Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

After a bit of a blip over the past month or so, Essential Research finds Labor’s recovering its solid post-election lead.

The latest fortnightly rolling average of federal voting intention for Essential Research returns Labor’s two-party lead to 53-47, after walking a point at a time from 53-47 four weeks ago to 51-49 a fortnight ago and now back again. Both major parties are now at 37% on the primary vote, with the Coalition down one and Labor up one, while One Nation comes off a point from last week’s high to 7%, with the Greens and Nick Xenophon Team steady at 9% and 3%. The poll also features its monthly leadership ratings, which have Malcolm Turnbull down two on approval to 34% and up two on disapproval to 46%, while Bill Shorten is respectively up one to 35% and, oddly, down five to 38%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is now at 39-28, down from 40-28, leaving for a remarkably high “don’t know” remainder. The most interesting of the survey’s remaining findings is the overwhelming support recorded for an increase in the minimum wage, with 80% approving and 11% disapproving. Another question canvases whether respondents would be “likely” to vote for a new conservative party formed around the likes of Tony Abbott, for which 23% answered in the affirmative, although polling exercises of this kind have shown themselves to be of very little value in the past.

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.

1,620 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

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  2. I assume that Donohue was told on the q.t. that if he takes the gig, he won’t be dealing with George for too much longer.
    Of course, the three in the gun for replacement at a reshuffle are all Senators. Malcolm can’t afford to piss off any lower house MPs. They are as safe as houses.

  5. antonbruckner11 @ #202 Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at 10:33 pm

    I assume that Donohue was told on the q.t. that if he takes the gig, he won’t be dealing with George for too much longer.
    Of course, the three in the gun for replacement at a reshuffle are all Senators. Malcolm can’t afford to piss off any lower house MPs. They are as safe as houses.

    The good thing is that if they get rid of Brandis by giving him a plum job somewhere, that in itself will be a negative to the coalition in votes terms. I suppose they will think that there will be more votes on the upside by not having an incompetent AG but given the record of this lot that is a heroic assumption.

  6. If Andrews can pull off this speculated Argentina v Brazil match at the MCG with Messi v Neymar, I will get myself on the Victorian electoral and vote for him.

  7. What the Right don’t realise (when they take heart from Brexit and Trump) is that we’ve already been through our own version in the politics of Abbott and lately Turnbull. They think their day has come, but Australia is ahead of the curve, not behind.

  8. At Adelaide International Airport when checking through customs, Border Force confiscated the 400g jar of Vegemite I was taking over for my granddaughter in London.

    I did not know there was a dangerous Vegemite smuggling issue facing us.

    Luckily they just took tge Vegemite on binned it and let this doddery old grandma through customs. For a mi ute, I thought I was going to end up in the Nauru Gulag!

    Was it customs, or just in your hand luggage when boarding? There is a restriction of 100gm /100ml for liquids and gels in hand luggage. Explosives could be disguised as Vegemite.

  9. The good thing is that if they get rid of Brandis by giving him a plum job somewhere, that in itself will be a negative to the coalition in votes terms.

    No it won’t. It’ll be sound and fury for maybe a day or so before moving onto the next drama. But the real issue is that in doing so it further entrenches the mindset that it’s okay to sideline woefully incompetent ministers by gifting them plum govt postings.

    We should be eschewing this behaviour, not entrenching it.

  10. Sky News Australia
    40 mins ·
    Donald J. Trump has announced Rick Perry, a former Texas governor, as his choice to lead the dept of Energy.

    The conga line of useless ideologues being named in the Trump govt continues. Honestly, this is getting out of hand.

  12. DisplayName
    Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at 10:52 pm

    Maybe. I tend to think we have a very long way to go before this phase passes. I think we can see right-crack political expression as thwarted desire. In our culture, to want is almost synonymous with having. We are taught that to experience desire for something – for possessions, for money, for employment, for status – is only the preliminary to the gratification of that desire. In a consumer-defined culture, desire is almost an end in itself. But this is a lie. To want is not to have. To want is to meet futility. This is the truth for many.

    Our system is inherently dysfunctional. In the absence of conscious and agreed change, it cannot be fixed. And this is also paradoxical. Change is omnipresent even as it is just as commonly opposed. This will only become more pronounced as environmental degradation accelerates and spreads.

    We have a system that is premised on gratification and yet also withholds it. (This is the operating principle of New Corp publications, btw.) It is no wonder that the frustrated detach themselves from attachment to a “system” that brings about their defeat; that wastes the days of their lives; that the defeated learn to dream almost only of their lost pleasures and, increasingly, of nostalgia and revenge.

  13. On the matter of desire and its gratification, I recommend bludgers avail themselves of Bach’s Cello Suites performed by Michael Goldschlager, available on a double CD from the ABC, recorded in 2010.

  14. It’s a crying bloody shame, what’s happened to the ABC under Rabbott/Turnbott’s regime. I fondly remember the days of Kerry O’Brien fearlessly grilling pollies of BOTH parties, AND occasional minor-party guests too, as if they were on trial and he were cross-examining them. Polite, but persistent.

    My father, as blue as blue gets (votes One Nation/Liberal) used to call him Red Kerry….but he watched the 7:30 Report while complaining. And he even occasionally learned something, too!

  15. Leigh Sales

    One of the great things about my job is that it allows me to meet lots of different people for all sorts of different reasons.

    For some of them, it’s one of the best days of their lives, if they’ve won an election or an Olympic medal.

    For others, it’s one of the worst, if they’ve unexpectedly found themselves caught up in some sort of traumatic event.

    Now, friends and neighbours. Stop your doubting, we have been in the same world as this shining beacon of beauty and light.
    Humility is required now! Not Ms Leigh. Yours and mine. How mistaken have we been? Our error all too apparent. Our course of action is now apparent. Worship the chosen one.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-14/leigh-sales-730-interviews-top-10-2016/8099666
    :mrgreen:

  17. When I look at Donald J.Trump appointing ignoramuses on an epic scale, like Rick Perry, to positions of great authority in his Administration, it reminds me of nothing as much as Ignatius J.Reilly and the cast of characters from ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’.

    He was an overweight, slothful, gormless man and the book’s title refers to an epigraph from Jonathan Swift’s essay Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”

    The genius, of course, was Barack Obama, and the dunces were the Republican Party, the Kochs, the Tea Party, and now their new leader, Donald J. Trump, and his Cabinet of Dunces.

  21. There may be room in his special corner of hell for the dentist who killed Cecil the lion.
    I don’t wish them dead. They belong to a special category of humanity I wish to have nothing to do with. I would that there was a treatment for these people.

  23. Morning all. The dead hunter link is to an Italian vet, nit the US dentist who killed Cecil the lion. Same personality type, no doubt.

  24. Looks like the focus of the Coalition and it’s supporters next year will be getting rid of 18C. The purpose to be able to discuss ‘indigenous issues’ like Bill Leak has and not be called out.
    Would have thought there would be more important issues like funding NDIS, making sure are schools are doing well, discussing ‘good debt’ (oh the hypocrisy), and maybe a treaty the way it should occur.
    But no it is repealing 18C……..I expected more of Turnball – yep I was a fool.

  25. It’s viciousness signalling — a broadcast to voters (“other”, Coalition, Labor and even some Greens) about his scepticism about immigration generally. That they draw condemnation in the media and from his political opponents is all to the better — they serve to amplify them and boost Dutton’s own profile. He even used Labor’s criticism of his vilification of Lebanese Australians to portray himself as a truth teller being bullied by the forces of political correctness and the “real racists” of the left.

    That status as victim, of course, is crucial not merely to the tactics of the right but even, one suspects, to their very identity, no matter how absurd. The angry white male that is now the political force of the moment sees himself as a victim, betrayed by elites, bullied by progressives, silenced by some sinister PC police — and all for daring to speak the truth that girls/wogs/Abos/poofs/towelheads are repressing him. That Peter Dutton — Minister for Immigration and possessed of extraordinary and increasingly unreviewable discretionary powers that nearly amount to life and death for refugees and immigrants — could somehow be bullied by anyone is laughable, but the more absurd the belief in victimhood, the more currency it seems to have.

    All of this works well for Dutton, who sees a right-wing collection of angry conservatives as ripe for political exploitation. Cory Bernardi has been doing this sort of thing more subtly for years, and Tony Abbott rode to power (however briefly) on a softcore version of it, but Dutton has trumped — pun intended — both of them in openly attacking his own party’s immigration legacy and pedaling the crassest of stereotypes about his targets.

    https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/12/02/filthy-lefties-and-the-problem-of-peter-dutton/#.WEMiC8ZxCSo.twitter

  26. LU
    Thanks you raised the issue I was going to raise – the elephant in the room is the level of Australian household debt if interest rates start going up.

    Scott Morrison made some quite absurd statements about assett values when he tried to talk down any alarm.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bleak-christmas-consumer-confidence-down-as-scott-morrison-cautions-against-alarm-20161214-gtb1q5.html

    So he provoked panic while in opposition about debt levels much lower than those he is responsible for now. Then when things get risky with him in charge he makes up nonsense to reassure everyone, after failing to pass any significant reforms. He is a hypocrite who talks nonsense that reassurs nobody.

  27. This one’s for Player One, Booleanbach and the other tech geeks:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/12/13/how-a-single-typo-led-to-the-unravelling-of-hillary-clintons-ca/

    Yep, you always hack the human. That’s why organisations with very sensitive information or critical control use physically separated networks. I’ve seen computers in Faraday cages where all code has to be input as hexidecimal machine code, and no single person has access to the full set of instructions or input data.

  29. scoutdog
    #224 Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 7:30 am
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVsmcLOkPFQ

    Oh, the love you promised would be mine forever
    I would have bet my bottom dollar on
    Well, it sure turned out to be a short forever
    Just once I turned by back and you were gone

    From now on all my friends are gonna be strangers
    I’m all through, ever trusting anyone
    The only thing I can count on now is my fingers
    I was a fool believing in you and now you are gone

  30. Good morning Dawn Patrollers. I’m in a bit of a hurry this morning as Mrs BK and I will be making an early exit to get down to the Marion Shopping Centre to do the last of the Christmas shopping. Shopping centres are not my favourite place – nor are their car parks!

    This SMH editorial justifiably asks if Trump is creating a scarier swamp.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/is-trump-creating-a-scarier-swamp-20161214-gtapty.html
    The US Fed has just raised its interest rate again.
    http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/fed-raises-interest-rates-for-only-second-time-since-gfc-20161214-gtben8.html
    This explains a bit about Duterte.
    http://www.smh.com.au/world/philippines-president-rodrigo-duterte-admits-to-personally-killing-people-20161214-gtbdjr.html
    John Warhurst goes into detail on what is happening as Turnbull allows the right wing rump to carry on with impunity.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/sending-signals-and-pulling-strings-20161213-gta2ao.html
    Andrew Street and the government’s “Tale of Two Taxes”. It’s a lovely exposition on the government’s doublespeak.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/the-federal-government-presents-a-tale-of-two-taxes-20161214-gtaq4u.html
    More child sexual abuse charges in Newcastle. What a hotbed it must have been in that area!
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/former-newington-college-teacher-charged-with-fresh-newcastle-child-sex-offences-20161214-gtbc1q.html
    One of the biggest alarmists calls for no alarm. You asked for it ScoMo.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bleak-christmas-consumer-confidence-down-as-scott-morrison-cautions-against-alarm-20161214-gtb1q5.html
    Rick Perry. What an inspired choice for Energy Secretary by Trump. On so many fronts.
    http://www.smh.com.au/world/trumps-energy-pick-rick-perry-is-a-climate-skeptic-with-ties-to-the-oil-industry-20161214-gtbe17.html
    Richard Ackland lets fly at Michelle Guthrie for turning the ABC from being a once-shing jewel into mainstream sludge.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/14/michelle-guthrie-the-abc-and-the-turning-of-a-once-shining-jewel-into-mainstream-sludge
    Kate McClymont writes that as he faces the prospect of imprisonment, posterity will record Eddie Obeid as possibly the most corrupt politician the nation has ever known.
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/eddie-obeid-to-face-his-own-unpleasant-reality-20161214-gtavs3.html

  31. Section 2 . . .

    Why kids are buying unhealthy foods. Simple really.
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/tuckshop-price-check-unhealthy-meals-significantly-cheaper-than-healthy-alternatives-analysis-reveals-20161212-gt9s43.html
    Richard Wolffe writes about Trump’s presidential transition being reality TV.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/14/donald-trump-president-transition-reality-television-the-apprentice
    And it’s hard to overstate how anti-climate change Trump’s cabinet picks are.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/12/14/its-hard-to-overstate-how-anti-environment-donald-trumps-cabin/?utm_hp_ref=au-homepage
    With respect to the Australian republic Dave Donovan describes Turnbull as “the cock that never crowed”.
    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/messianic-malcolm-and-the-cock-that-crowed,9839
    Ouch! The National Audit Office finds huge waste in the management of our air force bases. What a shambles!
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/defence-depts-1-billion-waste-of-time-20161214-gtaxkp.html
    Stephen Koukoulas rubbishes the call to pull $100 notes from circulation.
    https://thekouk.com/item/433-banning-100-notes-brown-paper-bags-burglar-masks.html
    Michelle Grattan on the positive reaction to the appointment of out new Solicitor-General.
    https://theconversation.com/new-solicitor-general-wins-plaudits-70428
    Peter Martin looks closely at the genesis and use of copyright laws.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/productivity-commission-to-say-fair-use-could-get-us-ahead-and-end-the-copyright-protection-racket-20161214-gtau3u.html
    Warwick McKibbin writes that the climate change energy impasse shows how our politics is failing. Google.
    /opinion/columnists/climate-change-energy-impasse-shows-how-our-politics-is-failing-20161213-gtapcd
    Labor, Liberal, it doesn’t really matter, writes Richard King.
    https://newmatilda.com/2016/12/14/democracy-inaction-two-major-parties-one-major-train-wreck/

  32. Section 3 . . . with Cartoon Corner

    Public servants at the Australian Taxation Office have decisively rejected, for the third time, a new workplace deal offered under the Coalition’s tough public sector industrial policy. Where is the long running APS stoush going to?
    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/australian-taxation-office-public-servants-crush-pay-and-conditions-proposal-20161214-gtb2ry.html
    Will this be the end for carry-on luggage?
    http://thenewdaily.com.au/life/travel/2016/12/14/carry-on-baggage-charges/
    The ATO has suffered a monster IT problem that isn’t over yet.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/14/tax-office-warns-of-days-more-online-disruption-after-systems-crash
    Michael Moore tells us that Trump’s ignorance will get a lot of people killed.
    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/14/michael-moore-donald-trump-security-briefings
    I wonder what roles RWNJs and the media have in the very discrepant opinions of people over social issues. Some interesting figures here.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/chart-watch/we-are-way-off-target-when-we-guessing-what-others-think-20161213-gtamwn.html
    Josephine Tovey with a disturbing look at what the Sandy Hook gun massacre has spawned in the US.
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/sandy-hook-anniversary-a-reminder-of-the-ugliness-of-conspiracy-theories-20161214-gtas43.html
    When will people realise that it is not an “either or” situation when it comes to death from a terminal condition? Google.
    /news/opinion/adelaide-melia-theres-dignity-in-death-without-assisted-suicide/news-story/7650d05287c7d485cbd863a52ff7feb0

    David Pope on the government tax planning.

    Mark Knight on Christmas in Aleppo.
    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/92f5257b17a777196478ed5984ad624f?width=1024
    More from the obviously ill Bill Leak.
    http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/0d2f044ec0ba8f18111510c5e80116bd

  33. Broadband down here this morning….running off the mobile phone as a tethered hotspot.

    The fate of the nation’s AAA credit rating – and the impact of any change on interest rates – could be known before Christmas with key ratings agencies saying they could make a decision as soon as Monday afternoon.

    With the government due to release its mid-year budget update at midday on Monday, spokesmen for both Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings said if there was a clear case for either downgrading the coveted rating or leaving it as is, then that could be made fairly quickly. If not on Monday, then in the few days before Christmas.

    …He says even a minor shortfall in Treasury’s medium-term assumption that nominal GDP will average 5 per cent a year will mean “the federal budget – on current settings – never makes it back into surplus”.

    The government has been nervous about the AAA rating since the days immediately after the July 2 election when S&P put the nation on downgrade watch, citing growing foreign debt.

    …Mr Morrison, …….could be the first Treasurer in three decades to preside over a ratings downgrade…..

    Labor again stressed on Wednesday that if Mr Morrison wanted to avoid a downgrade, he should abandon the $48 billion to be spent over the next decade on company tax cuts, and adopt Labor’s plan to curb negative gearing and capital gains tax deductions for investors.

    Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said the government could not blame Labor’s opposition to the remaining spending cuts if the rating is downgraded.

    “Scott Morrison is the man who went to the election with an unrealistic set of forecasts and projections,” he said.

    “Scott Morrison would effectively double the budget surplus in 2020-21 if he adopted Labor’s sensible negative gearing and capital gains tax reforms, if he dropped his nonsensical company tax cut.”

    Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/scomo-sweats-on-early-xmas-present-20161213-gtal4v#ixzz4SqZXkb1o
    Follow us: @FinancialReview on Twitter | financialreview on Facebook

  34. ScoMo – is out of his depth in a big way.
    The Coalition thrives on creating fear on the economy or about others who can be perceived as different.
    When it comes to doing anything of substance – nope nothing. We are not better off now under the coalition the economy is up the shitta and there is no chance of Policy such as Gonski, NDIS or Carbon Pricing – all of which benefited Australia before being pulled apart by this ideologically focused bunch who are in power now. There is more focus on fear to come no doubt and Hanson (who is a career politician) will love it playing in to who hands.

  36. He’s ‘Gonna Get Us Killed’: Michael Moore Warns ‘Foolish’ Donald Trump Will Doom the U.S. to Another 9/11

    In a blistering commentary posted on Facebook Tuesday night, filmmaker and activist Michael Moore highlighted the eerie parallels between an easily distracted Donald Trump and former President George W. Bush, whose inattentiveness to daily intelligence briefings paved the way for the 9/11 attacks.

    “It’s one thing to have a president who was asleep at the wheel,” Moore continued “But, my friends, it’s a whole other thing to now have a president-elect who REFUSES TO EVEN GET BEHIND THE WHEEL! This utter neglect of duty, a daily snub at the people who work to protect us, the first Commander-in-Chief to literally be AWOL and announcing proudly he isn’t going to change — this, I assure you, is going to get a lot of innocent people killed.”

    http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/hes-gonna-get-us-killed-michael-moore-warns-foolish-donald-trump-will-doom-us-another

  41. BK. Thanks for this morning and the year’s dawn patrol.

    As for this:

    More from the obviously ill Bill Leak.

    If the ‘joke’ was meant to be that the UN was more interested in unisex toilets than the war crimes being perpetrated by Russia and Assad in Aleppo, the cartoon simply shows that it is the obsessed Leak who only cares about prosecuting culture wars when real people are being murdered. He really is one sick individual.

  42. Wasn’t Pyne one of the first to stridently critise Turnbull and Frydenberg re’ investigating Emission Trading Scheme? And the idea that Hunt had a ‘cunning plan’ to introduce one also sounds like fantasy to me.

    More likely it’s about positioning by the ‘moderates’ as leader of what’s left if the RW nutters leave or crash and burn in another way.

    Others such as Christopher Pyne and Greg Hunt are bound by cabinet solidarity to support Turnbull rather than pushing him publicly in a more progressive direction.

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/sending-signals-and-pulling-strings-20161213-gta2ao.html

  43. Lizzie
    ” posterity will record Eddie Obeid as possibly the most corrupt politician the nation has ever known.

    Only because he was found out.”

    And because Sir Joh’s trial got corrupted (remember Luke Shaw?) and Russ Hinze died before any of his matters were heard in court.

    But worse, there are weak laws and no policing of Federal corruption. Tens of millions are changing hands there, just on what we know is being reported.

  44. Pyne’s shambolic presser.

    Australia’s decision to grant France the contract to build the next fleet of submarines was announced in April amid much fanfare, after the French beat rival bidders from Japan and Germany for Australia’s largest ever Defence spend. But it was overshadowed when in August it was revealed DCNS had suffered a mass leak of highly classified information relating to submarines it is building for the Indians.

    At a shambolic press conference, Mr Pyne shut down questions directed to Mr Guillou about the embarrassing leak, which was revealed in the Australian media after a tip-off by a staffer to South Australian senator Nick Xenophon. Neither Senator Xenophon nor his staffer were involved in the files being originally taken from DCNS by a contractor in 2011.

    …The company appeared either unprepared or flippant about questions that would be asked by the Australian media.

    Throughout the press conference, Mr Gillou regularly turned to laugh and converse with his aide while the Minister was talking.

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/christopher-pyne-invokes-donald-trump-in-hawkish-foreign-policy-speech-defending-50b-submarine-spend-20161214-gtbe7i.html

  46. Trump slanders the CIA and tilts America toward Putin’s Russia

    It’s like the plot of a fantastical political thriller.

    Russian hackers attempt to subvert the American presidential election. The CIA uncovers the malign meddling, but when the Russians’ favored candidate wins the presidency, that candidate dismisses the findings of the intelligence community as “ridiculous” and disparages the work of his own country’s spy agencies. Not only that, but the president-elect names as his national security advisor a retired general with warm feelings for the Russians and picks as his secretary of State a man who received Russia’s highest friendship medal.

    http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-trump-putin-20161214-story.html

  47. but when the Russians’ favored candidate wins the presidency, that candidate dismisses the findings of the intelligence community as “ridiculous” and disparages the work of his own country’s spy agencies.

    It would be like Roosevelt appointing Lindbergh as Secretary of State in the 1930s.

  50. victoria Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 8:33 am

    PhoenixRED

    The Electors in Electoral college have a few days left. Could they possibly decide to block the Trump presidency?!!

    *********************************************
    As you know Victoria – some are trying that course of action …. but whether enough people have the courage ……

    The race to 37: Electoral College members say they’re seeing possible defections

    Meanwhile, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig says that as many as 20 electors could break from Trump

    http://www.salon.com/2016/12/14/the-race-to-37-electoral-college-members-say-theyre-seeing-possible-defections/

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