fix it. He may have to step down until he gets reelected in a by election. Most people will see it as bureaucratic bullshit. I want to see him crushed electorally and not by such technicalities. If he has done his paperwork, My guess is they may not releasing the info because they wanted labor to make an issue of it and it makes people who ark about it look like loons. However, had Gillard been in the same position I am sue Abbott and the mms would have made more of an issue of it.

  25. On the birthright nonsense stuff:

    Richard Chirgwin ‏@R_Chirgwin 2m

    Farifex on a win again. It’s “birthright” you idiots, not “birth-rite”. The “sub” in “sub-editor” shouldn’t describe IQ.

  26. Renai LeMay retweeted
    Tom Tilley ‏@TomTilley 22h

    Today on Hack: GLENN GREENWALD!! He’ll talk about an upcoming Snowden drop re Australian intelligence and the NZ surveillance allegations.

  30. Raaraa
    Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2014 at 12:17 pm #407

    Great chunks of land in SA [dunno about other states] are held in leases.

    I have 300 hectares on a lease.
    The land is mine for 99 years or until I die whichever comes first.
    Most of pastoral SA in the north is leasehold.
    Rents are minimal. I think mine costs me about $13 a year.
    Recently the SA government tried to sell all such leases to the leaseholders, ie convert them to freehold.
    It was a money making idea, it was supposed to raise about $10-20 million.
    Chickenfeed really, they wanted about $2-3000 for my 300 hectares.
    The real reasons were threefold:
    1.Cut maintenance costs – absolutely bugger all anyway.
    2.Get a few million dollars from sales.
    3.Pander to the landed gentry, me for example.

    But I refused to buy, not because of the cost, which was minimal in the extreme, but because it was an abdication of responsibility by the government with respect to caring for the land.
    Leasehold is subject to some government restrictions as to vegetation clearance, public access, and general care.
    Making it freehold would remove all oversight and care and let individual freeholders do what they wanted with the land.
    One of my neighbours wanted to buy his lease [which is mainly backwater swamp on the R. Murray] and turn it over to pumpkin production despite the fact that it is rated as an environmental heritage site of ‘moderate value’, and legal advice was that he would be able to do so.

  31. WWP

    I agree the AFL needs to more strongly discourage players deliberately bringing on high contact to try and get a free.

    Soccer has a simulation rule and you can be booked if you dive. AFL should have the same.

  32. I think the renunciation conspiracy is very silly but any FOI request about someone’s eligibility for Parliament should not be met with less than a full flow of information

  33. It’s NOT scaremongering Bludgers by the Vote NO campaigners for Scottish independence.

    The markets are betting with their pockets!

    If a Yes vote is successful, many, many financial complications will arise.

    All divorces are messy. Maybe the Scots should take the best deal they can (more freedom) and stick to the status quo (staying married LOL).

  34. Don

    I think you need to follow the conversation.

    The discussion started with the relatively tiny size of our regional cities compared with capitals. I pointed out that Australia historically has few river cities. I should have said inland river cities but sort of assumed that since we were comparing regions and capitals, there was an implicit assumption that the coastal capitals were excluded.

    So OBVIOUSLY every city is built near a water source, mostly a river of reasonable size. Problem is in Australia we are notoriously short of big rivers.

    The state that is the most regionalised in Australia is Qld and guess what? It has the most deep rivers. The point is that when the “new world” was settled, the first places established were safe harbours with good water supply – ie estuaries with a large fresh water stream. the second centres were inland towns on NAVIGABLE rivers, close to some important resource.

    The Murray is the only major inland navigable river. Most of the others are relatively close close to the sea. this is in sharp contrast to the USA.

  35. I don’t care where abbott was born. I just rue the fact that he was.

    Anyway, does anyone think that England will take him back? Face up to it…we’re stuck with the rotten, mongrel bastard.

  36. [All divorces are messy. Maybe the Scots should take the best deal they can (more freedom) and stick to the status quo (staying married LOL).]

    Yeah if you are a nation of cowards scared of the future and unwilling to test your ability to tackle the world and make your own way – prepared to take both the upside and the downside on the chin.

    Yeah if you have no heart and listen to your cowardice by all means rely on London to prop you up and tell you what to do.

    The cowardice in Australia is even worse. Largely we do make our own way and take responsibility but nearly half of us credit our success to the magic hand of the institution of the monarchy.

    Pathetically immature.

  37. NBN Co ‏@NBNCo 1m

    The latest @NBNCo weekly progress report is now available online: http://nbnco.com.au/weeklyprogressreport …

    So much for Cheaper, Faster, Quicker rollout…

    “A total of 3,196 additional lots/premises were passed/covered by the network during the week, of which 2,399 were in Brownfield and 1,313 were in Greenfield areas. Fixed wireless coverage decreased by 516 premises due to premise count reviews. During the week an additional 4,168 premises had services activated on the network, including 3,849 on fixed line services and 319 using satellite and fixed wireless technologies.”

    Only 2,399 passed for Brownfield rollout!

  38. Ian.
    Can we reverse Transport him.

    BTW, I found another convict in my family, a butcher from Somerset who stole a cow. I assume in ended up in the sausages.

  39. Ian,
    I wonder if Abbott is hanging onto his UK citizenship because he just cannot bring himself to renounce it.

    If he is clinging to Ye Motherlande apron-strings, can his whole PM be declared invalid, with repayment of all salaries and entitlements required, and cancellation of any retirement benefits and superannuation as PM? :devil:

  40. [Soccer has a simulation rule and you can be booked if you dive.]
    Haha, surely you jest holding soccer out as an example of how to eliminate staging in sport.

    Every single game features extensive and open cheating by multiple players with absolutely no consequences of any kind. And in soccer it often only takes one goal to win a match, which can be achieved with only one dive.

  41. On the Abbot citizenship thing. If he has not followed the rules then it should be determined. I agree than any FOI on this should be met with FULL disclosure, there is no public interest reason for it NOT to be.

    If it turns out that he has not renounced his British citizenship then that speaks mainly to his sense of entitlement, that he is “special” and that the rules should not apply to him.

    That would be VERY damaging to him, and anyone in the Coalition who knew about it, especially in the wake of the ICAC stuff where Libs seem to consider that even the law does not apply to them.

    Its not the same as the “birther” crap regarding Obama and i find it annoying that people dismiss it so easily.

    Lol! Imagine if the same query and lack of open disclosure related to Julia Gillard?? Wuld the media dismiss it so easliy then??

    Anyhow, its an easy one to resolve one way or another by simply naming the date when the paperwork went through which should be on record somewhere. Either simple over and done, or a whole sh$tstorm of trouble for Abbott. 🙂

  42. don:

    Although daretotread’s literal point was incorrect (clearly plenty of towns are established on rivers, although there are counter-examples such as Armidale), there is the germ of a real issue there.

    In Australia, when towns were established on rivers the lack of river-borne trade meant that they did not tend to further develop into large cities. The lack of river-borne trade is a direct result of the fact that the river aren’t reliably navigable (someone did once take a paddlesteamer as far up the Darling as Bourke, but it ended up stuck there for several years).

  43. [ Anyhow, its an easy one to resolve one way or another by simply naming the date when the paperwork went through which should be on record somewhere. Either simple over and done, or a whole sh$tstorm of trouble for Abbott. ]

    If it was so simply over and done with, he would not have blocked the FOI request as he did.

    The FOI request will probably show that he did renounce, but it will only be allowed to proceed once the ink on the paperwork has dried.

  44. ABBOTTS WAR
    the other major political parties need to steadily step away from supporting the liberal party decision to go to war
    isolating abbott as the driver and main man running Australia’s war effort will leave him open to the cause of Australian soldiers death
    remember abbott blaming rudd for the death of 4 men in the house insulation scheme

  45. To me there are two probabilities: that Abbott has renounced his British citizenship, but has only done it since first being elected; or he has still failed to do it.

    Given the previous high-profile examples of people having to go through by-elections because they hadn’t done so before being elected, Abbott would have to be monumentally stupid to have failed to do it at the time Jackie Kelly got nabbed, especially since he was so close to the action.

    But then again, he his a monumentally stupid man, so it is just as likely he neglected to do it until more recently.

    As I said before, as long as he has done so, I really don’t care when he did it.

    Except if he’s only done it since the September 2013 election, in which case he is, and should rightly be, toast.

  46. Deja vu all over again re the Canberra light rail project.

    “Liberal leader Jeremy Hanson introduced a note of uncertainty over the project, warning companies that the Liberals would scrap it if they won government in 2016.

    “He called on the government not to lock the project in by signing contracts before the election.”

    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberras-780m-light-rail-line-gets-final-go-ahead-business-case-to-be-released-20140915-10gzr3.html

  48. If Abbott has not renounced his British cit’ship, it will not be because he forgot nor because he is stupid, but rather that he cannot bring himself to do so.

    He is after all, not one of us.

  50. Puff, the Magic Dragon.@439

    Ian,
    I wonder if Abbott is hanging onto his UK citizenship because he just cannot bring himself to renounce it.

    Surely getting it back is a matter of proving your ancestry?

    zoomster@418

    Raaraa

    I proposed that for the public service – it was blocked because it would make it too difficult for the unions to organise workers!

    Surely with social media this days, it wouldn’t be too hard. Many snap union protests are organised online.

    I’m pretty sure if I so choose, I can apply to join a union online.

    Whoever’s in charge should keep up with the times!

    Sustainable future@424

    If Abbott hasn’t done his paperwork it will be a formality for him to fix it. He may have to step down until he gets reelected in a by election. Most people will see it as bureaucratic bullshit. I want to see him crushed electorally and not by such technicalities. If he has done his paperwork, My guess is they may not releasing the info because they wanted labor to make an issue of it and it makes people who ark about it look like loons.

    I’m personally not too hung up on the birthright issue, and I think the PM could have just gone through the effort of dismissing it once and for all with just a simple step. If he has an intention to strategically hold it back for whatever reason, I can’t see how this would help.

    But even if he was deliberately hiding something, he is in a fairly safe Liberal seat and has no problems getting re-elected. His reputation, however….

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