Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

A new poll suggests voters want parliament to legislate for same-sex marriage if they can’t get their favoured option of a plebiscite, as the Coalition primary vote maintains a slow downward trend.

This week’s Essential Research finds the Coalition down a point on the primary vote to 37%, Labor steady on 37%, the Greens steady on 10%, One Nation up one to 6% and the Nick Xenophon Team steady on 4%, with two-party preferred unchanged at 52-48 in favour of Labor. The poll also finds 53% favouring a vote by parliament on same-sex marriage in the event that the Senate blocks a plebiscite, with only 29% opposed. Support for the proposed plebiscite question, “should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?”, is at 60% with 30% opposed, compared with results of 57% and 28% when the same question was posed a month ago. Only 22% of respondents supported the goverment’s plan for $7.5 million of advertising to be provided for both sides of the argument, with 68% opposed. When asked about the biggest threats to job security in Australia, 31% nominated “free trade deals that allow foreign workers into the Australian market”, 23% companies using labour hire and contracting out, 18% the impact of technological change, and high wages in last place on 11%.

In other news, I mean to start shaking myself out of a spell of post-election laziness, so I’ll have BludgerTrack back in one form or another next week. In the meantime, I have the following to relate:

• The Australian reports that factional arrangements ensure that Stephen Conroy’s own sub-faction of the Victorian Right will decide his successor when he vacates his Senate seat on September 30. That seems to bode well for his ally Mehmet Tillem, who previously served in the Senate from late 2013 until mid-2014, when he served out David Feeney’s term after he moved to the lower house seat of Batman at the September 2013 election. However, some in the party are said to be arguing that the position should go to a woman, specifically to Stefanie Perri, the former Monash mayor who ran unsuccessfully in Chisholm at the recent election.

• A draft redistribution proposal has been published for the Northern Territory’s two electorates, in which early 3000 voters are to be transferred from growing Solomon (covering Darwin and Palmerston) to stagnant Lingiari (covering the remainder of the territory). The transfer encompasses Yarrawonga, Farrar, Johnston and Zuccoli at the eastern edge of Palmerston, together with the Litchfield Shire areas around Knuckey Lagoon immediately east of Darwin. This is a conservative area, so the change would strengthen Labor in Solomon and weaken them in Lingiari.

• A redistribution for the five electorates in Tasmania is in its earliest stages, with a period for preliminary public suggestions to run from November 2 to December 5.

• The Liberal National Party announced last week it would not challenge its 37 vote defeat in the Townsville-based seat of Herbert, despite complaints from Senator Ian Macdonald that the Australian Eleectoral Commission had promised hospital patients it would take their votes on polling day without delivering, and that students outside the electorate were denied absent votes because the required envelopes were not available. The 40-day deadline for lodgement of a challenge closed on Saturday.

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.

2,992 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor”

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  3. Bemused

    I don’t think Corbyn has the poser to deselect anyone.

    The Labour National Executive Committee can over ride the locals I think.

  8. bemused

    Labour MP’s might need to be expelled. We saw what a disaster it is not to do so with the undermining of the leader with Rudd Gillard years.

  12. Gt

    Labour MP’s might need to be expelled.

    If they start expelling numbers of the around 80% of Labour HoC Reps that didn’t vote for Corbyn it will be the end of the UK Labour Party as it now exists.

  14. Senator Brandis says gay couples may have to wait until the 2020s before legislation is changed to allow gay couples to marry in the absence of a plebiscite.

    Also, the point Brandis is making here is that he believes that SSM is inevitable, even if they may have to wait until the 2020s. So, if he acknowledges it’s inevitability, why not just do it now!?!

  16. Plebiscites are like an addictive drug. Once you start having them, it gets easier each time.

    All that needs to be known about the Plebiscite is that the opponents of Same Sex Marriage want it. And for obvious reasons.

  18. re. Howard’s show… has anyone watched it? I saw it listed in the on-screen TV program and my finger did the walking.

    What one Earth possessed the ABC to run this in prime time?

  19. CTARI

    That is not a large committee for a big party and heavily stacked with apparatchiks by the look of it.

    However while they might be able to intervene if some well known shadow minister were deselected OR if the locals select a Trotskyist type they would be limited to perhaps 5 such overturns or you would have a party split. More to the point, you would not get the locals to get out canvassing and in a First Passed the Post and voluntary voting system this could mean the seat goes Tory or Ukip.

  20. @ ctar1 – the choice isn’t Corbyn’s to make.

    The 80% of Labor MoPs who are doing a shit job of representing their electorate have a choice to make: To fall in line with their boss and those they represent, or to end the Labor party as it now exists and lose their own job in the process.

    They aren’t idiots, of those 80%, 79% will fall in line and shut the hell up.

  21. CT

    Its the Labour MP’s out of touch with their own base so the change will come anyway. Not expelling if they cannot accept unity like the left had to do under the right just makes it a clean cut draw out into a fight that could last until the election and ensure a Labour defeat

  24. Ciobo was on AM for the morning government information broadcast, and the normal forensic interview with Brissenden. Such is Brissenden’s skill that he can doi this interviews while being half asleep.
    Anyway the reason for the interview was ostensibly to talk about a new trade deal with Iran, but it wasn’t long before we got into full on slag off Labor mode.

    Later we had the Hunt who was working himself into quite a lather about Shorten having the absolute temerity to oppose the SSM plebecite.
    Methinks they are sounding a bit desperate.

  25. Re. the ABC and a propos of nothing… Against my better judgement I have become a Poldark enthusiast, and the show after it, about Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall was superb. It’s the first time I’ve seen one of those “Henry VIII-type” TV shows where someone actually cracks a joke, smiles a smile that is not a nasty smile, and actually speaks idiomatically. Not a lot, but enough to keep you interested.

  27. ‘re. Howard’s show… has anyone watched it? I saw it listed in the on-screen TV program and my finger did the walking.

    What one Earth possessed the ABC to run this in prime time?’

    Rhetorical question, I assume?

  28. Sorry, guytaur, but a leader who starts going around de preselecting candidates/MPs — or even just advocating for this – is one step away from becoming a dictator.

    A true leader can bring people around to their way of thinking. They don’t need to impose their will on their colleagues.

    And, of course, in a healthy party, you don’t want MPs who are in lock step with every thing the leader wants, even if their disagreements are confined to the party room. Rigorous policy only comes out of rigorous discussion, even if the discussion only comes via Devil’s Advocacy.

    Part of the problem in politics – and various populist leaders are a symptom of this, not a cause – is that, given the choice between someone promising unicorns and rainbows tomorrow and someone pointing out that the way to mere horses and blue skies involves time and cost, people will tend to go for the unicorns and rainbows.

  29. zoomster

    Its the small coterie of MP’s ignoring the thousands of votes for the leader and his policies who are the dictators here if anyone is.

  30. Later we had the Hunt who was working himself into quite a lather about Shorten having the absolute temerity to oppose the SSM plebecite.

    If the Coalition’s (and the Media’s) theory of “Mandates” was taken to its logical conclusion, there would be no debate on the floor of Parliament, and no contested votes. Everything would be passed 150-0. Labor could stay home for all their opinion, and the opinions of its voters mattered.

    We would have no Question Time, and no need for Hansard.

    All we’d need would be a dossier of Coalition election promises – no matter who made them, how they were worded, or where they were uttered – and we could use them as an Encyclopedia Of The Mandate.

    For when Labor is in government see countless Media op-eds on Oppositions Are Meant To Oppose, or Brilliant Retail Politicians, and of course Barrie Cassidy’s essay on how it didn’t matter what the Labor government wanted, what its policies or platform were, or who won any petty vote on the floor of the House, because Tony Abbott was already the de facto Prime Minister of Australia (circa 2013-2013).

  33. Methinks they are sounding a bit desperate.

    Why are they even talking about SSM? Does the govt not have anything else more pressing to deal with? Totally bizarre.

  34. If you win an election 50.2 to 49.8 then there is no mandate and you are not a legitimate government. However, if you win by 50.6 to 49.4, then the people have spoken.

    If you brag that you have a working majority – even only of 1 – then the Opposition has no right to test the truth or otherwise of that boast. They are playing childish political games.

    If the Opposition comes up with a good line in Mediscare then it is a shameless lie and the Coalition was unfairly bullied.

    If the Coalition comes up with a good line on $100 lamb roasts, or children thrown overboard from refugee boats, then that is a brilliant cut-through message that, while slightly exaggerated, makes the point beautifully, and will cut-through to the ordinary voter.

  35. Confessions

    Its like saying sorry to the first people. Once its done the caravan moves on. Ideologues opposing just keeps it in the news.

  36. Zoomster
    You might be interested in the Policy Forum I attended yesterday with Jenny Macklin as the speaker. Posted on it last night.

    One thing I didn’t mention previously, but will do so now, is how replies by Jenny to questions pointed to there being a high degree of unity and policy agreement in the Federal Caucus. She spoke in glowing terms of the work done by Tony Bourke and Jason Clare, both of the’right’, while she is of the ‘left’.

    We are looking at getting Tony Bourke along to our next policy forum if he is available.

  37. bushfire bill @ #2569 Monday, September 26, 2016 at 9:49 am

    re. Howard’s show… has anyone watched it? I saw it listed in the on-screen TV program and my finger did the walking.
    What one Earth possessed the ABC to run this in prime time?

    I watched both episodes. As a child migrant in the 1960s I found it quite interesting. They had both Bob Hawke and Barry Jones as commentators and a range of journalists, so not only Howard talking. Less criticism of the current situation in the second episode than the first. They also had Barry Humphries on who was originally very critical of the Menzies ‘stupor’. For someone that knew very little of the era not bad – but if you lived through it as a teenager or adult you might have a different perspective.

  41. bemused

    As usual when you are on the wrong side of the argument you bring out the there is no point line.

    Its vital in a democratic party to accept the vote. That simple.

    Its been and done time for Labour to unite behind their leader.

  43. guytaur @ #2592 Monday, September 26, 2016 at 10:15 am

    bemused
    As usual when you are on the wrong side of the argument you bring out the there is no point line.
    Its vital in a democratic party to accept the vote. That simple.
    Its been and done time for Labour to unite behind their leader.

    Guytaur, I will break from this intellectual combat with an unarmed man and not reply. Don’t interpret this as a win. It isn’t.

  45. Zoomster

    I agree that Corbyn (or any other leader) should not act to dis-endorse dissidents. I am undecided as to whether they should be given Shadow Ministries – probably some should.

    However I suspect the local selection committees will act anyway to dis-endorse some of the worst offenders.

    However if the tweeet posted by Guytaur is correct re the guy called Chuka Ummonu is correct, a split is coming anyway. Now while I know absolutely nothing about this guy other than what I just gathered on google, he DOES seem to be a little on the hypocritical side, calling for immigrants to take on English names to assist with immigrations. Sure thing Chuka. I just read he is to change to Charles Umbridge, which may be rubbish. if true he clearly does not read Harry Potter.

  47. C@t

    What is totally illogical with Brandis is the suggestion that denying a plebiscite is denying SSM. Why are we having a plebsicite if this is the expected outcome?

  48. guytaur @ #2595 Monday, September 26, 2016 at 10:17 am

    SocialistVoice: Jeremy Corbyn rejects Tony Blair’s calls for end to ‘witch-hunt’ of British troops accused of abuses in Iraq independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
    https://twitter.com/socialistvoice/status/780017565137600512

    Of course Blair doesn’t want any any investigations into Iraq as it just continues to highlight his unconscionable decision to start it in the first place.

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