Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

The only pollster currently in the game finds Labor retaining its modest post-election, and finds opinion finely balanced on superannuation reform and nominating Kevin Rudd for United Nations Secretary-General.

Essential Research, which is still the only polling series back in the game after the election, records Labor maintaining a 52-48 lead in the latest reading of its fortnightly rolling average, with primary votes also unchanged at Coalition 39%, Labor 37%, Greens 10% and Nick Xenophon Team 4%. Also featured:

• Support for nominating Kevin Rudd for Secretary-General of the United Nations was finely balanced at 36% for and 39% against, which was predictably split along party lines.

• Thirty-seven per cent said Tony Abbott should resign from parliament; 25% that he should be given a ministry; and 21% that he should remain on the back bench. A similar question in March found 47% saying he should quit at the looming election, with 18% saying he should be given a ministry and 15% that he should remain on the back bench.

• Capping after-tax super contributions backdated at $500,000 recorded 29% approval and 34% disapproval.

• A question on groups that would be better and worse off under the re-elected Coalition government returned the usual results, with large companies and the high-income earners expected to do very well indeed, small businesses somewhat less well but still net positive, and various categories of struggler expected to do poorly.

• As it does on a semi-regular basis, the pollster asked questions on trust in various media outlets. However, this asked specifically on reportage of the federal election campaign, dropped separate questions for the news and current affairs as distinction from talkback programming of “ABC radio” and “commercial radio”, and in the case of the newspapers, dropped the normal proviso that respondents be be a readers of the paper in question to qualify for inclusion. This led to much lower levels of trust being recorded for the newspapers across the board, while the radio results split the difference between the higher results that are normally recorded for news and current affairs, and the lower results for talkback. As far as relativities are concerned, the results as before find television the most trusted medium, public broadcasters favoured over commercial ones. However, The Australian did not perform significantly better than News Corporation tabloids, as it has usually done in the past, whereas the Fairfax papers continued to record somewhat higher levels of trust than News Corporation ones.

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.

3,123 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor”

Comments Page 3 of 63
1 2 3 4 … 63

  1. If Gillard is a bogan, surely Rudd is one too.

    In fact, given his background, Rudd would be more likely to be a bogan than Gillard.

    They both came from poor families, and went to public schools, but Gillard’s parents were British, so genuine bogan-ism is probably not possible.

    (Love bogans. I’m only not one cos I got educamated).

  4. Steve777

    It has no doubt changed meaning over time but from when I first remember the term “bogan” the term had a strong element of “yob”. Being a yob crosses all social classes.

  6. Oh, and I’m not sure it’s fair to say Gillard dressed like a bogan.

    Bogans wear Tshirts, tight jeans and (traditionally) ugg boots (morphed into desert shoes, not sure what the footwear du jour is).

    I have seen Gillard’s style described as “Melbourne” and would think that is a better fit.

  7. fess,

    Rudd was in the episode when he shimmied to the Carole King Classic “Self Promotion”. When he didn’t win he had to blame it on someone else so he blamed it on the Bossanova.

  8. A few days ago there was a discussion on whether the campaign to boycott $1 per litre milk at the big supermarkets would actually help milk producers.

    Today I was at Coles city store in Canberra (the former Supabarn for locals) and Coles brand 2 and 3 litre milk at $1 per litre completely dominated the shelves. The rest of the space was taken by a few ‘name’ brands and an assortment of modified milks at higher prices.

    It looks like most customers are not convinced that paying more for their milk at retail level is going to help dairy farmers (or are very price conscious due to static incomes etc).

  11. The ultimate yob would have to be Donald Trump. He couldn’t be a bogan – the term does not have any connotations of evil.

  12. Nicole,You know what pisses me off about you.

    You’re trying to come across as some indifferent Labor supporter.

    I don’t have a problem if you’re a Rudd supporter. You’re not unique, you one among very many.

    What I have a problem with is you pretending your’e not, and then jumping to his defence when you think he’s under attack.

    And then, having a go at Julia Gillard.

    That’s what did you undone. Not anyone else, just yourself.

  13. Question:

    Turnbull is just hopeless. A waffler with no judgement and who has trashed his appeal with swinging voters. The real question is how much longer can he survive?

  14. Rudd was in the episode when he shimmied to the Carole King Classic “Self Promotion”. When he didn’t win he had to blame it on someone else so he blamed it on the Bossanova.

    LOL! Knowing what we know of the man that could conceivably be passed off as actually having happened. 😆

  15. What I have a problem with is you pretending your’e not, and then jumping to his defence when you think he’s under attack.

    I don’t even care about that. What I get annoyed about is her unnecessarily attacking anyone who expresses criticism of the man. Why not just scroll past or change the subject? It’s very like bemused who similarly lacks impulse control when the R word is mentioned.

  17. a r @ #38 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 6:21 pm

    More good news for Labor:
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/no-police-action-on-queensland-labor-party-election-day-medicare-text-messages-20160802-gqjanw.html

    That is good news and I knew this would be the case. I received messages from QLD Labor using Headings on other topics that could not have been confused with a sender. I figured someone had simply not considered it might be misconstrued.

  18. All this Bogan talk led me to Wiki and ‘The Bogan River’ page. In the footnotes there is a clickable link to ‘On the origin of the Bogan as a species’, so I clicked and it took me straight to news.com.au . Well played, whoever you are.

  19. steve777

    He couldn’t be a bogan – the term does not have any connotations of evil.

    Straight up, in my books bogans are not evil. Abbott played himself off as the bogan mate when in fact he is a yob. There are clear distinctions here. Yobs will kick the sh*t out off you for no apparent reason, bogans will lend you the cab fare home.

  20. Bernard Keane in today’s Crikey:

    Prior to the election, Crikey postulated that one of the most important reasons why Malcolm Turnbull would fall over the line was that voters were ready to give him a final chance. Despite their disappointment, they hoped once he was elected in his own right, he would emerge as the Old Malcolm of beloved memory, the leather-jacketed Turnbull who genially displayed his centrist views and good sense in glaring contrast to the hard-right ideologue Abbott. The Abbott coterie and far right would be put in their box, and Australia would, for the first time in nearly a decade, have a Prime Minister in touch with the electorate but capable of giving us the leadership we craved. Even Labor voters hoped that, in Turnbull, we’d finally have a real leader.

    There was much wrong with that idea — Turnbull was never going to be able to live up to all those expectations, the far right was never going to fully knuckle under — and as it turned out the margin of victory, one lousy seat, was so thin as to undermine, not enhance, his leadership authority. The greatest problem, though, was the inherently implausible idea that a government that had started off poorly was going to dramatically improve, especially when the personnel were more or less the same.

    Just on the leather jacket wearing thing, I saw the grabs Insiders had of Turnbull and my immediate thought was how old he looked. He looked the same physically – hair, expression etc, but there was something about him that made him look older than his years. Perhaps it’s him trying to look Prime Ministerial in the face of his dwindling partyroom authority that sits all wrong with him. Dunno, but it struck me nonetheless.

  22. Sometimes I think Bernard wishes we had all voted Malcolm back in a landslide. Mal could then have axed the right wing and dragged the whole mess back to the center. Only problem with that

    was the inherently implausible idea that a government that had started off poorly was going to dramatically improve

    Bring on 2019

  24. confessions @ #74 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 6:58 pm

    Support for nominating Kevin Rudd for Secretary-General of the United Nations was finely balanced at 36% for and 39% against, which was predictably split along party lines.

    Well that is interesting. Presumably the more Rudd continues his campaigning the more people will be sick of him and public opinion will oppose his candidacy even more.

    So what does Confessions start off with? Why slagging off Rudd of course. 🙁
    One track mind.

  25. confessions

    “, he would emerge as the Old Malcolm of beloved memory”
    .
    😆 Some people must be wearing industrial grade rose tinted memory glasses

  27. I see we are back to Rudd Gillard discuss. More polls please.

    We noted a poll from CBS released on Monday that showed Hillary Clinton taking a strong lead in the national presidential race. A few hours later, Gallup published data showing that Trump’s convention was the first since the polling firm began tracking the question to find that a majority of people were less likely to vote for the candidate after watching it.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08

    On the subject of polls, the note above from the Washington Post gives me a bit of little hope that the US will survive.

  28. To whomever said it.
    So Julia Gillard is a bogan because she went to a public school, does not like fine art as far as you know, enjoys the Australian game of football and wears clothes that do not impress you? And so is going ger partner because…well you don’t say. Maybe you think Julia could only mate with her own species?
    Wow, it sounds like someone on PB should be joining the rest of the wannabe aristocracy in the Liberal Party.
    There might be a bogan in all this but it is not FPM Julia Gillard.

  29. Some people must be wearing industrial grade rose tinted memory glasses

    Well it is the press gallery, renowned for being removed from what normal folk think 😀

  31. kezza2 @ #112 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 7:43 pm

    Nicole,You know what pisses me off about you.
    You’re trying to come across as some indifferent Labor supporter.
    I don’t have a problem if you’re a Rudd supporter. You’re not unique, you one among very many.
    What I have a problem with is you pretending your’e not, and then jumping to his defence when you think he’s under attack.
    And then, having a go at Julia Gillard.
    That’s what did you undone. Not anyone else, just yourself.

    LOL. One time… that’s right one time I pointed out what I considered was Julia doing THE SAME therefore rendering the point moot. You know moot as in NEUTRAL. I even stated the context “people in glass houses and all that”. I have made the claim I have bother supported and criticised them both and I have at various time. I existed before I started posting in here you know. Why would I lie about it? For what purpose? It doesn’t even make sense what you are saying. I think it must be clear to people here that I don’t hold back on my opinions and yet here you are creating this fantasy or conspiracy theory about me?

    OK, I confess. I am an undercover Rudd groupie who should have her opinions completely ignored because she is brainwashed by her cult leader Bemused or is he a sub cult leader, must be. I bow down to you dear leader. I bow down to you oh Kevie. I lay aside all of my common sense and capacity to think rationally to serve you oh my leader. I shall go undercover and join the pollbludger blog so I can teach them the beauty of your ways oh my leader. In Kevin’s name. Amen (or should that be ffs).

  32. confessions @ #115 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 7:48 pm

    What I have a problem with is you pretending your’e not, and then jumping to his defence when you think he’s under attack.

    I don’t even care about that. What I get annoyed about is her unnecessarily attacking anyone who expresses criticism of the man. Why not just scroll past or change the subject? It’s very like bemused who similarly lacks impulse control when the R word is mentioned.

    Poor Nicole, coming under full blown attack by the bully pack.

    Courage Nicole, stand your ground.

  33. Puffy:

    If people want to think of Gillard as a bogan that’s fine. But either way her substantial record of getting Labor policy legislated cannot be traduced and will be there on the public record forever. One of our greatest PMs ever.

  38. Gillard is highly intellectual and genuinely well educated.

    A bogan I would think is the opposite… someone who pretends to be highly intellectual and genuinely well educated… like Bemused.

  39. Malcolm might have increased his authority in the Liberal and Coalition party rooms had he been able to maintain or increase the Coalition’s majority in this year’s election, which was never on. Possibly, if he had been able to limit losses from the 2013 high water mark, rather as Bruce Baird had done in 2015 in NSW from the huge 2011 majority.

    But that hasn’t happened. I never understood why anyone thought the real Malcom would magically emerge after the election. What we saw is what we got, he dithering Malcolm under the thumb of the party’s Far Right wing. The Malcolm who abolished knighthoods was the ‘pretend Malcom’. He has a mandate to implement the Abbott agenda, including the 2014 Budget (which he believes in in any case), but nothing else. He is a figurehead until the party right can find someone to replace him.

    So the punters voted to dismantle Medicare, make a start on dismantling other parts of the safety net, for blocking effective action on climate change, for Big Money, for Big Banks, for Big Miners, for Big Coal, for 457 Visas and pushing down wages and working conditions, for vulture capitalists.

    But the boats have stopped. Wacky do.

  40. rex douglas @ #138 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 8:36 pm

    Gillard is highly intellectual and genuinely well educated.
    A bogan I would think is the opposite… someone who pretends to be highly intellectual and genuinely well educated… like Bemused.

    Hahaha… you are funny Rex.
    Gillard suffers the same flaw as Rudd. She is a lawyer.
    Sadly, too many politicians suffer the same flaw.

    As for my education, it is not something I boast about, but I am pretty confident it exceeds yours.

  41. I was “mature aged” when I began my career in psychology, a bit over 30. By then I was becoming infatuated with the phenomenom of the diversity of human personalities, attitudes and behaviours, and this has continued and magnified over the decades.

    As a result I am strong on the view that humans are very complex.

    From this platform I can say that I was an admirer of both Rudd and Gillard, and remain so, at the same time realising that like all of us they cannot be summarized by glib statements or by focussing on specific events in which they have been involved.

    Anyone who puts me in the “Rudd camp” or the “Gillard camp ” is dead wrong. Anyone who puts me on this PB “side” or that PB “side” is also dead wrong.

    I am also not on “Bemused’s team”.

    But as I have said here a few times in the last couple of days, IMHO Bemused has been reactive in the R-G discussions here. Others have been clearly proactive, despite the group think to the contrary.

    Also I know zero about who or what Nicole is, other than the fact that in the short time she has been here she has written informative posts in a courteous style. And like Bemused, and me too, and many others here, she can be persistent.

    And now others here are quite abusive to her.

    Poor form.

  45. bemused @ #132 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 8:25 pm

    confessions @ #115 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 7:48 pm

    What I have a problem with is you pretending your’e not, and then jumping to his defence when you think he’s under attack.

    I don’t even care about that. What I get annoyed about is her unnecessarily attacking anyone who expresses criticism of the man. Why not just scroll past or change the subject? It’s very like bemused who similarly lacks impulse control when the R word is mentioned.

    Poor Nicole, coming under full blown attack by the bully pack.
    Courage Nicole, stand your ground.

    Don’t you worry. I survived an attempted murder and finding out later it was a serial killer I barely escaped. I can most certainly survive an attack from the Gossip Girls. My fear factor where they’re concerned is around zero. I wish I could say the same though regarding my annoyance.

  46. Psychlaw,

    This is an opinion site. So, no matter how much you lament or bitch about other people’s opinions, they are not wrong.
    Cloistering yourself in a the mumbo jumbo rags of alleged academic knowledge doesn’t really protect you from bias and self deception. You just think it does.
    Perception is the reality here on PB and you will be grouped with those whom others think you belong. Just accept it and move on.
    I just find the oh so earnest denials quite amusing. You’d probably be a good subject for any cognitive dissonance research you might be contemplating.

  47. We may all have slightly different understanding of the word bogan but as I understand it it is someone who is interested in fairly mainstream culture. Educated possibly but not in the arts, generally working class in origin, although its upper/middle class equivalent is philistine.

    It is NOT about class although strongly correlated. A working class guy who reads Dostoyevsky is probably NOT a bogan. Someone who loves the ballet is not a bogan. Those who ONLY like Country and western music are probably bogans.

    People who read a lot – be it novels, internet or policy documents will not be bogans almost by definition.

    So while it have working class origins, many people choose not to be bogans. I have a good friend with working class origins and no tertiary education. She is however NOT a bogan, largely because she reads and follows a diverse range of music genres. It is a horrible program but that Upper Middle Class Bogan program gives you an idea.

  49. nicole @ #145 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 8:53 pm

    bemused @ #132 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 8:25 pm

    confessions @ #115 Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 7:48 pm

    What I have a problem with is you pretending your’e not, and then jumping to his defence when you think he’s under attack.

    I don’t even care about that. What I get annoyed about is her unnecessarily attacking anyone who expresses criticism of the man. Why not just scroll past or change the subject? It’s very like bemused who similarly lacks impulse control when the R word is mentioned.

    Poor Nicole, coming under full blown attack by the bully pack.
    Courage Nicole, stand your ground.

    Don’t you worry. I survived an attempted murder and finding out later it was a serial killer I barely escaped. I can most certainly survive an attack from the Gossip Girls. My fear factor where they’re concerned is around zero. I wish I could say the same though regarding my annoyance.

    Actually, I think they are hilarious.
    But they aren’t bright enough to see it. 😆
    I too have endured far worse than anything they could dish out.

  50. Ok you lot, knock it off. The amount of name-calling and petty point-scoring is ruining an otherwise informative and enthralling blog. All of you have things worthy of reading, but it’s becoming hard to find it amongst the dross. FWIW I think Nicole’s defense of herself is about right and I thought Markjs was ok, I also though Moshka’s rejoinder was fair enough. As for the bogan thing – I didn’t find it at all offensive and I’m a Gillardista. DTT is basically on the money over Turkey according to my Turkish friends (admittedly they are not Erdogan fans). Bemused and GG – I don’t care that you both have to have the last word, but does it have to be so belligerent all the time. Guytaur – thank goodness you’ve shut up a bit now the election is over. I can’t tell how much it surprised me to be in total agreement with Boerwar over the Greens during the election. As for the NBN – what an utterly wasted opportunity and complete failure by Labor to show national leadership. Heck, even Rex Douglas made sense for a bit over this! DavidWH, Shows On and even ModLib are on my must read list, even if some of them are mostly just for laughs. My apologies to those I’ve failed to vilify – Except Kezza2 who is pretty much in the same category as Bemused and GG, but still manages to present a decent argument on occasion (as do they). Oh, and Adrian is bang on when he bangs on about the ABC and I love Lizzie and Victoria and Zoomster. This a great blog. Play just a bit more nicely please (but not too much more) ’cause you’re ruining it for me at the moment.

Comments Page 3 of 63
1 2 3 4 … 63

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *