Essential Research: 52-48 to Coalition; Morgan: 57.5-42.5

Another two pollsters close their accounts for the year, with both recording moves to the Coalition.

Essential Research’s final result for the year moves slightly back in line with the rest of the pack, with the Coalition lead up a point on the fortnightly rolling average to 52-48. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up one to 45%, Labor down one to 35%, and the Greens down one to 10%. Respondents were also asked to rate six leading politicians as good or poor, which found Malcolm Turnbull leading the field on 50% good and 17% poor, Julie Bishop performing strongly on 43% good and 21% poor, and Scott Morrison doing less well on 22% good and 25% poor. Richard Di Natale came in at 16% good and 28% poor, but the real stragglers were Bill Shorten at 14% good and 44% poor, and especially Clive Palmer, rated good by 8% and poor by 60%. The appointment of Joe Hockey as ambassador to the United States records 33% approval and 42% disapproval. The poll also finds no clear view as to whether the Coalition government has been higher or lower spending than Labor, with 22% for higher, 21% for lower and 23% for about the same.

Meanwhile at Roy Morgan, the already huge lead for the Coalition blows out still further, with the Coalition up 1.5% on the primary vote to 48%, Labor down by the same amount to 27% and the Greens up half a point to 14.5%. On the headline respondent-allocated measure of two-party preferred, the Coalition lead is out from 56-44 to 57.5-42.5, while previous election preferences have it out from 55-45 to 56-44.

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.

424 thoughts on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Coalition; Morgan: 57.5-42.5”

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  3. dwh

    Yes. Poltical life is getting closer to Christmas now. Myefo does it. We did not used to have this attention at Christmas time to the economics of the budget before Costello brought that in.

    A gift from Costello more politics for longer

  4. VicLabor on the horns of a dilemma.

    The Alcoa push also comes on the back of the Paris agreement on global warming, and mounting pressure on Australia to rein in its carbon emissions. Portland, partly owned by CITIC and Marubeni, is a public policy predicament.

    The smelter is the single largest consumer of the state’s brown-coal fired electricity.

    Operating at full tilt Alcoa’s aluminium smelters – Point Henry near Geelong was the other but closed last year – have consumed as much as one fifth of the state’s electricity. The figure is now closer to 10 per cent for Portland.

    One senior government figure admitted to being “surprised” by the company’s new lobbying campaign, given the the 2010 announcement that the subsidy would end in 2016.

    But seasoned Alcoa watchers say there is no surprise. The company is a formidable lobbyist, political player, and a master of extracting money from governments. As one Victorian Labor elder is fond of pointing out, Alcoa is also one of the world’s great exponents of bluff.

    Still, it is not yet clear what exactly, or how much, Alcoa will ask for.

    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/big-polluter-to-plead-for-taxpayer-cash-20151215-glnxzd.html

  5. I don’t know what to make of either Morgan or Essential anymore. Both just seem to be off doing their own thing with little connection to the overall trend.

  6. Whatever the merits of Morgan and Essential, the Morgan figure will turn a few heads and be used by those with a barrow to peddle.

  7. Canberra is set to feel the pain from Tuesday’s mid-year economic and fiscal outlook amid more cuts and mergers for the public service and the turning of the funding screw on the city’s cultural institutions.

    The capital’s cultural fixtures, including the National Gallery, Portrait Gallery, National Museum, National Library and Archives, will face a 3 per cent “efficiency dividend” hit to their budgets as the arts portfolio aims to trim $52 million over four years.

    Another $192 million will be stripped from Australian Public Service spending and ACT operations look set to bear the brunt.

    Canberra-based bureaucrats in the Department of Communications and the Arts will feel the pinch, which is expected to chop $6 million from their budget on top of the 2.5 per cent efficiency dividend being enforced across the federal bureaucracy.

    Treasurer Scott Morrison has been praised for not imposing deep, across the board spending cuts as he grapples with a budget deficit that has blown out to $37.4 billion.

    Nationwide, close to $2 billion is to be saved in a welfare crackdown, $930 million from changes to family day care, $650 million from discouraging bulk billing for diagnostics, $317 million from environmental projects and $472 million in savings from aged care.

    http://www.theage.com.au/national/public-service/canberra-cops-myefo-capital-punishment-20151215-glnxdx.html

  9. I listened to 1st part of Shortens presser on the radio and a little of Bowen. I thought Shortens delivery was ordinary. Has he not improved in delivery in these pressers…or was this just an off day?

  10. Gittins

    The time for tax increases and spending cuts will come when the private sector is growing strongly enough to cope with a public sector pullback.

    Even so, measures will need to be taken at some – let’s hope not too far off – point to get the budget back into surplus and the government’s debt falling rather than rising.

    The budget update offers not a hint that such a plan is being prepared.

    What’s that? It’s all a far cry from the scaremongering about debt and deficit that Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey used to get themselves elected?

    Don’t know what you’re on about. Malcolm and Scott don’t remember anything like that.

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/myefo-budget-update-fails-to-map-out-a-road-to-surplus-20151215-glo3ty.html

  11. If Paris was a game changer then the answer on Alcoa is simple. No govt support. If Alcoa decides to shut down the smelter as a result then let them, but devastating for Portland and the South West Vic economy though.

  14. Kohler –

    for a variety of reasons the key problem with the Australian economy is slow wages growth.

    Nominal wages growth is 2 per cent, but real wages per hour have been unchanged for four years — ever since the terms of trade bubble started to burst — despite a pick up in productivity.

    More importantly, consumers don’t expect that to change much and at the same time house prices are starting to fall so they are less inclined to use savings to maintain spending.

    All of which is holding back consumer spending, without which the domestic economy won’t be able to offset the fall off in growth caused by the commodity price crash.

    …The customary argument of business leaders and conservative politicians is that wages increases lead to less employment.

    But the corollary is that people who have a job aren’t getting pay rises.

    The result is that weak household consumption is holding back economic growth and the budget deficit is blowing out because income taxes aren’t growing enough.

    That, in turn, holds back government spending and means taxes have to go up — as we will see today — and that risks sending the economy into a spiral of falling incomes and consumption.

    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/12/15/economy/wages-need-go

  15. I still sense that most voters are willing to give Turnbull the benefit of the doubt which is probably fair enough at this early stage.
    I think the budget next year will be a critical point but I suspect he is a lot smarter than Abbott (not saying much is it) & he will probably listen to Treasury & not risk pulling the austerity lever thus running the economy into the ground. He will hope that a benign budget will set him up for the election.
    I do note though that many Lib supporters today are unhappy that there has been little suggestion of more aggressive action being taken following the MYEFO.

  16. Simon Katich
    Posted Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 6:28 pm | PERMALINK
    I listened to 1st part of Shortens presser on the radio and a little of Bowen. I thought Shortens delivery was ordinary. Has he not improved in delivery in these pressers…or was this just an off day?

    I missed the presser.

    His prepared speeches always look very robotic.

    The rare times he speaks off the cuff, he comes across pretty well.

    But in general people clearly aren’t buying into him.

  18. CTar1

    If these claims are true then oil process may sky rocket for very bad reasons.

    Turkish MP Eren Erdem claims Turkey supplied Isis in Syria with all necessary materials to produce deadly sarin gas.

    Erdem, from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), made the claims in parliament, citing evidence from an abruptly-closed criminal case.

    Erdem showed parliament copy of the criminal case (number 2013/120) that was opened by the General Prosecutor’s Office in the city of Adana in southern Turkey

    ….The phone recordings in the indictment showed all the details from how the shipment was going to be made to how it was prepared, from the content of the labs to the source of the materials. Which trucks were going to be used, all dates etc. From A to Z, everything was discussed and recorded….. in Hayyam Kasap’s phone records, you hear him saying sarin gas many times, saying that the ateliers are ready for production……Despite all of this evidence, the suspects were released……all the suspects crossed from Turkey into Syria.

    “And the shipment happened,” Erdem added. “Because no one stopped them. That’s why maybe the sarin gas used in Syria is a result of this.

    http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/mp-eren-erdem-claims-turkey-supplied-isis-with-sarin-gas-materials-for-chemical-weapon-attacks-34286662.html

  19. poroti – The Turkish and Saudi activities, let alone the rest of the players, in Syria and Iraq are in the ‘who knows’ class.

    It doesn’t seem that anyone knows even what their side is actually doing.

  21. Always depends on the grabs used – I caught a grab of Shorten on one of the syndicated radio station news reports, talking about Lindt, and it was right on the money.

  24. Sohar

    Don’t forget the Israelis. They are a major backer, too.

    The Israelis will take the chance to cause a bit of trouble when they can but I’d guess they are mostly in defensive mode.

    They will use the mayhem for more activities in the Occupied Zone.

  26. Isn’t re-living all the Lindt Cafe stuff kind of what the lunatics want… ?

    Should be a private family occasion.

    So true. Everything is just grist to the media’s insatiable mill these days.

  27. CHARLIE – I get the strong impression that Morrison and Boxhead will basically be running the show with Malcolm brought in to do some salesmanship – and they are both bug-eyed crazy. It’s also pretty obvious they won’t be chasing the rich/multis and labor will, at least do something.

  28. Very surprised there’s no movement to Labor after a week the pundits predicted would be the end of the Coalition’s honeymoon. It’s gotta be testament to the profound dullness Shorten exudes. I can’t fathom how the party caucus decided such a wooden performer should be the one to lead them to the next election. The policies are good but they’re just not being sold.

  29. This swing back to the Libs can be about three matters.

    1. Voter support for the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
    2. Voter indifference about the Brough matter and Ashbygate in general.
    3. Christmas silly season.

    Time to put the serious political analysis cue away till the new year methinks.

  30. Yes, the Israelis cause a bit of trouble by treating ISIS wounded and embedding their officers with ISIS troops. This is essentially between Sunni and Shia’a, and the Israelis know who to support.

  32. president of the solipsist society@28

    Very surprised there’s no movement to Labor after a week the pundits predicted would be the end of the Coalition’s honeymoon. It’s gotta be testament to the profound dullness Shorten exudes. I can’t fathom how the party caucus decided such a wooden performer should be the one to lead them to the next election. The policies are good but they’re just not being sold.

    Shorten is a good back room negotiator and in person he is quite good. I can see how caucus voted for him. He does show great drive and determination to succeed, necessary attributes in a LOTO.

  37. GG – I think you’re right. I think some people saw the Paris Agreement as a triumph for this Government. I don’t know how. But they did.

  39. Bemused – I’ve got a lot of confidence in Shorten’s ability to run Prince Mal down in the straight when he starts getting the same sort of exposure. As you say, he’s got the tenacity, and that means a lot.

  40. CTar1@38

    bemused

    The colander head wear might be a bit off putting for GGs clients.

    He could get ordained and expand his range of services offered to include blessing new homes and marrying the occupants. 😀

  42. re Alcoa’s electricity demands

    Of course most people, including journalists, are unaware that a third of electricity generated in the La Trobe Valley is lost in transmission to Melbourne a 150km journey.

    Portland is on the South Australian border so that’s a lot more electricity lost in transmission between generator and user. I would not be surprised if half the electricity generated in the La Trobe Valley is lost in transmission on its 500+km journey to Portland

  43. KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN

    People would have just glanced at the news and seen clips of Grunt, Truffles and Mesma saying the world was super impressed with “our” approach”. So it must have been a rip roaring success.

  45. billie@42

    re Alcoa’s electricity demands

    Of course most people, including journalists, are unaware that a third of electricity generated in the La Trobe Valley is lost in transmission to Melbourne a 150km journey.

    Portland is on the South Australian border so that’s a lot more electricity lost in transmission between generator and user. I would not be surprised if half the electricity generated in the La Trobe Valley is lost in transmission on its 500+km journey to Portland

    Those losses are greater than I had thought.

    Since Portland is where a manufacture of wind power towers operates from, perhaps they could run a crash program to build and install enough wind power to run the smelter?

  46. On Christmas night, if like me you are full of grog and pudding come 8pm, flick the radio to Classic FM and listen to the precocious musical talents of the Sydney Children’s Choir and the Gondwana National Choirs

  47. Ctar @ 12

    The price of Brent Oil now under USD38.

    What now for Scottish independence.

    1. Well the latest polls (Nov 15) show:

    Unionist parties are doing worse than at the time of the referrendum with SNP 54%, Conservatives 16%, Labour 14%, Liberal Democrats 7%, UKIP 5%, Greens 3%.

    2. A English Tory Government (in power on 37% of the vote) has breached its promise to Scots if they voted “no” they would get “devo max”.

    3. The Engish Tory Government has introduced laws to provide for two classes of Westminster MPs. If an item is declared to be an “English” matter non English MP’s cannot vote. Scottish matters are still decided by English MPs.

    4. The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committe has now a majority of English MPs as the (English) Tory Party will not recognise elected MPs from the SNP.

    5. Scottish MPs overwelmingly oppose bombing of Syria but English Mps overwelmingly support it.

    How long do you think the Union will last?

    Oil price has little relevance.

  50. I just don’t get it. Scott Morrison virtually admits to Leigh Sales on 7.30 tonight that all of the ‘Debt and Deficit Disaster’ schtick was just the Coalition Opposition playing politics in order to destroy the federal Labor government and thus get elected themselves.

    Then, when they are elected they do a worse job than Labor.

    Plus, they have more scandals and chaos and dysfunction than you could fill a ship of fools with.

    And still the electorate can’t get enough of them!

    I. Just. Don’t. Get. It.

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