Essential Research: 52-48 to Coalition

Essential Research ticks a point in the Coalition’s favour, as respondents say yes to Australia Day and no to increased military involvement in the Middle East.

I’m afraid I won’t be able to treat you to the normal weekly BludgerTrack poll aggregate update this week, but given the ongoing stability of the polling situation generally, you’re probably not missing much. We do, however, have the first fortnightly rolling average result for the year from Essential Research, last week’s result having been drawn from a single week’s sample. The Coalition’s two-party lead is up from 51-49 to 52-48, but the primary votes are unchanged at 44% for the Coalition, 35% for Labor and 10% for the Greens.

Other results from Essential Research show little change in perceptions of the state of the economy on two such results last year, with 28% rating it as good (up two from September) and 31% poor (down one), while 30% rate the economy as heading in the right direction (down four) versus 38% for wrong direction (down one). Scott Morrison is favoured better to handle the economy by 26% (down one), versus 19% for Chris Bowen (up one). Eighteen per cent favour increasing Australia’s military involvement in Syria and Iraq, with 34% wanting it decreased and 32% favouring no change. Respondents took a favourable view of Australia Day, which 56% rated “a day of national pride” against 22% who opted for two disapproving choices: “a day of reflection on the impact on indigenous people” (14%) and “irrelevant in the 21st century” (8%).

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.

1,741 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Coalition”

Comments Page 2 of 35
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  1. [Kieran Gilbert
    Kieran Gilbert – Verified account ‏@Kieran_Gilbert

    Turnbull Cabinet meets today for the first time this year. Govt sources tell me all options remain on the table re election timing
    12:22 PM – 27 Jan 2016
    8 RETWEETS2 LIKES]

  3. One last comment re transgender men. The more I think about it, the more I form the view that these people have never faced anything like the level of discrimination that male and female homosexuals have experienced. When I lived in India, I had conversations with men who expressed views along the lines of “there are no gays in India and, if any show up, they’ll be killed. (Which did lead me to wonder what all those young men wearing eyeshadow who were trying to solicit me near the cricket ground each evening were up to: but never mind about that!).

    Anyway, these same men were quite happy to flirt in public with the eunuchs.

    Likewise, trailblazer Christine Jorgensen, who had her op more than 60 years ago, received a reasonably positive media response at the time. And she had a career as an entertainer in which she regularly performed in places where consensual gay sex was strictly illegal and punishable in a draconian way.

    In short, it seems to me that straight men don’t seem ever to have been particularly bothered by trannies of various types. Viz Abbott’s warm response to McGregor despite his public admission that gay men make him feel “threatened”.

    So, to sum up, when someone like McGregor has a sex change in the 2010s, it’s not all that out there and I’m not even sure that it’s all that “brave”.

    What I call brave is girls trying to get an education under the threat of the Taliban. Or someone trying to live an openly gay lifestyle in Putin’s Russia.

    And zoomster, I certainly agree with you about dress sense. Trannies, like hookers and porn stars, never go for understatement: they seem to live in an eternal 1950s of female fashion.

  4. baba

    I suggest you watch movies such and Transgender and shows like Transparent.

    To me it is very simple. Your arguments are that because one group had it harder that makes it ok to keep discriminating against another because they had it so good in comparison.

    At least that is how they read to me.

  7. guytaur: that wasn’t my point. My point was that transgender women – and, in particular, a subset of high-achievers like McGregor, Jan Morris and several I have known – make a meal out of the alleged discrimination they are fighting and how “brave” they are. But they seem to end up getting masses of exclusively positive publicity, book deals and no obvious disadvantage. So I start to feel that there is a strong element of personal attention-seeking here.

    And, yes, trannies have faced discrimination in once backward places like my beloved Tassie. But, across the western and some parts of the non-western world, it always seems to me to have been a far lower level of discrimination than that experienced by men accused of what used to be described on the NSW statute books as the “abominable crime of buggery”.

  9. Sir Mad

    I am not a hard core gamer. For those people PC games are the best. See how much they soup up their computers to get better performance than consoles.

    Apple TV I agree is in the infancy on gaming at the moment. However while there is not the recognised titles you see on consoles there are some games that start to rival them in performance on the Apple TV.

    Over time this will only improve. What you see on an played on an Ipad can be played on the Apple TV.

    In this way the Apple TV is more like the XBOX but with the ability that games played on your phone or tablet can be played on the big screen too.

    As with any Apple product software improves all the time. So it will not be long before games on the IOS platform will be as good as those on consoles.

    As I said my console died. So I looked at long term viability and decided to take a short term hit to popular titles on the console but IOS games are pretty good so its not that much of a hardship for me.

  10. [ Kieran Gilbert
    Kieran Gilbert – Verified account ‏@Kieran_Gilbert

    Govt sources tell me all options remain on the table re election timing ]

    morrison – just 1 week ago –

    [ An early election was off the cards because of the need to address economic volatility caused largely by the slowdown in China.

    There was no point in an election until economic reform was rolled out and there was a “better level of sentiment”, Mr Morrison said. ]

    http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/breaking-news/no-rush-on-tax-reform-plan-morrison/news-story/276f11f21324b1887e3d9e0389ae4536

    They couldn’t lie straight in bed!

  11. baba

    I totally reject your attention seeking claims. For the reasons I cited earlier.

    As for how people react to discrimination that is victim blaming. Thats like saying a woman is to blame for the behaviour of the rapist.

  16. PO

    Cassidy just said that whether Turnbull likes it or nor, just like Julia Gillard had two opposition leaders in Abbott and Rudd, he has two opposition leaders as well

  20. DAVE – Malcolm would be nuts if he doesn’t go now. True, the electorate will probably smell a rat. But no point hanging around looking like a powerless fat, greedy, c… (as one artist has painted him!) for the next eight months.

  21. abcnews: #BREAKING: @sydneyroosters NRL club says Mitchell Pearce stood down from all training commitments until internal investigation is complete.

  22. DAVE – That painting of Turnbull will now go into artistic folklore as one of the great lost paintings of Australian art. Surely, someone has a photo, somewhere? I wait for it to appear!

  24. [Malcolm would be nuts if he doesn’t go now.]

    Exactly. I don’t understand what they’re doing. Since Turnbull became leader all that’s really changed has been a softening of the rhetoric on terrorism. Everything else is the same.

  25. [
    I am not a hard core gamer. For those people PC games are the best. See how much they soup up their computers to get better performance than consoles.
    ]

    Except when you want to play possible the greatest game of all time “The Last of Us”, which is only available on PS3 or PS4.

  26. Gender struggles affect only 1 to 3 percent of the population. Many in the 97 to 99 percent who are fortunate to not have to struggle with gender identity simply cannot conceive of this as a genuine struggle. If you think about this logically, instead of rectally (pulling opinions out of your butt), you realize that a problem can affect only a small slice of the population but still be a very real and very serious problem for those who endure it. By definition nearly all of us have never experienced any rare cancers or rare muscular problems, but we don’t dismiss the people who have those struggles as making it up to get attention, or as buffoons with bad dress sense. Gender issues are treated differently – this is one area where it is still widely seen as socially acceptable to be an ignorant jerk. All that’s required is to refrain from being a tremendous dick, or at least STFU if you can’t approach the issue with a modicum of logic and basic human empathy. Gender dysphoria and related experiences are very real and very serious.

  27. One query I have about many originally male transexual is why they choose to live in a “female” world that does not exist and probably never did, except perhaps in the world of the super rich celebrities.

    No woman I know over the age of 40 totters arround in ridiculous high heels, yet trannies do. Few have massive bottle blond hairdos but trannies do.

    I doubt that any trannies today had mothers who dressed in feather boas or stillettos. Those who are older ie grew up in the 50s would have had mums/sisters who dressed in floral prints and fairly conservative hairrstyles. Those who were born in the 60s/70s would have had mums in Indian print wrap arounds, NOT sparkly glitzy stuff. In most cases for all ages their mums would have been in a pair of heans or slacks with a brights shirt, and very occasionally in a cocktail dress with a subdued shawl. So I just do not see how they are seriously gender challenged. It seems to me that for this group of theatrical transexuals the attraction is NOT gender based as such but more to do with the theatrical elements of the dress code. I suspect that if we had a world such as 1600 or even the regency era, these guys would not claim to be transgender at all but would simply be the “fashionable” set. I am going to outrage many here but I think in many cases of your tranny the attraction is CLASS not gender. They see a glitzy world where the rich live which is associated in their minds with glamour which in our current culture is worn by women. It is about perceived social status, NOT gender. Now everytime I watch Miss Fisher, I get a bout of this envy, wishing I was slim and rich enough to dress in here stunning outfits.

    Now in contrast you have your Cate McGregor’s who have adopted a dress code that is traditional conservative woman, so I am prepared to allow that for this group the attraction is really gender based. She at least dresses and acts like a woman, whereas many trannies dress and act like people in a fantasy world.

  28. Long said that the danger for the ALP would be for Turnbull to get to an election before the honeymoon was over. Every day delayed just gives more chance for ‘events’ and the simple wearing off of the novelty to eat into his popularity, even before people start noticing he’s an empty suit with a fractious party and offering the same poison as the bonehead he replaced.

    Even our somnolent has started to notice that he’s doing nothing and the monkey pod are out to make life difficult. The ALP will be hoping that Turnbull’s arrogance will indeed have him hold out for a September election. Just more time for the façade to fall away.

  29. KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN@70

    DAVE – Malcolm would be nuts if he doesn’t go now. True, the electorate will probably smell a rat. But no point hanging around looking like a powerless fat, greedy, c… (as one artist has painted him!) for the next eight months.

    K17 –

    Time will tell I guess.

    The denial of going early looms as an issue though particularly after a range of ministers have said the opposite.

    I am sure they can point to get out clauses, changed circumstances and any number of other lies etc but it might also focus voters on issues that arguably are not being focused on now.

    But all speculation atm I acknowledge.

  30. […but we don’t dismiss the people who have those struggles as making it up to get attention…]

    Sorry but “we” do. Most people with rare diseases go through years on undiagnosed hell. I know from experience.

  31. gt

    Apple TV: I’m struggling with understanding the advantages of this over other PVRs.

    Basic questions, I know!

    Is it simply

    a) Providing streaming direct to your TV screen

    b) A better ‘find’ function that searches multiple video sites like Netflicks

    The 32/64 GB – Is this to provide a ‘library’ of the things you’ve previously downloaded so once watched there is no further downloading required?

  32. I posted this earlier. Could be the strategy truffles is relying on to go to an early election

    [Kieran Gilbert
    Kieran Gilbert – Verified account ‏@Kieran_Gilbert

    Aust Building Construction Commission legislation to be re-introduced next week, if blocked provides PM with another early election trigger
    1:07 PM – 27 Jan 2016
    13 RETWEETS1 LIKE]

  34. An early election would also give Turnbull a mandate and legitimacy he could use to TRY to put the RWNJs back in their place. Nothing is working at the moment.
    Just as a note, the term ‘tranny’ and ‘trannies’ is seen as abusive in the trans community, so try no to use it.

  35. Really

    [Rowan
    Rowan – ‏@FightingTories

    So once @BrianOwler started criticising the Gov, @ABCNews24 decides to cut presser
    3:27 PM – 27 Jan 2016]

  36. There’s still a big downside for the coalition in an early election. It brings in the “what will they do in the budget?” factor and “remember what happened to all those promises last time?”. I’m sure Labor would be flogging those points for all they’re worth.

    Having the election at the normal time and doing a budget beforehand would blunt those lines of attack but it does leave them more vulnerable to “events”, internal dissension and the realisation of the empty-suitedness of Turnbull.

    What to do?

    Nice to see they have some difficult political choices to make for a change. Given Turnbull’s ineptitude in the difficult political choice space (republic, Godwin Grech, etc) there’s a pretty reasonable chance that he’ll jump the wrong way.

  38. TORCH – I don’t understand any of this talk about Turnbull getting a mandate and legitimacy in his own party via an election. If he wins, the RWNJs will say: we woulda won anyway if you hadn’t knocked off lovable Tones. Anyway, Turnbull would be taking RWNJ policies to the election. He’d only get a mandate (within his party) to continue RWNJ policies.
    Oh, and I also note that Turnbull is a RWNJ on economic matters, which is what really counts.

  39. AJM – Agree. Basically, Turnbull will have a predisposition to wait (easier) but will, in the end, do what his colleagues tell him to do (‘cos he’s pissweak).

  40. K17 I think Turnbull got legitimacy when he beat Abbott 55-45. He is never likely to be accepted by the far right of the party but just has to deal with that.

  42. So I go away the Nationals have a presser.

    A National Senator says after being asked 5 or 6 times she will ignore the plebiscite and vote no to SSM.

  43. political_alert: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Shadow Education Minister Kate Ellis will discuss Labor’s plan for schools, 12pm, Melbourne #auspol

  44. shanebazzi: .@senbmckenzie says she would vote against #marriageequality even if the Australian public supports it at a plebiscite. Disgraceful.

  46. DAVIDWH – Most of this govt are far right, as far as I can see, except that a sufficient number decided they needed a friendlier salesman. You can call that “legitimacy” if you want. It’s not how I understand the term.

  48. MSM/ABC protection worked well for Abbott as opp leader and in election campaign but was not enough to protect him as PM. Turnbull is the opposite. Media protection is working for him now, but over-exposure of the real Malcolm in an election campaign could bring him undone. Not even the MSM can protect him in the real world.

  50. It’s sad that Anthony Albanese hasn’t taken the opportunity to help his party renew itself. His seat would be far better represented by a Green, and the parliament would be far better off with more Greens in it. He had a chance to leave politics gracefully, on his own terms. Now he’s likely to lose to a Green.

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