Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

A return to the norm after a somewhat surprising result last week from Essential Research, which also finds the Liberal Party perceived as much further to the right than Labor is to the left, and the ABC’s Q&A program to be a lot more popular than Tony Abbott.

After an anomalous drop to 51-49 last week, the Labor two-party lead in the Essential Research rolling average is back to 52-48 this week, from primary votes of 40% for the Coalition (down one), 38% for Labor (up one), 11% for the Greens (up one) and 2% for Palmer United (up one). Further questions find the Liberal Party rated too right wing by 34%, too left wing by 7% and about right by 26%, whereas only 20% think Labor too left wing compared with 16% for too right wing, and 28% about right. The poll also features an occasional question on best party to handle various issues, which finds the Coalition improving from a low point when the question was last asked in February, with the biggest movement in education, health, environment and climate change, generally smaller ones in its economic areas of strength, and no movement on national security and asylum seekers. A question on the ABC’s Q&A program finds is to be considerably more popular than its critics in the government, with 46% rating it good and 11% poor (including 37% and 23% among Coalition voters). After given a precis of the two parties’ National Broadband Network policies, 38% favoured Labor’s and 29% the government’s. On the economy, 35% rate it as headed in the right direction against 41% for the wrong direction, essentially unchanged on May.

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.

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

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  2. into explosive claims that a cruise ship company was advised by a senior government adviser to sack its Australian workforce.

    The claim is made by the representative for North Star Cruises, Bill Milby, in a submission to a Senate inquiry examining an overhaul to coastal shipping rules proposed by the Abbott government.

    “Labor is very concerned at this report,” the Opposition leader said. “If it’s correct, it’s explosive.”

    “It must be investigated urgently.”

    The Prime Minister today rejected the claims made by Mr Milby when pressed on the issue. “It’s just not true,” he said.

    However, Mr Milby has continued to stand by the allegations and today lashed out at Mr Abbott for dismissing them.

    “What I said actually took place,” he told The Guardian. “If he (Mr Abbott) wants to accuse me of lying then I take offence at that.”

  4. [“Thank God for News Corp, eh.”]

    News.com.au is a tabloid news site and is Equally as stupid but at least Fairfax put their latest onion story in the entertainment section rather than in the news section this time so I give them points for that

  6. [ News.com.au is a tabloid news site and is Equally as stupid but at least Fairfax put their latest onion story in the entertainment section rather than in the news section this time so I give them points for that ]

    Also, they don’t use words of more than one syllable, so even you can read it.

  7. GG

    “My reading of this is that Hockey is decoupling himself from Abbott.”

    We can believe that when Joe tells Tony he can’t give tax cuts before the next election, some vague recollection of Costello doing that once.

  9. Rates Analyst@707

    TBA is right that more rate cuts are priced.

    One late this year and another half of one early next year.

    The only problem is that the RBA is getting very nervous about the zero lower bound and not cutting as often as they used to. They’ll need a serious slowing in growth to cut further from here.

    Some tough decisions for RBA. Rate cuts without the right government policy risks the frenzy of real estate investments that doesn’t contribute to much to the economy. A lot of wealth changing in the same hands.

  10. sceptic,

    Tax cuts and promises of IR reform kept John Howard in power for many years.

    The next election campaign for the Libs will be tax cuts if you agree to the increase in the GST.

  13. [A sharp fall in national income has all but obliterated economic growth, pushing down income per head by the most since the global financial crisis and delivering headline growth of just 0.2 per cent.

    The best measure of living standards, real net national disposable income per head, slid 1.2 per cent in the three months to June, the biggest slide since the global financial crisis and the 1990s and early 1980s recessions and the mid 1970s oil crisis.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/economic-growth-close-to-zero-as-living-standards-slip-20150902-gjdi0t.html#ixzz3kZu9dYox
    Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

    And Hockey thinks reducing national income further through tax cuts that can’t be paid for is going to remedy this? As it transpires apparently only defence spending kept growth from landing on a big, fat zero. But Hockey and Abbott want to reduce the tax take further.

    Seriously, did we ever need any more evidence that the coalition hasn’t got the first, faintest clue about what they’re doing!

  16. Falling interest rates encourages people to spend.

    There are two main reasons for this:

    1. Cheap Credit to purchase goods

    2. People who have already have money in the bank gaining very little interest on their money. In fact interest rates are so low now that even with a Term Deposit you will be lucky to get more than inflation. That means it’s actually COSTING you money to leave it in the bank.

    I’ve got money sitting in my Home Loan offset but I’m pulling most of it out to either purchase assets or investing because it’s doing very little at the moment.

  17. [Adem Somyurek exercising his displeasure at losing his Ministry.]

    Can you imagine what will happen when the Ministry is reshuffled, either under Abbott or whoever replaces him?

  19. BK
    For that one action, the Plain Packaging laws, the Labor government was a success.

    People who would have been disabled and killed by nicotine addiction facilitated by the legal drug pushers have been saved.

  20. TrueBlueAussie@766

    Falling interest rates encourages people to spend.

    There are two main reasons for this:

    1. Cheap Credit to purchase goods

    2. People who have already have money in the bank gaining very little interest on their money. In fact interest rates are so low now that even with a Term Deposit you will be lucky to get more than inflation. That means it’s actually COSTING you money to leave it in the bank.

    I’ve got money sitting in my Home Loan offset but I’m pulling most of it out to either purchase assets or investing because it’s doing very little at the moment.

    In contrary, the statistics are showing people holding onto their money. I’m putting mine in my offset and savings accounts. It’s not for the interest rates though.

    I just bought one a few months ago, so it’ll be some time before I put down another deposit. I believe the interest rates on investment properties just went up a bit.

  21. TBA

    I’ve got money sitting in my Home Loan offset but I’m pulling most of it out to either purchase assets or investing because it’s doing….

    Taking advantage of Tony’s tradies allowance ?

  22. OMG this just says it all. They’d rather have a recession than increase govt spending to avert one.

    [Asked whether government spending was deliberately brought forward in order to forestall a recession, Mr Hockey replied: “I can promise you it wasn’t planned to be that way.”]

    So not fit for govt. No clue, no idea, no plans for the nation’s future. No play beyond getting themselves re-elected just… because.

    Has there been a more incompetent govt in this country? I can’t think of one.

  25. Guytaur,if you’re around, here’s another one relevant to the “Labor running dead in Canning ” being pushed by our ever truthful and o-so-loyal-to-their-leader Cabinet members

    WA Labor ‏@walabor 21m21 minutes ago
    200+ volunteers calling for @mattkeogh in Canning tonight! Every call counts! http://www.mattkeogh.com/volunteer #yeswecanning

    Yeah thats running dead – not. Labor is big on phonebanking but thats a big one, trust me

  26. Oh, just watched a cringy singing by Adam Hills adapting the US national anthem into a reminder of gun violent deaths. Pretty gruesome message to raise a point I suppose.

  27. I just watched the last part of an appalling interview by Tony Jones. The target was Craig Emerson, who was trying to explain the issue over labour market testing in a vaguely nuanced way when Jones kept trying to run over him, ignoring what he was saying.

    Is Tony Jones so desperate to keep his humungous pay packet that he is nothing more than a mouthpiece for Abbott? Because he sounded like one tonight. Insisting on peddling Abbott’s lie that Shorten was trying to scuttle the FTA despite Emerson explaining again and again why Shorten was doing nothing of the sort.

    I’m starting to think that maybe the ABC should be abolished, if only to deny people like Jones the pay packet they really don’t deserve.

  29. Please, please, PLEASE!

    [Former independent federal MP Tony Windsor is considering another tilt at politics.

    He says there’s a better than 50 per cent chance he will stand in his former NSW electorate of New England at the next election.]

    Our federal parliament needs more independents of the Windsor calibre IMO. Plus I’d love to see him knock off Joyce. 😀

  30. [Our federal parliament needs more independents of the Windsor calibre IMO. Plus I’d love to see him knock off Joyce.]

    I want to know what’s on his phone, Abbott’s voice message saying he’d sell his arse for PM would be a priceless sound bite for the next election.

  31. MM:

    The claims I’ve seen of the ‘Labor running dead’ thing circle back to JBishop as their original architect. Was Guytaur taken in by anti Labor, Greens spin?

    Meh. Campaign schmampaign shenanigans. Expect more as the days roll on.

  32. Classic

    [Paul Keating Ex-PM
    Paul Keating Ex-PM – ‏@PmPaulKeating

    #auspol

    You can duck and weave, but Canning is all about you, budgie-nuts. The shiver you feel is someone stepping on your political grave
    6:35 PM – 1 Sep 2015]
    184 RETWEETS150 FAVORITES

  33. [The Abbott government is close to releasing a shortlist of possible sites to host a nuclear waste dump]

    Well that should go down like a lead balloon.

  34. [775
    Marrickville Mauler]

    As one of the 200, I can firmly declare Labor is not running dead. Far from it. Labor is running to win. Among the voters I spoke to, only 2 of about 40 announced themselves as Libs. Many were unsure of their intentions. Nearly all were interested in the campaign messages.

  35. [772
    confessions

    Has there been a more incompetent govt in this country? I can’t think of one.]

    Without any question, Abbott’s is the most uselessly inept, indolent and degenerate government imaginable in Australia.

  36. [777
    TPOF]

    The ChAFTA is not worth having if it includes the labour access provisions demanded by China. It’s hardly worth having in any case, but if allowed to stand those provisions will be the source of wage suppression in Australia and corruption in China.

  37. briefly

    I can’t resist posting a bit of Rundle’s latest for you, though no doubt you’ve already seen it.

    [This is a very strange moment, for there can now be no doubt that this is the worst federal government in our history. We all throw “worst government ever” around as a political insult, but here it is, here it actually is. Of course the desperate right will try to avoid that truth — but the rational right will glumly, if silently, accept it. I can’t even be bothered to go over the charges at length, but the summary would read: has achieved none of the macro-policy goals that it itself set as the big challenges, has had no plan B agenda despite the obvious fast-changing global economic framework, lied about its intentions to get elected, has wrecked good work that Labor did, or let it die away, has used foreign policy for cheap political gain, has provided only deceit, frustration and neurosis, where people wanted clear leadership of any political type.]

    http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/09/02/rundle-worst-australian-government-ever-proven-by-science/

  38. [787
    mikehilliard]

    Thanks mh. I particularly enjoy this bit:

    lied about its intentions to get elected, has wrecked good work that Labor did, or let it die away, has used foreign policy for cheap political gain, has provided only deceit, frustration and neurosis

    Neurosis. That’s the LNP for you. They are a bottomless well of sickness.

  41. Paul Howes rebooted is on The Business on ABC TV right now. He is wearing serious spectacles, and is conveying the impression that he is now a very serious chap – a world apart from the ponce who appeared on Lateline the night of Rudd’s demise. He is a rather sad figure.

  42. Fess, I wasnt saying Guytaur was taken in. Yes Bishop as the source (or one of the sources) of the “running dead” line is interesting.

    Briefly, thanks.

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