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”

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  2. ‘We will split the Liberals on this’: Crossbench pushes on with doomed 18c race law crusade

    Their persistence comes despite conceding the moves are doomed to fail as the numbers currently stand, with the Coalition unwilling to revisit the idea and the crucial Nick Xenophon Team resolutely opposed.

    Two private members’ bills will come before the Senate: one, from Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm, to entirely abolish section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act, and another from Bob Day, to remove the words “offend” and “insult” from the controversial clause.

    Either bill would be supported by newly elected Victorian senator Derryn Hinch, who senses an opportunity to divide and (possibly) conquer.

    “I’m not so sure it’s as dead as they say it is,” he told 3AW radio on Monday. “We will split the Liberals on this. There are a lot of Liberals, Tony Abbott, George Brandis, who pushed very hard for it early in the Abbott years.”

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/we-will-split-the-liberals-on-this-crossbench-pushes-on-with-doomed-18c-race-law-crusade-20160808-gqo3ib.html

  3. I happily did the Census online last time. My issue isn’t an electronic form for the Census, or even completing the Census survey. If the ABS had made it optional for people to provide their names this would’ve allayed my concerns.

  4. I just did the Census. I also just booked a campsite with NSW National Parks.
    Both of them wanted my name and address.
    The Census wanted to know the same sort of stuff that they asked me about 4 years ago.
    The National Parks wanted me to write a 300 word essay about myself when I opened an account with them!
    I know which one I thought was the more annoying and intrusive.

    Oh, and my son wanted the ABC to know that he was a Puritan. He thought a Pastafarian was so last Census. ; )

  6. Player One

    FROM FAQs: http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/getonlinefaqcensus?opendocument&navpos=110&

    Will personal information be shared with other government departments?

    No. The personal information you provide in the Census is not shared with any other government departments or agencies including the police, Australian Taxation Office or Centrelink.

    The ABS is legally bound to protect the privacy of all Australians and will not release your information in a way that will identify any individual or household.

    Find out how the ABS upholds the privacy, security and confidentiality of the information it collects.

  10. and have no idea why so many are whingeing about it

    Probably because you have no understanding of people’s genuine concerns.

  13. kezza2

    No. The personal information you provide in the Census is not shared with any other government departments or agencies including the police, Australian Taxation Office or Centrelink.

    Correct, but this is a deliberately misleading answer. The ABS will not provide your information to other departments – they intend to expropriate it all to themselves. If you want to read about what is planned, read about David Kalisch and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

    Here is an example, that provides quite a good summary (from http://www.rogerclarke.com/DV/Census-2016.html)

    The current Australian Statistician, David Kalisch, was previously head of AIHW. When he was appointed, his first manoeuvres were to seek a merger of the ABS and AIHW, and to declare his desire to breach current privacy laws by pillaging the holdings of personal data in a range of government agencies including Centrelink, Medicare, the ATO and Immigration (e.g. Canberra Times, 6 April 2015).

    If you don’t find this just a little frightening, then you probably haven’t though through the implications.

  15. Oops …

    If you don’t find this just a little frightening, then you probably haven’t though through the implications.

    If you don’t find this just a little frightening, then you probably haven’t thought through the implications.

  16. Adrian
    “Dunno, but he was certainly boring.”
    Yes he was. Bored and boring. At one stage Costello was shown staring out a window. Rivetting stuff.

  18. [I just completed the Census and have no idea why so many are whingeing about it.]
    How cute.
    The gold medal in flippancy goes to MTBW!

  19. Fess

    This is the first Census we are asked to provide our names. It is mandatory not optional

    Is it (the first time we’ve been asked to provide our nams)? I seriously can’t remember.

    Getting oldtimers.

  21. [confessions
    Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 12:34 pm
    Kezza:
    This is the first Census we are asked to provide our names. It is mandatory not optional.]
    Are you sure of that?
    I just had a look at the 2006 & 2011 forms and both has Q1 What is the address of this dwelling? & Q2 Name of each person including visitors with a follow up question – Where does the person usually live?
    I was under the impression the controversy is when if ever the ABS was going to separate this info from the rest of the data.

  22. More on the census … to those who think I’m being blinded by the reflections from my tinfoil hat, this comes straight from the ABS themselves (see http://bit.ly/2b9X03e) …

    David Kalisch (Chief Statistician) says …

    This government administrative data becomes a more valuable resource if it is combined with other information to provide more insights.

    For example, administrative data can be combined, such as information on social security recipients with child care and employment services, or Commonwealth MBS/PBS information with state government hospital services to design better policy or service delivery responses.

    Administrative data can also be combined with the five yearly ABS census information to provide a more comprehensive picture of changes in Australian households. Other ABS surveys of households and businesses provide further opportunities for constructing linked data sets that deliver additional insights.

    ABS has taken some early steps in data integration.

    He concludes with …

    I would hope that, in several years’ time, we would have an Integrated Data Resource similar in usefulness to what the NZ government achieved in August 2013 . This is a realistic goal. Technology, expertise and confidentiality are not the issues or the constraints. It can take some time and resources for government agencies to provide better access to their data, even to an organisation such as the ABS with all the data protections and community support you would require.

    This would provide a data resource that would not just be useful for the design and implementation of welfare reform, in its broader form, but for many other prevailing economic and social policy questions likely to confront Australia over coming decades.

    This stuff could be straight out of “1984”. Anybody still think they can trust the current ABS, given that this is what their Chief Statistician thinks?

  23. Kezza:

    This is the first Census we have been asked to provide our names. We’ve previously been asked for address but not name.

    That so few people seem to know this is evidence of the absence of public debate about the value compulsorily adding names to the data collected through Census vs the privacy concerns and the continued intrusion of govt into our lives.

  29. Wyatt has threatened to cross the floor if 18C gets that far.
    Brandis killed it stone dead last time with his ‘Bigots have rights,too.’
    The point here seems to be to normalize hate speech by adding the couth of Senate ‘debate’ as cover.

  30. gorkay king @ #3075 Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    Also completed census, 10 minute job, no dramas. All that whinging, first world problems.

    For you, it probably isn’t a problem.

    However, the picture may be slightly different if you are from Syria, declare Islam as your religion, don’t speak English at home, have had a mental illness or a criminal conviction you did not declare to your employer, are in hiding from an abusive partner, or perhaps have not declared you are gay but use HIV anti-retroviral drugs you obtained via the PBS.

    If any of these or many other situations apply to you, then your problems may just be beginning.

  31. PO:

    All they had to do was make it optional to provide your name. Those with concerns about providing their name wouldn’t need to do so, while those with no concerns could happily do so. Simple.

  32. [Some here are as nutty as Senator Malcolm Roberts.]
    I expect flippancy from you. You get the Gold from MTBW on recount but far from a personal best.

  33. Boerwar:

    It is pleasing to see Wyatt taking a stand on this, however meaningless it might be sitting in a partyroom where he is outnumbered on the issue.

  34. QLD – LABOR’S 2016 BASKET CASE ?
    In Queensland in 2016, Labor only regained one seat from seven seats lost in the 2010 election [Forde. Flynn, Leichardt, Dawson, Bonner, Brisbane, Longman] and neither of two seats lost in 2013 [Capricornia, Petrie]. 2010 might be put down to the ‘Kevin Again’ mantra being rejected resoundly in his home State and 2013 to a fiscally incompetent-wasteful Gillard train wreck and a switch back to an unpenetant K. Rudd.

    Against this two election loss of 9 seats, Bill Shorten’s Labor performed better in Queensland, but nowhere near well enough, notwithstanding the ‘two elections to Government’ reality Labor faced in 2016. Longman was regained with a 2PP margin of 0.7 % (1,390 votes) and Herbert was won by Labor for the first time by 37 votes. Labor knows it must do better than win 8 of 30 QLD seats in 2019 to win a majority Government. Three easily identified factors will change the context of the next election in QLD.

    First, a State election will have come and gone [2018], giving Queenslanders a chance to punish or retain the Labor State Government before the next Federal election. At the 2015 election, Labor won 44 seats, one short of commanding a majority in the Legislative Assembly. The LNP lost 36 seats in 2015. Katter’s Australian Party won two seats, and the Independent Wellington gave confidence and supply support to Labor to form government. Unless the QLD Labor Premier has an Andrew’s -CFA brain freeze moment, State politics will be unlikely to produce a rejection of the national Labor brand. Labor lead 51-49 2PP in the most recent State Newspoll and 50/50 in Galaxy – i note the ONP PV intentions are higher than the federal election PV average for ONP in contested seats.

    Secondly, the AEC will go through an electorate redistribution process in QLD before the next election. With a 4.41% projected population growth in QLD by mid 2019, seats that fall outside an electorate seat range of 94,137 -100,966 projected enrolled voters will come under AEC attention. It would be difficult to predict where and how many QLD seats will shift to a different nominally pro Labor or pro LNP position after the redistribution process, due to begin with within 30 days of December 15th this year.

    Finally, we have a glimpse of what might happen in 2019 if Pauline Hanson fields candidates in every QLD HOR seat, fed by the war chest ONP got from this election and four Senators developing the ONP brand over the coming years. ONP PV and prefererence flows helped Labor win two seats and pull the 2PP margin in Flynn down to 1.0 % from 6.5% in 2016. [ONP PV Longman 9.4 ; Herbert 13.5; Flynn 17.1]. ONP contested only 12 of 30 HOR seats in QLD IN 2016. However, ONP PV average across those contested seats was 13.9 %.

    The 2016 result in Leichardt mitigates against any presumption that ONP candidates fielded in every HOR seat at the next election in QLD will always win seats for Labor on the back of LNP PV leaking to Hanson et al and pro Labor ONP preference flows. The LNP PV (39.4) in Leichardt fell 5.7% in 2016. The ALP PV (28.1) fell 4.4% and One Nation got 7.5% PV. The 2PP swing against the long serving Warren Entsch was only 1.7%.

    Still, if Hanson racists, bigots, rednecks and frustrated ‘protest’ voters who are none of those things give Hanson 13.9 % of the PV in 2019 across Qld, at least seven LNP HOR members will be hoping Hanson was a one hit wonder in 2016 [Forde, Capricornia, Flynn, Petrie, Dickson,Bonner, Dawson] or that the AEC is kind to them in 2017.

    Labor and the Coalition may remain bullish about the ‘irrelevance’ of minor parties in public discourse but I suspect their election strategists will have to war-game the more than ‘irrelevant’ presence of the Greens in Victoria, Xenephon in South Australia and Hanson in Queensland, at least for the next two elections.

  35. https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/08/09/essential-voters-turn-globalisation-trade/

    Aug 9, 2016
    Essential: voters turn on globalisation and trade
    Few voters see employment benefits from trade, and many are suspicious of globalisation, this week’s Essential report shows.
    Bernard Keane — Politics Editor

    Voters have mixed feelings about globalisation and believe trade destroys, rather than creates, jobs, this week’s Essential Report suggests — while Malcolm Turnbull has arrested his most recent slide into unpopularity.

    Asked about whether Australia had gained or lost from globalisation, voters were evenly divided, with 29% saying gained and 29% lost, while 24% were undecided. However, the split according to voting intention is more interesting. Greens voters are the most positively disposed toward globalisation, perhaps confirming the inner-urban, educated elite stereotype, while Coalition voters also view globalisation positively. But Labor voters and particularly “other” (including NXT) voters view it negatively — indeed, “other” voters are almost the exact reverse of Greens voters in their attitude to globalisation.

    ……………………

    Meantime, Malcolm Turnbull has halted what has been a long slide in his approval ratings with voters: 38% of voters approve of his performance, while 43% say they disapprove. That’s his second-worst ever performance as prime minister but still better than his July performance (37%-48%). Bill Shorten has marked time: 37% approve of his performance (down two points) and 41% disapprove (steady). Turnbull leads Shorten as preferred prime minister by 10 points, 40%-30%, up from Turnbull’s 39%-31% lead in July.

    ……………………….

    On voting intention, the Coalition has gained a point on its primary vote from last week (40%) while Labor remains on 37%, the Greens on 10% and NXT on 4%, for an unchanged two-party preferred outcome of 52%-48% in Labor’s favour.

  36. player one @ #3080 Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    gorkay king @ #3075 Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    Also completed census, 10 minute job, no dramas. All that whinging, first world problems.

    For you, it probably isn’t a problem.
    However, the picture may be slightly different if you are from Syria, declare Islam as your religion, don’t speak English at home, have had a mental illness or a criminal conviction you did not declare to your employer, are in hiding from an abusive partner, or perhaps have not declared you are gay but use HIV anti-retroviral drugs you obtained via the PBS.
    If any of these or many other situations apply to you, then your problems may just be beginning.

    Yes, you have had no prior interaction with immigration, never needed an interpreter or disclosed your language when you migrated, never had your mental illness treated in the public system, somehow got your drugs without the PBS being involved…. and so on.

    Just crazy stuff.

  38. confessions @ #3081 Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 1:08 pm

    All they had to do was make it optional to provide your name. Those with concerns about providing their name wouldn’t need to do so, while those with no concerns could happily do so. Simple.

    As it has been for every census in the past. Yes, I agree completely.

  40. ‘Some here are as nutty as Senator Malcolm Roberts.’

    Bemused, why do you so often seek to disparage those that have the temerity to disagree with you?
    I suppose you’d link those experts who have genuine concerns, such as Anna Johnston with with Roberts?

    What really gives me the shits with you (apart from the colonoscopy discussion) is that you rarely engage with the issue, just resort to cheap shots.

  41. Dan Gulberry
    Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 9:28 am

    Updated Libspill III sweep picks (including special guest, Albo):

    Put me down for May 2, 2017 please.

  42. PO:

    I’m also amazed that there hasn’t been that much media coverage about the change. The vast majority of the commentary about it has been in Crikey’s daily email.

  44. ‘You are in the company of the nutters’

    Let’s face it, you are more of a nutter than a former Deputy Privacy Commissioner, or former head of the ABS.
    But what would these expert know in comparison to PB’s resident expert on everything?

  45. adrian @ #3090 Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 1:22 pm

    ‘Some here are as nutty as Senator Malcolm Roberts.’
    Bemused, why do you so often seek to disparage those that have the temerity to disagree with you?
    I suppose you’d link those experts who have genuine concerns, such as Anna Johnston with with Roberts?
    What really gives me the shits with you (apart from the colonoscopy discussion) is that you rarely engage with the issue, just resort to cheap shots.

    I am not going to engage in the sheer ratbaggery that goes on here at times. I have deliberately said little about the census as I hold a similar position to Andrew Leigh and will just get on with filling mine out tonight.

  46. Confessions, last night (a few pages back)

    Interesting issue you raised ie, whether or not there is an equivalence between African-Americans at the back of the bus and transgender people being denied access to the public toilets they wish to use.

    Obviously, conservative figures such as Bolt and O’Rourke are going to want to downplay this comparison for ideological reasons. And, for more or less the opposite ideological reasons, many left-leaning people are going to want to play up the comparison.

    However, if we move away from the world of ideology to the practical world, there is a difference. The African-Americans at the back of the bus issue was always a pretty clear cut one: either you believe (like all reasonable people) that all human beings are entitled to sit anywhere on a bus that they wish, or you don’t.

    The transgender people in public toilets issue is far more complex. I would suspect that, when it comes to public toilets with multiple cubicles and shared washbasins, the overwhelming majority of people – and the overwhelming majority of women – would favour the widespread provision of facilities purely for women. I think that, by definition, people who are not women would be excluded from the use of these facilities. I don’t think that Australia is about to see the emergence of a major movement claiming that the fact that all public toilets are not unisex is a breach of human rights. Many women would feel unsafe going into a toilet facility that men can also use, and parents would not like to send their young daughters into them. I don’t think this is at all unreasonable.

    Now, there are quite a few different types of transgender people (and I don’t even want to go into the question of intersex people). First of all, there are those who were born as women and now dress as men and, in some cases, have had surgery to make themselves physically more masculine. Should they be allowed to use women’s toilets? Would they want to do so? I don’t know.

    Then there are those born as men who now live their lives entirely as women and, for the most part, have had surgery or are waiting for it. Those who use women’s public toilets are unlikely to be detected in doing so, but it’s perfectly understandable that they’d like to have their right to use these facilities recognised in law. And, in particular, that they’d like to avoid ever being forced to use male public toilets, where they might well be at considerable risk.

    But then there are the transgender people – of whom I have met more than one – who were born as men, dress as women, but has no intention whatsoever of having any surgery done because – considering themselves either to be bisexual or even exclusively heterosexual – they wish to continue to be able to engage in heterosexual intercourse with women.

    Many years ago, one of these individuals worked for me. She was perfectly clear about being sexually attracted to other women, but also demanded the right to use the women’s toilet. I’m sure you won’t be at all surprised that all the women in the workplace were up in arms against this demand, as they found the idea of having her in the toilet with them to be rather creepy.

    This story indicates that there will always be practical problems with the idea that someone who is born male and then chooses a female gender identity thereby unquestionably gains the right to be considered a woman, on a par with someone who was born a woman. There are too many grey areas: it’s a far more complex issue than that of someone being denied a seat at the front of the bus simply on the basis of their skin colour.

  48. 18C talk at least as far as the government introducing the measure is just that. Why would Turnbull and Co burn up what little political capital they have for something that is doomed in the Senate with Labor, Greens and X opposed to it.
    ,

  50. Adrian:

    These people must be nutters as well then 😆

    I first urged a boycott of the census back in March. Since then, as many more informed and more expert people than myself have emerged to say they, too, are deeply worried about what the ABS is doing, my view has only hardened. The former head of the ABS, Bill McLennan; former NSW deputy privacy commissioner Anna Johnston; former Privacy Commissioner Malcolm Crompton, respected researchers like Leslie Cannold, politicians with a track record of standing up for privacy and against bureaucratic overreach, like Nick Xenophon and Scott Ludlam, public health researchers, epidemiologists, academics who rely on the census but who are mortified at what’s being done.

    From today’s Crikey email.

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