Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

Bill Shorten’s personal ratings take a hit in Essential’s latest poll, while Galaxy charts One Nation’s ongoing progress in Queensland.

The Essential Research fortnight rolling average moves a point back to the Coalition for the second week in a row, reducing Labor’s lead to 52-48. Labor is down two points on the primary vote to 35%, with the Coalition steady on 36%, One Nation steady on 10% and the Greens up a point to 9%. The monthly leaders ratings find Bill Shorten taking a big hit, down seven points on approval to 30% and up three on disapproval to 47%, and Malcolm Turnbull a smaller one, down three on approval to 34% and up one on disapproval to 49%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is out from 39-28 last month to 39-25.

The survey also asked respondents if they would be likely to vote for Cory Bernardi’s Conservative Party, to which 14% said yes – which, as is always the case when questions like this are asked, is well above the party’s plausible vote share. Sixty-two per cent say they would be unlikely to, which is on the high side as these things go. The poll also has 17% saying Bernardi’s defection is good for the Liberal Party, 26% bad, 29% neither, and 28% don’t know. As of next week, the Essential Research poll will be published in conjunction with The Guardian.

We’ve also had federal voting intention results from the weekend’s Queensland poll by Galaxy for the Courier-Mail, which has One Nation on 18% (up six since November), the Coalition on 35% (down four), Labor on 29% (down one) and the Greens on 8% (steady), with the Coalition down a point on two-party preferred to lead 51-49. The poll was conducted last Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 867.

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.

1,956 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor”

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  1. Gittins:

    Now, however, without successive federal governments quite realising what they’d done, gas has been largely priced out of the electricity market, with various not-very-old gas-fired power stations close to being stranded assets.
    …
    But get this: Garnaut says we also have a comparative advantage in the new world of renewables.

    “Nowhere in the developed world are solar and wind resources together so abundant as in the west-facing coasts and peninsulas of southern Australia. South Australian resources are particularly rich…

    “Play our cards right, and Australia’s exceptionally rich endowment per person in renewable energy resources makes us a low-cost location for energy supply in a low-carbon world economy.

    “That would make us the economically rational location within the developed world of a high proportion of energy-intensive processing and manufacturing activity.

    “Play our cards right, and Australia is a superpower of the low-carbon world economy.”

    http://www.theage.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/australia-positioned-to-be-renewable-energy-superpower-20170216-guf55r.html

  3. Lizzie

    “Play our cards right, and Australia is a superpower of the low-carbon world economy.”

    I have heard such things said for many years and agree but reality has bee n a succession of Howards, Minchins and Abbots and the like. . Australia were at the cutting edge in a number of clean energy fields and The Rodent pretty much defunded all the research within his first year or two and so forced our research peeps overseas. Lord knows how many billions we have paid for importation of tech that should have had “Made in Australia” on it.

  6. Peter van Onselen ‏@vanOnselenP 29m29 minutes ago
    Two pieces on the Liberals in today’s @australian. One quotes Edmund Burke & Menzies…the other Billy Joel.

  7. Catmomma
    “Speaking of Alt Renewables Truthers. How has Nick Xenophon reconciled his outlandish statements after the SA Blackout with reality as it has been subsequently truthfully reported?”

    Good question, and Xenephon has been conspicuously silent on renewable power since. I think the blackouts exposed Xenephon’s inherent conservative nature. He is a reforming Liberal, not a reforming progressive. He certainly went down in my stocks when he made his comments at the time.

  8. BTW just back from the movies, where I saw Hidden Figures with Xanthippe. Great movie, with an excellent cast and story. Also, although the story is a period piece, it is a timely reminder of the ongoing need to fight racism.

  10. PR@#1688
    Quite obviously Malcolm cannot walk and chew gum at the same time otherwise he would be able to talk to the US & NZ. I wonder how they squeezed in Cambodia?

  11. cud chewer @ #1689 Saturday, February 18, 2017 at 2:09 pm

    All you do is go oh no! big numbers! Its the most pathetic form of argument. If we do need to build 10s of GW of new generation, then that’s what we will do. There’s no question about it.

    Blast! Just lost a big post dissecting all your nonsense, and lost it because of the “Securi” firewall thing. I’m sure you won’t be sorry. However, I’ll just summarize by addressing the above point. Which I can do in one word – “how?”

    It is precisely the “big numbers” that make everything else you posted just a recipe for a C02 PPM between 450 and 500 PPM, which will occur (respectively) in about 15 and 30 years under your plan, or under any plan based on some imaginary new technologies or on technologies which simply can’t be manufactured and installed in that time frame.

    It is all very well to say “we will find an answer because we must” – this is just wishful thinking. The practical answer we currently have on hand is gas – not because it solves the problem completely, but because it buys us enough time for renewables to do so. That’s just Australia, of course. The rest of the world will have to use a combination of gas and nuclear.

  13. not just being unable to walk and chew gum Booleanbach, what happens when/if the US deal falls over, surely having a backup plan for asylum seekers would be a good idea.

  15. don @ #1695 Saturday, February 18, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    P1 is a lost cause, the negativity is palpable, but your post is what needed to be said, and what most of us need to know. And act on, where applicable.

    Ummm. Where in Cud Chewer’s entire post was there any significant action proposed? Waiting until the technology evolves to save us is action? Saying that “we can because we must” is a plan?

    The only action I can see that Cud Chewer is proposing building a measly few GW of new gas generation. Then (right on cue) Trog jumps in and says we don’t even need that! (because Swanson’s Law).

    This is precisely what I object so strongly to – what all these alt-left loonies are proposing doing is exactly … nothing!. Technology will save us!

    Reading PB is sometimes like reading a Marvel comic book. We all just wait for the last page where Iron Man invents some new technology and saves the planet.

  16. There is some good journalism in Australia, but very little of it is in the MSM.

    I encourage all bludgers to fork out $4.00 for The Saturday Paper – today’s edition is full of excellent journalism, well written and researched. One example is the article on the poor man who committed suicide after being hounded by Centerlink and their debt collectors.

  17. I don’t know what you can possibly say about such deliberate and callous indifference, except that it should be a national scandal but won’t be.

  21. Cud

    I can’t see Tesla sales exceeding market estimates, unless the market estimates are unreasonably conservative.

    There’s lots of current advice that says ‘wait 2 years’ to people who would buy the type of battery that goes in a garage.

    I could be wrong but I recall reading that 7,000 of these type of batteries were sold last year.

    ABS says 9,000,000 dwellings in Australia.

  23. BiS

    So it’s potential energy that gets converted to kinetic when ever she goes arse up.

    I was going to make a comment on the likelihood of her fitting into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London but decided to restrain myself.

  24. ‘Adrian

    compare & contrast with the pink batts outcry.’

    Exactly what I was thinking. There is something deeply rotten about the state of mainstream medai in this country.

  25. One example is the article on the poor man who committed suicide after being hounded by Centerlink and their debt collectors.

    Oh god I had no idea someone has suicided over the robodebt scandal. How awful!

    This govt goes from worse to even worser on a daily basis.

  28. Player One

    Re the “big numbers” . I’m not taking sides here but the numbers are huge. I was involved in a bioenergy project a few years back and had high hopes. One of the people that later became interested in our work was a coal fired power station. We knew it was only for a bit of green washing but hey they had the money and it pushed our main work along. Clean coal making a recent reappearance gave me a larf as at the time “Clean Coal” was ‘trending’ at the time. Their chief engineer gave me the run down on “clean coal” .Up there with Mal’s “rain making” scheme.

    Anyway. The BIG numbers. Our project involved capturing some of the CO2 from the station. It was a small to small medium size plant but when you worked out the cubic metres of CO2 a second it pumped out it was mind boggling. To then think of the number of plants far bigger in Australia and the world and how much they pumped out was staggering.Every climate change sceptic should be made to see how many cubic kilometrs of CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere and then be asked do you think that amount could not have an effect.

    In Australia 2007 each of us for power alone were responsible for emitting enough CO2 to double the CO2 level in 15,500,00 cubic metres of atmosphere multiply that by 20 odd million and !! let alone global scale.

  29. ‘I was going to make a comment on the likelihood of her fitting into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London but decided to restrain myself.’

    Well you didn’t because you just did.

  31. Poroti

    The Rodent pretty much defunded all the research within his first year or two and so forced our research peeps overseas. Lord knows how many billions we have paid for importation of tech that should have had “Made in Australia” on it.

    Yes, we could see it happening. I couldn’t believe they could be so foolish. Abbott and Turnbull have put the lid on it, too. They had all the innovation they needed and blew it.

  39. The hailstones missed the Central Coast. However the lightning was so close it turned the air purple! My son said he couldn’t see for a few seconds!

  40. After another bright, sunny, humid morning and early afternoon in Sydney, temps peaking around high 20s to low 30s, the storms returned with a vengance. This time we had hail up to the size of cricket balls* in some areas. I had some 3.5 cm hail (I’ve measured it, it’s now in the freezer).

    Here’s the ABC report: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-18/severe-storm-warning-affects-sydney-illawarra-katoomba/8283108

    * as is well known, hail comes in the size of balls used in various sports

  42. One example is the article on the poor man who committed suicide after being hounded by Centerlink and their debt collectors.

    It is likely that this Centrelink debacle will cause more deaths than the Home Insulation Program is alleged to have caused, and it won’t be because of dodgy private operators. Someone needs to be called to account – not the poor front line staff, but the decision-makers. This needs a proper investigation as to what’s going on. No company would ever launch such a crappy system into production. Didn’t they test it? Or maybe it’s a feature, not a bug.

  43. steve777 @ #1741 Saturday, February 18, 2017 at 6:07 pm

    One example is the article on the poor man who committed suicide after being hounded by Centerlink and their debt collectors.
    It is likely that this Centrelink debacle will cause more deaths than the Home Insulation Program is alleged to have caused, and it won’t be because of dodgy private operators. Someone needs to be called to account – not the poor front line staff, but the decision-makers. This needs a proper investigation as to what’s going on. No company would ever launch such a crappy system into production. Didn’t they test it? Or maybe it’s a feature, not a bug.

    I think a Royal Commission would be in order, wouldn’t it?

  45. TPOF – absolutely, especially if there is evidence of deaths, illness and stress among ‘customers’. Unfortunately it will need to wait until Labor returns to office.

  49. Lizzie:

    I haven’t seen any mainstream news reporting of the person’s death. I think the minister definitely needs to comment. I mean we knew weeks ago Centrelink was referring people to Lifeline, so I find it implausible the minister or the govt wouldn’t have canvassed the possibility someone would go to such extreme measures as suicide.

  50. Pamela Anderson’s body appears to be fair game amongst female posters here over the past 24 hours. Her body size, signs of ageing, and makeup V no makeup have all been canvassed.

    Perhaps the PB rules have changed.

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