Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor

The Coalition primary vote sinks to the mid-thirties, as One Nation nudges ever closer to double figures.

This week’s Essential Research fortnight rolling average result finds Malcolm Turnbull slipping a point further towards the danger zone, with Labor’s lead now at 54-46. It also has One Nation once again reaching a new peak, of 9% (up one on the final poll of last year), with the Coalition now only able to manage 35% (down two), and Labor, the Greens and Nick Xenophon Team steady on 37%, 10% and 3%.

The poll also finds 36% approval and 48% disapproval for the Centrelink debt recovery program, from a question with less problematic wording* than was offered in the GetUp! poll by ReachTEL. Those opposed were more likely to do so strongly (29% of the total compared with 19% for less strongly) than those in favour (13% strongly, 23% less strongly). Another question finds 46% more concerned about politicians’ expenses than welfare overpayments and 8% vice-versa, with 40% opting for both equally.

A series of national identity questions to coincide with Australia Day includes a finding of 44% support and 30% opposition to Australia becoming a republic, which is more favourable than other such poll results in recent years – no doubt because the question specifies “a republic with an Australian head of state” Also featured is an occasional question on “trust in institutions”, which finds an across the board improvement since September, except for the ABC, environment groups and the Commonwealth public service, which are steady. Police forces and the high court continue to rate best, parliaments, religious organisations and trade unions worst.

In other polling news, Ipsos has a global survey on the American presidency that finds a very narrow band of results internationally with respect to Barack Obama (with the dramatic exception of Russia), with Australia being fairly typical in having 84% rating him good and 16% poor. Views on Donald Trump are a little more diverse, with Australia ranking at the low end in having 25% expecting he will be a good president compared with 75% for bad. Australians are evenly divided on the question of whether he will make it to the end of the year without being impeached.

* “Centrelink is currently conducting a debt recovery program in which welfare recipients are being automatically sent notifications regarding possibly overpayments. From what you have heard do you approve or disapprove of the way this program has been conducted?”

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.

1,936 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor”

Comments Page 37 of 39
1 … 36 37 38 39

  1. NEWSPEAK
    Science Is the Latest Casualty of Trump’s War on Truth

    A Trump spokesman said, then tried to unsay, that EPA science would be reviewed by politicians. Republicans have tried this before.
    Jay Michaelson

    This week, the EPA stopped doing science.
    As reported, clarified, and restated within a hectic 24-hour period, the Trump administration announced that scientific findings of the Environmental Protection Agency would be reviewed by political staff prior to being released.
    “We’ll take a look at what’s happening so that the voice coming from the EPA is one that’s going to reflect the new administration,” Doug Erickson, head of communications for Trump’s EPA transition team, told NPR Tuesday.
    That, of course, is propaganda, not science. Science depends on the scientific method, which since the 17th century has required empirical evidence, scientific reasoning, and the objective presentation of data so that other scientists can verify or refute the conclusions drawn. If data is doctored for political purposes, it isn’t scientific data.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/26/science-is-next-in-trump-s-war-on-truth.html?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon

  3. c@tmomma @ #1801 Friday, January 27, 2017 at 7:04 pm

    NEWSPEAK
    Science Is the Latest Casualty of Trump’s War on Truth
    A Trump spokesman said, then tried to unsay, that EPA science would be reviewed by politicians. Republicans have tried this before.
    Jay Michaelson

    This week, the EPA stopped doing science.
    As reported, clarified, and restated within a hectic 24-hour period, the Trump administration announced that scientific findings of the Environmental Protection Agency would be reviewed by political staff prior to being released.
    “We’ll take a look at what’s happening so that the voice coming from the EPA is one that’s going to reflect the new administration,” Doug Erickson, head of communications for Trump’s EPA transition team, told NPR Tuesday.
    That, of course, is propaganda, not science. Science depends on the scientific method, which since the 17th century has required empirical evidence, scientific reasoning, and the objective presentation of data so that other scientists can verify or refute the conclusions drawn. If data is doctored for political purposes, it isn’t scientific data.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/26/science-is-next-in-trump-s-war-on-truth.html?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon

    Holey F^&$.
    Tin foil hats anyone?

  6. simon katich

    I can here you strumming on your guitar and in your best coutry and western voice singing “My colon done run out on me in old Urumchi town.”

  7. A friend of mine, working in academia in the US, has pointed out that Trump has limited control of Universities, as so many of them are privately funded.

  8. zoomster @ #1804 Friday, January 27, 2017 at 7:08 pm

    Well, Theresa May is a suckhole (a word I don’t normally use…)

    While I don’t disagree, she is in a bit of a bind. Exiting the EU, and with the nobbling of NATO on the cards, the only significant alliance Britain had left was it’s “special relationship” with the US. Now that also looks doomed. Without it, and with an unholy alliance of the US and Russia looking increasingly likely, Britain has few friends and even fewer options.

  10. I saw a comment about Trump before the election that “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally”. I’m starting to think both groups are half right. They should have taken him literally and seriously.

  14. Player one

    As eloquently put by Nick Cohen

    the possibility that the American alliance we have had since Pearl Harbour may be over, or at least in a state of suspension until Trump leaves power. But how can she?

    The logical shift in British foreign policy ought to be to hug our European allies close. We should be cooperating on defence, asking what we should do if the US abandons NATO, and agreeing a common policy on Russian aggression. We cannot because at the moment Trump is threatening our American alliance, Brexit is tearing up our European alliance.

  18. Cat @1801: Science depends on the scientific method, which since the 17th century has required empirical evidence, scientific reasoning, and the objective presentation of data so that other scientists can verify or refute the conclusions drawn.

    No wonder the Right wants Science shut down. It depends on real facts and reasoning, whereas the Right knows that all that is necessary for something to be true or not true is that they want it to be so and they assert it loudly and often. This ‘Science’ stuff is a left wing plot.


  21. Greensborough Growler
    Friday, January 27, 2017 at 6:00 pm

    BK,

    Most of the people will be on the side where the Church is and so Science will isolate itself from the population again.

    So you don’t go to church; if you did you would have noticed the congregations shrinking; and their age.

  22. [Sinodinos clearly believes the government was too abstract in the way it sold its innovation message.

    “Between consenting adults, innovation is still a word that should be used,” he says.]

    Weird way of looking at it.


  23. C@tmomma
    Friday, January 27, 2017 at 7:53 pm

    Steve777,
    Pesky thing to Conservative politicians, them thar ‘facts’ and ‘ev-i-dence’!


  24. C@tmomma
    Friday, January 27, 2017 at 7:53 pm

    Steve777,
    Pesky thing to Conservative politicians, them thar ‘facts’ and ‘ev-i-dence’!

    With alternative facts this is no longer a problem.

  27. Well, the Sydney Water scam was agile and innovative and involved consenting adults.
    All of whom were subsequently and mysteriously struck with massive self-incriminating memory loss.

  28. There is no fundamental reason why being right-wing should make you anti-science, and yet we have arrived at this point. It wasn’t always this way. Eisenhower establish NASA; Thatcher, one of the most distasteful Conservative leaders ever, had a degree in Chemistry and favoured action on climate change almost 30 years ago!

    Yet today the right revel in their scientific ignorance and denial. Thus we end up with people blaming renewable energy for pylons falling over and Abbott stating that carbon dioxide is weightless! (I don’t think that was a slip of the tongue. I think he truly believes it!). It shows have fragile and extreme their ideology must have become that it requires the denial of basic science.

  29. [There is no fundamental reason why being right-wing should make you anti-science, and yet we have arrived at this point. It wasn’t always this way. ]

    But now climate science endangers some very significnt vested interests and those interests have plenty of money to buy off their natural supporters (conservative parties ) and fund doubt, confusion and propaganda.

  31. There is no fundamental reason why being right-wing should make you anti-science, and yet we have arrived at this point.

    It isn’t that the AGW denialists are right wing, it’s that they have vested interests, and as It’s Time says, the vested interests are cashed up with enormous reach and profile to spread their lies.

  36. There’s also the concern that people will have to change their lifestyles, like not driving down to the shops 3 blocks away, not use the a/c,not have every device/light running 24/7, and build more efficient homes,and pay a few more $ more for renewable power.

    The right preys on these concerns to benefit it’s backers.

  38. There have always been vested interests, though. That never previously stopped conservatives from encouraging new developments. That is a fundamental way many people made their fortunes, by getting in on the ground floor of new technologies.

  40. swamprat @ #1834 Friday, January 27, 2017 at 8:31 pm

    Notice it is remastered by vladimir putin in association with cold war productions…

    Yes – I’m sure they will use the same production company for their next effort. But the poster says it only won 10 Oscars? I reckon The Donald will have something to say about that! It surely won 50 Oscars at least!

  41. ‘And after that, they plan to get together again in a remake of “On Golden Pond”.’
    Is that the one where they perform the old favourite ‘Golden Showers’ together?

  42. Silentmajority,

    I posted this last night:

    I think under the 25th amendment, Section 4 of the Constitution that if the Vice President and the Cabinet believe that the President has an “incapacitation that prevents him from discharging his duties” they can make a submission to Congress to have him removed. If approved by a two thirds majority, the Vice President would become Acting President. This is the only section of the 25th amendment that has never been invoked.

  43. Peter Piper

    [There have always been vested interests, though.]

    If the current crop of anti science & environmentalists are not in it for a $ & it’s not in the name of vested interests then….they’ve all gone bat shit crazy!

  44. Just saw on the on CNN the Mexican Foreign Minister saying that he was in the White House meeting with Trump’s people when he found out about Trump’s tweet re Mexico paying for the wall. Genius diplomacy Donnie.

    Meanwhile, Germany is implying that if Trump lifts the Russian sanctions, then the Atlantic Alliance is over.

  45. There have always been vested interests, though.

    Yes but they haven’t had the kind of influence over our govts anywhere like what they have now.

  47. Charles:

    I did not see your comment last night re the ability for Congress to remove the POTUS. I reckon it would come down to splitting hairs on incapacitated – could get very nasty, esp if Trump digs in as I’m sure he would.

  50. Confessions,

    But why do conservatives now let them wield that influence? A century ago the US supreme court broke up Standard Oil because it was a monopoly, and then the Rockefeller family went on to be one of the major forces in establishing national parks. They weren’t deniers of reality. The question is, why are the current crop of conservatives?

Comments Page 37 of 39
1 … 36 37 38 39

Leave a Reply

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