Essential Research: 50-50

Another sedate result on voting intention from Essential Research, which finds more evidence of strong support for a royal commission into the banking sector.

This week’s fortnightly rolling average from Essential Research is once again at 50-50, with the Coalition steady on the primary vote at 42%, Labor up a point to 36%, and the Greens steady at 11%. Other findings:

• Essential conducted one of its occasional experiments where separate halves of the sample are offered different versions of the same question, in this case relating to a royal commission into the banking and financial services industry. The more straightforward version recorded 59% supportive and 15% opposed. The more elaborate version attributed the notion to Bill Shorten and noted the resistance of Malcolm Turnbull, and got 54% supportive and 21% opposed, with the partisan effect particularly pronounced in the case of Coalition voters.

• From five options on school funding, the most favoured involved a greater involvement for the federal government, with 49% in favour of it becoming the main funder of all schools and 27% opposed.

• Thirty-six per cent said kids these days have more opportunities than back in the day, against 30% for less opportunities and 21% for the same.

• Fifty-six per cent said retirees received too little support, versus 7% for too much and 24% for about right.

• Seventy-six per cent thought it harder for young people to buy a house than for their parents’ generation, and 55% thought it harder for them to find a job. The respective figures for easier were 7% and 17%.

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.

1,061 comments on “Essential Research: 50-50”

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  1. Mark Kenny, hits the turd-polishing turbo-boosters. Goodness, he is pathetic.

    In any event, the result that really counts, just months from polling day, is primarily a political one. There seems little doubt that the multi-pronged approach announced by Treasurer Scott Morrison and his ministerial sidekick Kelly O’Dwyer will blunt the opposition’s, until now, highly effective royal commission scythe.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016-opinion/asic-boost-puts-coalition-back-in-credit-on-bank-regulation-20160420-goau8m.html#ixzz46MfbQR9F
    Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

  2. KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN
    Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 9:04 pm
    Briefly, you bastard – you took my clear air at the top of the poll predictions.

    lol

    Hitherto, the polls suggest that around one-in-twelve past Lib voters have shifted . Many of these voters were ready to shift when Abbott was in office. They have detached themselves from the LNP again. At least a similar number still remain to be attracted to Labor’s totem. We can aim for one-in-six of past-Liberal voters to answer our appeal. This is a lot…but it’s not too many. Labor can easily do this in the seats that matter. As the numbers are drawn from the ranks of past Lib voters, the swing will accelerate….the desire for change will take hold. After all, who could possibly want more years like the three we have just endured?

    Labor themes – education, health, the environment, protection of workers, fair tax, a fair retirement system, jobs, the economy and public finance – are unifying and re-assuring messages. They express familiar meanings and resonate very widely. They have great depth-of-field to them. By contrast, the Lib ideas – “live within your means”, “agility”, “innovation” – mean almost nothing. Their themes are vacuums. Their exponents are useless, incompetent frauds.

    I think, if anything, we may have under-rated the potential for change.

    🙂

  3. Vic, thanks for the link to Xenophon talking about “how he will decide his crucial preferences”. I noticed that he emphasised that though he may recommend, in the end the voter decides. This cannot be emphasised enough in all the talk about “swapping” or “allocating” preferences, and complaints about the Greens daring to issue open tickets. HTVs are for sheep. Voters who have minds decide for themselves. I wish the AEC would show ads reminding the sheep of that. In fact I wish the parties would emphasise that in their ads – but I know they won’t.

  5. citizen,

    Thanks for that link.

    I wonder if Bernardi has run this past anyone.

    It seems yo me to be a stupid thing to do.
    Why would the Libs want a story about $4 million in donations,being dodgy out and about and the spotlight on the one day Senate enquiry.

    Up to this point it has been flowing under the radar and I would have thought they would want it to stay that way.

    Anyway, I see more downside for the Libs than labor.

    Interesting all round.

    Cheers.

  7. Trying again! You people keep chucking me off the list! I am going to get peeved and vote for Laundy if you’re not careful (and Reid is one we have to win!)

    TPP ALP Election result predictions.
    Tom: 53
    K17: 54
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Jack A R: 50.9 (just enough, but enough!)
    Airlines: 51
    Asha Leu: 52.5
    Matt31: 49.2
    C@tmomma: 51.3
    Chinda: 50.2
    Hugoaugogo: 50.3 (and falling just short with seats)
    Poroti Coalition 49.1 ……”Missed by THAT much” Mal
    ajm: 56.0 – I know, I’m a hopeless romantic
    Don: Labor 52.6. And Christopher Pyne loses his seat. I can dream, can’t I?
    nappin 51.8
    paapstef 53-47 unless they bring Tones back to save the furniture
    Taylormade : 48
    JimmyDoyle: 51.5 (and a very narrow Labor majority)
    booleanbach 51.7 and a minority (LAB) govt.
    Peter of Marino 52.2
    Confessions: 49.8
    Psyclaw 52.1 and a majority of 8 or 9
    Steve777: 49.6
    Tom: 53
    Yabba88: 51.7
    Puff, the Magic Dragon 52.8
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Socrates 50.5
    briefly 54.5
    TPOF 52.9
    Jen 51.2
    To add to this, please copy and paste AND LEAVE THIS TEXT AT THE END

  8. Briefly, I hope you’re right, but in my weekly purchase of the Curious Mail today (there’s a whole-week TV program on Wednesdays) I noticed an article about how Bill was cutting into the Libs’ support, but then all the vox pops were with people who said “errrrr, I haven’t really decided yet”. If they haven’t made up their minds after the events of the last few months, when are they going to do it – and on what superficial grounds?

  9. Ooops – use “blocckquote” and “/blockquote” but surrounded by the usual “less than” and “greater than” signs.

  12. re Doyley @9:00PM: Interesting line of attack from them. Not a surprise they are going after Bill but it will be interesting to see how they try and frame it and how labor responds.

    The LNP-Murdoch dirt units are no doubt burrowing into the past of every Labor Senator and MP, especially Bill Shorten, to find stuff they can use in a smear campaign. If any Labor member so much as peed in the local baths when they were a kid, it will be blown up into the crime of the century. After all, they can’t talk about what they want for Australia’s future. Further neoliberal ‘reforms’ are poison outside of boardrooms and executive suites.

  13. Steve777:

    It’s because of the coalition’s hysteria over pink batts that I ask about work for the dole. They can’t have it both ways.

  15. TPP ALP Election result predictions.
    Tom: 53
    K17: 54
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Jack A R: 50.9 (just enough, but enough!)
    Airlines: 51
    Asha Leu: 52.5
    Matt31: 49.2
    C@tmomma: 51.3
    Chinda: 50.2
    Hugoaugogo: 50.3 (and falling just short with seats)
    Poroti Coalition 49.1 ……”Missed by THAT much” Mal
    ajm: 56.0 – I know, I’m a hopeless romantic
    Don: Labor 52.6. And Christopher Pyne loses his seat. I can dream, can’t I?
    nappin 51.8
    paapstef 53-47 unless they bring Tones back to save the furniture
    Taylormade : 48
    JimmyDoyle: 51.5 (and a very narrow Labor majority)
    booleanbach 51.7 and a minority (LAB) govt.
    Peter of Marino 52.2
    Confessions: 49.8
    Psyclaw 52.1 and a majority of 8 or 9
    Steve777: 49.6
    Tom: 53
    Yabba88: 51.7
    Puff, the Magic Dragon 52.8
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Socrates 50.5
    briefly 54.5
    TPOF 52.9
    Jen 51.2
    adrian: 53.4
    To add to this, please copy and paste AND LEAVE THIS TEXT AT THE END

  16. Ooops – use “blocckquote” and “/blockquote” but surrounded by the usual “less than” and “greater than” signs.

  20. Jeebus ! BPreviously if I did not follow the form exactly it fcuked up. Now try as hard as I might the blockquote and still do their stuff.

  22. TPP ALP Election result predictions.
    Tom: 53
    K17: 54
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Jack A R: 50.9 (just enough, but enough!)
    Airlines: 51
    Asha Leu: 52.5
    Matt31: 49.2
    C@tmomma: 51.3
    Chinda: 50.2
    Hugoaugogo: 50.3 (and falling just short with seats)
    Poroti Coalition 49.1 ……”Missed by THAT much” Mal
    ajm: 56.0 – I know, I’m a hopeless romantic
    Don: Labor 52.6. And Christopher Pyne loses his seat. I can dream, can’t I?
    nappin 51.8
    paapstef 53-47 unless they bring Tones back to save the furniture
    Taylormade : 48
    JimmyDoyle: 51.5 (and a very narrow Labor majority)
    booleanbach 51.7 and a minority (LAB) govt.
    Peter of Marino 52.2
    Confessions: 49.8
    Psyclaw 52.1 and a majority of 8 or 9
    Steve777: 49.6
    Tom: 53
    Yabba88: 51.7
    Puff, the Magic Dragon 52.8
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Socrates 50.5
    briefly 54.5
    TPOF 52.9
    Jen 51.2
    adrian: 53.4
    imacca 52
    To add to this, please copy and paste AND LEAVE THIS TEXT AT THE END

  24. If they haven’t made up their minds after the events of the last few months, when are they going to do it – and on what superficial grounds?

    They will do it between now and election day. Everybody who is open to changing their vote to Labor will have a different threshold.

    They may be waiting for the Turnbull genius to reveal itself in the budget.

    They may still think that Turnbull has better leadership qualities and need to see him in a one on one debate with Shorten to recalibrate their thinking.

    They may just not make up their minds until they are ready to vote.

    But the standards on which most swinging voters decide who to vote will come through eventually. Competence, coherence, a sense of direction and leadership. And this government and its leader fails badly on all of those standards. Shorten and Labor are miles ahead of the Coalition on all of them.

    It just comes down to when people get around to making up their mind.

  25. Jack A Randa
    Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 9:27 pm
    Briefly, I hope you’re right, but in my weekly purchase of the Curious Mail today (there’s a whole-week TV program on Wednesdays) I noticed an article about how Bill was cutting into the Libs’ support, but then all the vox pops were with people who said “errrrr, I haven’t really decided yet”. If they haven’t made up their minds after the events of the last few months, when are they going to do it – and on what superficial grounds?

    The undecideds are very numerous. That’s normal and it’s good for Labor. It means that the several million voters that had loosely attached themselves to Turnbot last year have detached themselves. This is the first step. As the days pass, they will re-formulate their affiliations. Many will re-affiliate with the Libs. But Labor will also recruit heavily from these cohorts. They will respond to Labor’s themes.

    There are probably around 4 million undecided voters right now. They may lean one way or another but they are essentially uncommitted and “free-to-move”. The election result is in their hands. Nearly everything the LNP have been doing this year has had the effect of repelling these voters. If the LNP continue to stuff up, most of these undecided and disengaged voters will end up voting Labor, in which case we will see the biggest landslide since 1943.

    The LNP think they cannot lose…that voters do not change so easily; that they have a hold over the electorate. They’re wrong. If we take voters at face value and listen to them carefully, it is obvious they are willing to change and are actively thinking things through. Voters may not be “angry” but they are certainly not “contented” either. Change is occurring every day…just not all on the one day.

  28. Tune in at 9.30 on News24 for our story on the implications of CSIRO’s shift away from public good science @Lateline

    This is very serious. Government funded scientific advice should always be in the peer-reviewed and national interest. We haven’t had much of either under a coalition govt, and it seems we aren’t gonna get it either.

  34. The Libs have huge problems when it comes to campaigning. Anytime they talk about health, education, the environment, tax equity – or equity issues more generally – retirement incomes, disability issues, jobs and employment/unemployment, they are echoing Labor. They remind voters that these are grounds for voting Labor. They are practically synonyms for Labor.

    So what do the Liberals try to work with? Fear? It won’t work well in the absence of an enemy. Debt and Deficit? These won’t work because the Liberals have debased their currency. What else? Where is the positive story? They don’t have one. They have nothing much at all beyond a comic ineptitude.

    It’s no wonder that the Banking RC has caused such a commotion. It is inconceivable that the Libs could do something so sensible.

  35. Further on the undecided swinging voters, one thing that Labor is doing to date is proposing policies that are reasonably deliverable and that will win votes. Policies such as winding back negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, instituting a banking royal commission and having a Parliamentary vote on Marriage Equality, rather than a very expensive plebiscite.

    The feature of all these policies is that they are vote winners, but not vote losers. The people who are opposed to winding back unproductive tax concessions, a bank royal commission and dropping the ME plebiscite are pretty much all signed up to the Coalition (if not further right). But I think there are plenty who will go Labor’s way, especially in regard to the tax concession wind-back and the ME (of the examples given). The bank RC is not so much a vote winner in itself, but a demonstration (amply reinforced by ScoMo today) of how the Coalition has the back of the banks at the expense of their customers, including (maybe especially) small business customers and farmers.

    Overall, these things and others that Labor has not fully rolled out, like education and health, play into a general theme that the Government has no direction, is largely clueless about where it wants to lead Australia and is playing catch-up time and again when a Labor announcement touches a popular chord.

    I am having serious difficulty seeing how anyone who is not ideologically or by family tradition rusted on to the conservatives would have a reason to vote for them. There is always the question of negativity around Bill Shorten (less so about Labor I think) and the sophomore effect for those fresher MPs who have taken their electorate duties seriously and proactively. But for the rest, there is nothing positive about this government at all.

  38. TPOF
    Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 9:57 pm

    The LNP have political laryngitis. They have nothing to say of relevance to most voters. Labor themes on the other hand all have one thing in common. They convey to voters that they are relevant to Labor – that Labor listen to them.

    This is music to the ears of voters who feel ignored, insulted and avoided by the Liberals.

  39. Question @1:48:

    “I figured there wouldn’t be too much data, but I also don’t think this is a typical election either, so I’m not sure such regressions will be reliable.”

    Is there really such thing as a typical election? I can easily make a case that most of the last 10 elections were odd in some way or other. 1993, 2001, 2007, 2010, 2013 – all these were obviously strange.

    I wondered what level the Coalition would have to be polling now for the regression to give them a 50-50 chance of losing. The answer is 47.7. So if we see a further crash in the next few weeks it will most likely change its tune soon enough.

  43. I’d challenge things like the sophomore effect. In the past 5 – 10 years the population has become physically and mentally more mobile. Plus, with the acceleration of technological change, every norm we once relied upon is now in question. People are less patient. They’re less likely to accept repeated mistakes. And they’re less likely to forgive.

    To me, this means when the playing field is basically level, there are no prevailing rules. Alignments change. The ‘rusted on’ are definitely in the minority. I think this is why parties are desperate to hold onto their perceived base – it simply isn’t easily defined anymore.

  44. One thing i cant work out. ScoMo und dah Mouth from daH South did a presser today where he “warned” the banks not to pass on the cost of their “ASIC Tax”.
    Did anyone actually question him on what mechanism he will use to to stop them passing on the cost?? I mean, its was just such a silly statement. At some point someone is going to say, “ok Scooty me Booty…How??”
    It really doesn’t pass the giggle test.

  46. Given how long and unweildly it is becoming, and the difficulties present in keeping it consistent, I think this while election prediction list might work a lot better if one person volunteers to compile it and just posts an new update every so often.

  47. TPP ALP Election result predictions.
    Tom: 53
    K17: 54
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Jack A R: 50.9 (just enough, but enough!)
    Airlines: 51
    Asha Leu: 52.5
    Matt31: 49.2
    C@tmomma: 51.3
    Chinda: 50.2
    Hugoaugogo: 50.3 (and falling just short with seats)
    Poroti Coalition 49.1 ……”Missed by THAT much” Mal
    ajm: 56.0 – I know, I’m a hopeless romantic
    Don: Labor 52.6. And Christopher Pyne loses his seat. I can dream, can’t I?
    nappin 51.8
    paapstef 53-47 unless they bring Tones back to save the furniture
    Taylormade : 48
    JimmyDoyle: 51.5 (and a very narrow Labor majority)
    booleanbach 51.7 and a minority (LAB) govt.
    Peter of Marino 52.2
    Confessions: 49.8
    Psyclaw 52.1 and a majority of 8 or 9
    Steve777: 49.6
    Tom: 53
    Yabba88: 51.7
    Puff, the Magic Dragon 52.8
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Socrates 50.5
    briefly 54.5
    TPOF 52.9
    Jen 51.2
    adrian: 53.4
    imacca 52
    Daretotread : 49.5/50.5
    To add to this, please copy and paste AND LEAVE THIS TEXT AT THE END

  49. Labor sort far have done very well.
    I like the possible slogan
    “Putting people first”
    It can be applied to most policies, actually means something and contrasts with the government.

    However I am still not confident, the MSM is still fully onboard with Turnbull, they have accepted the need for the ABCC really without question.

    They still accept the LNP are better economic managers, when a member of the government says this is is accepted without question.
    In the campaign I fear a late swing to the government.

    Being in NSW I feel there is scope for a number of seats to change hands so the stare should play it’s part in a swing.

  50. daretotread
    Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 10:11 pm
    TPP ALP Election result predictions.
    Tom: 53
    K17: 54
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Jack A R: 50.9 (just enough, but enough!)
    Airlines: 51
    Asha Leu: 52.5
    Matt31: 49.2
    C@tmomma: 51.3
    Chinda: 50.2
    Hugoaugogo: 50.3 (and falling just short with seats)
    Poroti Coalition 49.1 ……”Missed by THAT much” Mal
    ajm: 56.0 – I know, I’m a hopeless romantic
    Don: Labor 52.6. And Christopher Pyne loses his seat. I can dream, can’t I?
    nappin 51.8
    paapstef 53-47 unless they bring Tones back to save the furniture
    Taylormade : 48
    JimmyDoyle: 51.5 (and a very narrow Labor majority)
    booleanbach 51.7 and a minority (LAB) govt.
    Peter of Marino 52.2
    Confessions: 49.8
    Psyclaw 52.1 and a majority of 8 or 9
    Steve777: 49.6
    Tom: 53
    Yabba88: 51.7
    Puff, the Magic Dragon 52.8
    Shiftaling: 52.7
    Socrates 50.5
    briefly 54.5
    TPOF 52.9
    Jen 51.2
    adrian: 53.4
    imacca 52
    Daretotread : 49.5/50.5
    JohnR: 52 ( reposted)
    To add to this, please copy and paste AND LEAVE THIS TEXT AT THE END

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