Essential Research: 50-50

The Essential Research rolling aggregate records an unusually sharp move away from the Coalition, and finds strong support for Senate reform legislation.

The normally placid Essential Research fortnightly rolling average records a rare two-point shift on two-party preferred this week, which eliminates a settled 52-48 lead for the Coalition over previous weeks. Particularly remarkable is a three point increase in the Labor primary vote, from 35% to 38%, although the Coalition is down only one to 43%, and the Greens are steady on 10%. Also featured is a very detailed question on Senate reform, in which the legislation was explained to respondents in meticulous detail, producing a result of 53% approval and 16% disapproval. A question on election timing finds 56% wanting the election held later this year versus 23% who want it called early, although the distinction is an increasingly fine one. Also featured: most important election issues (health topping the list, followed by economic and cost-of-living concerns), best party to handle them (Labor for industrial relations and environment, Coalition for national security and the economy, although Labor has a slight lead on housing affordability) and perceptions of the parties as right or left wing (indicating Labor is seen as more centrist than the Coalition, although there is little sense that this has changed in recent years). This week’s poll was conducted online Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1017, with the voting intention numbers also including the survey results from the previous week’s poll.

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.

1,038 thoughts on “Essential Research: 50-50”

  1. Just a thought:

    The high cost of housing, rents and mortgage payments act in a way to dumb down the economy.

    Yep. Want a way to increase the cost of being innovative and agile? Charge a fortune just to exist.

  2. Jack A Randa

    Posted Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 4:37 pm | Permalink

    If he had any gonads, when Terri Butler’s motion to debate the SSM Bill is about to come on, he’d tell the party room they can all vote according to their conscience. I am so holding my breath waiting for that…

    He is as weak as month old piss – as Paul Keating would say – ” A Shiver Looking For A Spine “

  3. I think the other thing that has lost its gloss for Turnbull is the ‘superior intellect’ idea.

    I reckon many have woken up to the fact that smug “I’m better than you therefore I know better about everything important” is not as appealing than first thought. He hasn’t been able to resist the ‘put downs’ of others he thinks are less worthy.

    Impotence and smugness grates. especially for those who see their quality of life diminishing without any ‘for the greater good’ benefits to society as a whole.

    While the initial ‘class warfare/silvertail’ meme that ALP started pushing didn’t gain traction straight away (and was poo-poohed by the media et al) that concept is now starting to bite him because the wealth and superiority hasn’t had the clout they were told it would have.

    If America elects Trump they’ll find the same thing.

    Being on the Board of Directors does NOT qualify as being a leader.

  4. PhoenixGreen@15

    I don’t accept this weird assumption that Turnbull will win the coming election. In case people haven’t been paying attention over the past decade electoral precedent isn’t worth what it used to be. Between 24 hour news, the internet, a new political culture and a new generation of voters we can’t assume compliance to last century’s trends. First term governments have been dropping like flies, voters are de-aligning and voters are trending away from the traditional parties.

    Unless Turnbull pulls a corner soon I think the result could well be close enough to give a hostile Senate, a hung parliament or a slim Labor victory.

    I agree with you, and desperately hope you are right. This county will be changed almost beyond recognition if the Liberals get back.

    I am stunned at how much damage they can do without going near the senate. What they have done to science funding in general and CSIRO in particular is depriving Australia of the ability to train a new generation of scientists.

    But for me the clincher is the marriage plebiscite. Marriage Equality will become the new asylum seeker type debate – mass hysteria from some of the MSM who will enoy it as front page horror stories and clickbait (thankfully I think the ABC and Fairfax will stay away from it), and people who will not even know anyone who may become married as a same sex couple will be convinced that the gays are coming for their children.

  5. @40

    “Turnbull cannot “lead” the LNP into something they are not. ”

    But who are the LNP?

    They’ve got the word “Liberal” in their name, so you’d think they’d adopt liberal viewpoints. Of the sort that Turnbull tended to endorse before he became PM.

    But instead they’ve got an entire faction that’s about as conservative as can be. And for some reason that faction is the one calling all the shots.

    Seems the problem is that they made their “broad tent” about twice as broad as it should have been. I don’t understand how you can have a functional party if you include viewpoints ranging all the way from far-right to center-left. Maybe the point is that you actually can’t?

    I think the LNP has an identity crisis that it needs to sort out. But instead of leading them out of it, Turnbull has only been adding fuel to the fire.

  7. In a queue today behind a young woman. Got onto subject of housing. She said that in her circle of friends, most have had their parents become guarantors to enable them to purchase their first home. If the kids miss payments, the parents are up for the bill. She said to me that personally she would never put this type of pressure upon her parents, but many parents are desperate to have their kids get into their own home.

  9. Question. When Turnbull became PM, he did rescind a couple of the things done under Abbott, which did give people reasons to believe it was a whole new government. What were they? I’m having a hard time remembering.

  10. Greens senator Larissa Waters on political donations from mining companies.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/01/larissa-waters-ban-donations-from-mining-companies-and-stop-ministers-working-for-them

    In Australian politics, there is a revolving door that swings round and round, fuelled by money and self-interest.

    Into it go former politicians and their staffers and out pop even more highly paid mining company executives and fossil fuel lobbyists.

    The list of former politicians and staffers who’ve scored cushy positions in the fossil fuel sector is depressingly long – I’ve listed just some of them that I’m aware of below.

    The revolving door in part explains why there has never been a coal mine or gas project refused under our federal laws.

    The massive political donations, made by this desperate industry trying to cling on through taxpayer subsidies, make up another reason for the tick-and-flick approach.

  11. jenauthor,

    I reckon many have woken up to the fact that smug “I’m better than you therefore I know better about everything important” is not as appealing than first thought. He hasn’t been able to resist the ‘put downs’ of others he thinks are less worthy.

    I’m hoping that finally Turnbull’s put downs of experts on the NBN come back to bite him and the media finally snap out of their spell and start realising that keeping the copper is just plain wrong.

  12. Peg@49

    Retiring ALP MP Melissa Parke, who was an international human rights lawyer before she entered politics, gave a speech to parliament last night on asylum seekers in which she damned both major parties.

    I agree with Melissa on this. Of course the problem for Labor, as one of the Essential pollsters said in a speech recently, is that the current Australian antipathy to asylum seekers is very deeply held, and that it is the sort of thing that will make people change their vote to the coalition. thank you John Howard. I cannot remember her name, but she thinks it will take a decade of careful persuasion to convince the Australian public to soften their attitude.

  14. Question. When Turnbull became PM, he did rescind a couple of the things done under Abbott, which did give people reasons to believe it was a whole new government. What were they? I’m having a hard time remembering.

    Knights and Dames,
    Saying Death Cult,
    Flag Breeding Programs

    That’s about the sum of it.

  15. Sky News Australia ‏@SkyNewsAust 33m33 minutes ago

    Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says negative gearing crackdowns is in the Treasurer’s portfolio, not his #pmagenda

  16. victoria

    … but many parents are desperate to have their kids get into their own home.

    Many are just desperate to finally get shot of their (thirty-something) kids!

  17. There must be a lot of Liberal politicians pondering their future at the moment.

    The HoR back bencher’s who are in marginal seats and those who unseated a sitting Labor member at the last election must be feeling very vulnerable.

    Then there’s Liberal leadership – Turnbull going to hell-in-a-basket at a rate of knots, Abbott unacceptable to the voters and Morrison having demonstrated that being Treasurer was ‘a bridge to far’ for him (and that him leader with Joyce as DPM isn’t going to fly with voters anyway). There’s Bishop, of course, but the Parliamentary Party are not going to make her leader and that wouldn’t work with the voters either.

    So I’d think that numbers of HoR Cabinet ministers must think they’re in with a ‘chance’ to be leader after Turnbull. There must be some ‘feeling out’ happening and this will add to internal discord.

    For Turnbull to survive the next 4 or 5 months he’s got to be able to put together a budget that he can sell as ‘agile’ and ‘innovative’ but more importantly offends almost no one who voted for the Coalition last time.

    It’s a big ask, but if he can he should win the next election but I’d think with many casualties.

    Labor should be very pleased with how far they’ve got in this Parliament so far and know that they’re only two or so major stuff-up’s by the Coalition from really being in the hunt.

  18. Player One

    Posted Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 5:11 pm | Permalink

    victoria

    … but many parents are desperate to have their kids get into their own home.

    Many are just desperate to finally get shot of their (thirty-something) kids!

    Well, I for one would love to help my kids out MORE financially – BUT – I can only give them a LIMITED AMOUNT over 3 years or they will penalise my *less than full* pension ….them’s the rules ….

  19. LU @ 51

    Yep. Want a way to increase the cost of being innovative and agile? Charge a fortune just to exist.

    We also need more time and better networking. Getting the right ingredients (people, resources, etc) together is key.

    Relying on the private sector is simply not good enough. While the private sector as whole could be considered distributed, businesses run centralised processes in order to innovate – they gather ideas, people, resources, etc in one place. The problem is that this method is a bottleneck, it doesn’t scale and frequently has the side effect of producing walled gardens.

    There’s no business that has an overview of the whole sector. The entity that has that is the government.

  20. The high cost of housing, rents and mortgage payments act in a way to dumb down the economy.

    Add to that loading young people up with debt to pay for their education, courtesy of deregulation and dodgy private rent seekers. That plus increasing job insecurity. Few who don’t already have money can afford to take risks, which is what is required for innovation and agility.

    In any case, business in Australia doesn’t want to innovate, except in finding more ways to avoid hiring Australian workers and forcing down worker remuneration and conditions.

  21. Did someone poked Essential with a stick? A two-point move seems nearly unprecedented (except in the event of a change of prime ministers).

  22. the current Australian antipathy to asylum seekers is very deeply held

    …

    thinks it will take a decade of careful persuasion to convince the Australian public to soften their attitude.

    The other explanation, which is how I explain my thinking/feeling on this, is that I am not antipathetic to asylum seekers – I think our humanitarian program should be substantially lifted, which the ALP made a good start towards before the LNP came along and said nope nope nope – and we should be providing a lot more foreign aid support, which the ALP stalled increasing, but the LNP have since hacked to death.

    But I do not support boat arrivals. I do not support the chaos that was evident in the ALP’s last term of government. I do not support a system that encourages people to get on risky boats and drown in their thousands.

    We should welcome many more asylum seekers than we do, but it should be through a controlled regular process.

    I have major problems with the current government’s management of Nauru and Manus Island, and the incredibly punitive stance they have taken. But as far as it goes I’m glad the boats have basically stopped, and if the ALP ever does anything to start the boats up again I will be furious with them.

  24. TheKouk: Net foreign debt has risen above $1 trillion for the first time ever….

    $1,005,567,000,000

    Not that anyone gives a rat’s arse

  27. guytaur

    Posted Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 5:25 pm | Permalink

    TheKouk: Net foreign debt has risen above $1 trillion for the first time ever….

    $1,005,567,000,000

    Not that anyone gives a rat’s arse

    If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, does anyone care? …… the Australian media clambering over each other to bring this to the attention of its patrons ….

  31. i do not want the ALP going anywhere near the asylum seeker issue. not one little bit. better to get into gov’t and start quietly unwinding the worst bits of the last 15 years of politicisation of it. the alp cannot help asylum seekers from opposition. SHY’s tears never helped even one AS or refugee.

  32. Ctar1 – Tony standing again is going to deliver the political coup de grace to Malcolm at the next election. The bullet behind the ear.

  33. Negative gearing cap to cost $46,000 a year

    The most heavily geared investors will lose more than $45,000 a year if the Turnbull government introduces a $20,000 cap on negative gearing, modelling for The Australian Financial Review shows.

    The change would affect 125,000 taxpayers, who claim at least $20,000 a year of net rental losses.

    They make up 10 per cent of rental investors, according to Ben Phillips, the principal research fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods.

    A typical investor would would be of pocket by $3,450, but the loss of benefits would rise to:

    – at least $16,400 for landlords whose net rental loss claims are in the top 10 per cent (12,500 investors)

    – at least $29,800 for landlords whose net rental loss claims are in the top 5 per cent (6250 investors)

    – at least $46,300 for landlords whose net rental loss claims are in the top 1 per cent (1250 investors)

    Mr Phillips said imposing the cap would raise an extra $1 billion a year, which is less than what would be raised under Labor’s plan

    http://www.afr.com/news/politics/malcolm-turnbulls-negative-gearing-cap-to-cost-46000-a-year-at-the-top-end-20160229-gn6jmo

  38. Today’s ABC RN Law Report currently in progress:
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/referenda-in-nz-and-switzerland-lessons-for-aus/7198580

    Australians are referendum reluctant. Only eight out of forty-four constitutional referendums have succeeded.

    In Switzerland the population votes four times year, on about ten different direct democracy initiatives.

    New Zealand referenda are not as regular but this week our kiwi cousins are voting on whether or not to keep the Union Jack in the top left hand side of their flag or replace it with graceful curving fern.

    As the Australian government ponders a plebiscite on gay marriage and a possible referendum on indigenous recognition, a look at what New Zealand and Switzerland can teach us about direct democracy.

  41. Wow! 53% approval vs 16% disapproval on Senate reforms when explained in meticulous detail. Pretty comprehensive rejection of the Labor position. Restores my faith in the intelligence of the Australian people.

    BTW, Is Van Badham posting here under another handle? She’d fit right in here.

  43. The Lorax @ 91

    Upwards of 70% of Australians support having a plebiscite over a parliamentary vote on marriage equality.

    Furthermore, a majority of Australians supports the Government’s hard-line position on asylum seekers.

    Following your logic, Labor and the Greens are wrong on these issues, and the Coalition is right.

    Alternatively, you can take the view, as I do, that sometimes the public can get things wrong.

  44. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/01/push-to-restore-voluntary-euthanasia-in-nt-act-and-norfolk-island

    A bill which would restore the right of the Northern Territory, Australian Capital Territory and Norfolk Island to allow voluntary euthanasia is set to be introduced to the federal Senate this week.

    Almost 20 years after the Howard government and then-backbencher Kevin Andrews introduced legislation which essentially cancelled the NT’s voluntary euthanasia laws, a group of federal politicians, calling themselves the “parliamentary friends of dying with dignity” are pushing to overturn it.

  45. mimhoff
    Posted Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 3:50 pm | Permalink

    Why isn’t it 54-46?

    Shorten must go.

    Stop stealing Rex’s lines.

  46. vic,

    There are different ways for a Guarantor loan to be structured. I would never encourage clients to be part of a servicing guarantee.

  47. mimhoff
    Posted Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 3:50 pm | Permalink

    Why isn’t it 54-46?

    Shorten must go.

    Show a bit of patience, mate!

    It’s getting there, slowly but surely.

  48. cud@59

    Interesting question.

    I think there are now fewer three word slogans from Turnbull a la Abbott, though he could not help himself when it came to NG just recently.

    Also, the silly blue tie thing seems to have been junked somewhat.

    Certainly Turbull does not feel the need to don worksafe jackets on the one hand, or budgie smugglers at the other. He does not feel the need to hop on a bike either. Finally, he does not seem to walk around businesses wearing one or the other of the above!

    Other than that, I am scratching…..

  49. Pretty comprehensive rejection of the Labor position.

    TPP is still 50 / 50 Borax. 🙂

    Senate reform is hardly turning out to be a vote changer. ALP seem to me to have played the politics of this well and are leaving it up to the Greens and Libs to be the potential losers insofar as anyone even remembers its happened after a couple of weeks or so.

  50. imacca

    ALP seem to me to have played the politics of this well and are leaving it up to the Greens and Libs to be the potential losers

    What a hollow and cynical political strategy – the party first, voter empowerment and a step towards improved democratic processes a distant second.

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