Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor

A blip back to the Coalition from Essential Research, which also turns in results on climate change, same-sex marriage and foreign investment.

The Essential Research fortnightly rolling average moves back a point to the Coalition this week, with Labor’s lead narrowing to 51-49 from primary votes of Coalition 39% (steady), Labor 36% (down one), Greens 10% (steady) and Nick Xenophon Team 4% (steady). Also featured are occasional questions on issue salience, recording big increases since December 2014 for national security and terrorism and housing affordability, and the best party to handle the various issues, with very little change on the previous such result in June, except that Coalition deficits have narrowed slightly on health and education. A semi-regular question on climate change finds 57% attributing it to human activity, down two points since June, with “normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate” also down two since July to 26%. Support for same-sex marriage is up four points to 62%, while opposition is down one to 27%. Sixty-two per cent oppose public funding of advertising campaigns in the event of a plebiscite, with only 25% in support. Respondents were also asked to state if various types of foreign investment were good or bad for the country, which recorded a neutral result for mining and negative ones for ports, agriculture, infrastructure and real estate.

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.

2,686 comments on “Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor”

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  3. Psyclaw

    There is only one solution for those with your concern …. stay off digital media, period. Go back to the safety of pencil and paper and tree based info sources. You might be safe there for a few weeks or so.

    Yes, yes – we get it – “that horse has already bolted”, so there is no point in trying to protect your privacy any more. This is a silly argument that is easily refuted. Please come up with another.

  4. Simon Katich @ 4.54
    You may be right but I would think the EBA only applies to the parties ie employer and employees. The volunteers maybe affected by it but they are outside FWAs jurisdiction.
    The State govt may be able to act on behalf of volunteers but I don’t believe the commonwealth has power to inervene.
    If an employer has to increase prices because costs increase as a result of increased wages, consumers will be adversely affected but they don’t have any case to overturn the EBA.
    Maybe the current Supreme Court action will clarify matters.

  5. I am reminded of a relative who will not use plastic, ATMs or internet banking, because of his privacy concerns vis a vis the internet. So every Thursday night he does a ginormous “shopping list” for his wife to do in person, face to face, at their bank.

    And every single Friday at 11am she goes to the counter at said bank and processes a myriad of transactions (including drawing out the precise amount of cash they will need till next Friday).

    Much as I try to advise him that banks themselves do use the www anyway to carry out their tasks, including recording / transmitting all his details, he is certain that he is seriously protecting his privacy.

  6. The argument for the Census seems to boil down to:
    you’ve got no privacy left anymore so what are you so worried about you paranoid/delusional/conspiracy theorist/insane person. (insert insult of choice).
    Try using a pen and paper and see how far that gets you.

    This represents a willful misreading of what the ABS plans to do.

    What I don’t understand is why this merry band of three or four gives a flying fark that others care about this issue, and that it generates so much abuse?

  9. Psyclaw, no offence intended, but do you have a superiority complex?

    Maybe the trouble with your relative is the condescending manner in which you give your ‘advice’?

  10. psyclaw @ #50 Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 5:30 pm

    Nicole @5.02pm
    “Facebook is voluntary and privacy conscious people do not provide much in the way of details at all. ”
    That would be quite true.
    In my estimation, based on friends and acquaintances who use Facebook, and on the many media references about the matter, the privacy conscious people would comprise about 0.01% of those who use Facebook.
    And as Bakunin has just pointed out to you, the “privacy conscious people” who use Facebook are also being delusional as to the fact that they are not giving too much away.
    There is only one solution for those with your concern …. stay off digital media, period. Go back to the safety of pencil and paper and tree based info sources. You might be safe there for a few weeks or so.

    It is quite funny the way you see yourself as the centre of a microcosm that represents the macrocosm. FB have said in 2014 that they have no idea how many people use fake accounts but that they estimate it is between 5.5% and 11.2% and that does not even include the many people who use their real names but limit greatly what they post online. It seems your own little universe is not too representational at all. Also you left off my main point which was that FB users are in control of what they want to post and what they do not. Privacy is not so much about secrecy but about maintaining control of what information you want shared and what you do not.

  11. Player 1 @ 5.31pm to Bakunin

    “Does facebook fine you $180 per day until you agree to sign up?”

    Now you are becoming quite rattled aren’t you old boy! What an incredible non-sequitur. Or should I say unicorn.

    So now it’s about money.

    FMD.

    The Melbourne Comedy Festival of 2017 Committee is trying to contact you to be the festival headline act.

  12. Nicole @5.42pm

    You haven’t been following the news these last couple of days, have you.

    Nor did you read Bakunin’s link.

  13. Adrian

    So you too have run out of credible evidence.

    You can always go back over the past few days of your comments about this and cut and paste them in again. Keep the wheel spinning.

  14. LOL! I love this! …

    https://delimiter.com.au/2016/08/23/australia-post-plans-blockchain-based-e-voting-system/

    And before anybody thinks I am being serious, I realize this proposal is a joke that will never actually happen. People hack bitcoin exchanges regularly, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars each time. But hey, they wouldn’t do that to our votes, would they? Well, duh! Of course they would.

    So what about our census data? As I have said before, there is one prime rule in online security, which is that if the honeypot is big enough, it will be hacked. As Nicole pointed out earlier, that’s the prime reason for keeping data segregated wherever possible. You don’t just put it all in one place because it would be easier and also kind of useful – there has to be a compelling reason to do so. Bitcoin has a compelling reason (there has to be a record of every bitcoin transaction) and so it gets hacked all the time – because it is worth real money to do so. And they use far more sophisticated security than the ABS does. The only thing that is really protecting your personal data is that it is currently not really worth stealing.

    But if the ABS has its way, this will change.

  15. <i. After an elongated introduction, Speers greeted the senator, to which Cash responded with a sort of vertical Nazi salute.

    This suggested poor media advice. Some things are better left in the party room.

    chortle

  16. Nicole

    < "I don’t know where you get the impression that your approval is some kind of prize to be sought. Don’t you think you might just have tickets on yourself?"

    Correct again.

    It is well known that most people highly value approval from virtual persons with strange pseudonyms on the internet….. from what might as well be a robot hiding out in some Eastern Europe server.

    So I just try to be helpful.

  17. Psyclaw, do you understand that privacy is about being in control of what you want to share and don’t want to share? One can share almost everything and feel that their privacy is not being respected when such control is taken from their grasp. Your understanding seems limited to a basic dictionary definition if that. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding you.

  18. [Simon You are not included. Sorry about that.]
    Oh. Seems I dont belong anywhere.
    Maybe the local anarchists will have me back. I dont think it was fair to be kicked out just for insisting everyone chip in to get flowers to commemorated the 75th anniversary of Emma Goldmans death. Very snooty.

    I could try the Social Anarchists…. but they do seem rather a confused lot.

  19. We finally have a definitive national two-party preferred result from the election, after the AEC addressed a niggling little omission from its numbers.
    Coalition: 6,818,824 (50.36%)
    Labor: 6,722,277 (49.64%)
    Swing: 3.13%

  21. psyclaw @ #61 Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 5:43 pm

    Player 1 @ 5.31pm to Bakunin
    “Does facebook fine you $180 per day until you agree to sign up?”
    Now you are becoming quite rattled aren’t you old boy! What an incredible non-sequitur. Or should I say unicorn.
    So now it’s about money.
    FMD.

    I realize the arguments are going over your head, but do try and keep up. Let me try and keep it simple:

    Providing your name – or any other information – to Facebook is voluntary, and they won’t fine you for not doing so.

    Providing your name to the ABS used to be voluntary (despite what you may incorrectly think). But now it is not, and you can (at least in theory) be fined $180 per day for not providing it.

    See the difference?

  22. I have just watched The Drum. Two comments.

    1. John Barron IMO takes too long setting out the alternative answers for each panel member. Time and again, you see them nod and take a deep breath ready to give their opinion and he rolls on through them with details they already know – probably came to the program already prepared.

    I am trying to control my urge to gag when faced with someone wearing a nose stud , but the lass on The Drum tonight was wearing silver loops hanging from her nostrils which looked like – well, I’m not sure of the polite term.

  24. william bowe @ #69 Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 5:59 pm

    We finally have a definitive national two-party preferred result from the election, after the AEC addressed a niggling little omission from its numbers.
    Coalition: 6,818,824 (50.36%)
    Labor: 6,722,277 (49.64%)
    Swing: 3.13%

    How dare you interrupt the wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the census (from both sides) with trivia like poll results.

    What do you think this, a site devoted to polling data?

    (removes tongue from cheek)

  25. MTBW-

    Yes. I take back my comment that Michaelia Cash is the worst of this governments ministers now I am reminded of Dutton.
    I completely forgot him earlier. I try not to think about him too much because it isn’t good for the heart rate.
    But yes, as in the same way that having a stroke is better than being decapitated, Michaelia Cash is ‘better’ than Peter Dutton.

  26. william bowe @ #69 Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 5:59 pm

    We finally have a definitive national two-party preferred result from the election, after the AEC addressed a niggling little omission from its numbers.
    Coalition: 6,818,824 (50.36%)
    Labor: 6,722,277 (49.64%)
    Swing: 3.13%

    Looks good seeing the bare bones. Thanks William.

  28. lizzie @ #72 Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 6:03 pm

    I have just watched The Drum. Two comments.
    1. John Barron IMO takes too long setting out the alternative answers for each panel member. Time and again, you see them nod and take a deep breath ready to give their opinion and he rolls on through them with details they already know – probably came to the program already prepared.
    I am trying to control my urge to gag when faced with someone wearing a nose stud , but the lass on The Drum tonight was wearing silver loops hanging from her nostrils which looked like – well, I’m not sure of the polite term.

    I didn’t see The Drum, but I agree with your second point Lizzie.
    They are disgusting. Self mutilation such as engaged in by primitive tribes.

  32. Dan [How dare you interrupt the wailing…. with trivia like poll results.]
    A rather sad ‘look at me, look at me’.
    Polls….. pffft.

  33. dan gulberry @ #80 Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 6:19 pm

    This is appalling:
    https://amp.twimg.com/v/0179243a-4070-4370-925b-62d73ca75076

    Sandra Sully @Sandra_Sully
    New plan may see pensioner concession discounts repaid after pensioner’s death.

    The commentary also appeared to be saying that the concessions might be paid back when the house is sold, as for example if a pensioner or pensioner couple decided to downsize. The concessions would then be deducted from the sale price of the family home, and given to the relevant authorities.

  38. One of the lead campaigners behind Ireland’s historic same-sex marriage referendum has urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and parliamentarians not to go ahead with a plebiscite, warning the experience was “brutal” for gay and lesbian people and their families.

    Grainne Healy, co-director of the Yes Equality campaign, said Irish volunteers needed counselling after abuse and hate speech from reform opponents, calling for MPs to stop Australia from seeing an unnecessary plebiscite campaign.

    In a letter to all MPs, Dr Healy said a plebiscite on same-sex marriage would bring about hurtful and divisive commentary under the guise of fair debate.

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/irish-gay-marriage-referendum-campaigner-warns-malcolm-turnbull-and-mps-against-plebiscite-20160823-gqz0o8.html

  40. Occasionally someone suggests that a new poll will relieve the concentration of some posters on “dog looks for bone” issues. Unfortunately experience suggests about 30 minutes is a reasonable expectation.

  43. William Bowe
    Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 5:59 pm
    We finally have a definitive national two-party preferred result from the election, after the AEC addressed a niggling little omission from its numbers.
    Coalition: 6,818,824 (50.36%)
    Labor: 6,722,277 (49.64%)
    Swing: 3.13%

    An indictment on the ALP that after 3 years of chaos and destruction there were still 6,818,824 people who still preferred the Govt.

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