Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

This week’s Essential Research offers results on Tony Abbott and 457 visas, along with yet another boring set of voting intention numbers.

The Essential Research fortnight rolling average maintains its recent habit of shifting between 53-47 and 54-46, the latest instalment going from the latter to the former. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up a point to 37% and Labor is down one to 36%, with the Greens and One Nation steady at 10% and 8%, so that the result is in all respects identical to the week before last. The poll also finds 40% think Tony Abbott should resign from parliament, 17% that he should stay on the back bench, and another 17% that he should be given a position in the ministry. This is worse for him than when the same questions were posed in August last year, when the respective results were 37%, 21% and 25%. Other findings relate to the tightening of 457 visas: 16% said they went too far, 28% not far enough, and 39% that they were about right; 59% approved of allowing visa holders to apply for permanent residency, against 23% disapprove; 78% agreed that those applying for permanent residency should first be put on a probationary visa, against only 10% for disagree.

The Australian also had extra questions from Newspoll, which found that 70% favoured the government prioritising spending cuts over 20% for increasing taxes, but that only 30% favoured cuts to welfare payments with 61% opposed.

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.

784 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. So the big announcement on gas boils down to Canavan writing to producers today to propose a scheme that they will then consult with the industry on.

    Wa#k.

  2. **So the big announcement on gas boils down to….Wa#k.**
    They used to call it feeding the chickens. But I think you are closer to it. Maybe a Circus Wa#k? Or, as it involves large companies and the MSM, a group Feltch.

    Kiddies, dont google those!

  3. “So the big announcement on gas boils down to Canavan writing to producers today to propose a scheme that they will then consult with the industry on.”

    But, but…it was given such prominence on AM, same as the Snowy-Hydro grand plan.
    You’d think that the ABC could employ some journalists with a bit of natural skepticism.

  4. Ratsak
    “As hopeless as Corbyn seems in the House he has proven to be an excellent campaigner on the hustings.”

    Well, Corbyn is popular with the Labour base, who turn up in droves to his rallies. But when it comes to attracting votes beyond the base, Corbyn is an utterly hopeless campaigner. Just look at the Copeland byelection – a Labour seat picked up by the Tories.

  5. Times tracking poll showing Tories ahead of Labour by 46% to 26%. In other words, the Tories already massive lead is actually INCREASING.
    So if “Bregret” is a thing, then there’s no evidence (yet) that it’s working to Corbyn’s advantage.

  6. Darn

    Sorry, I can’t remember the questions – around gas supply, raising debt, housing affordability… nothing new.
    But Shorten answered each one steadily and sensibly.

  7. @ Kakuru – the big shift since the election has been announced from Bregret is the collapse of UKIP from 10.7% down to 7.5%

  8. Kakaru

    So if “Bregret” is a thing, then there’s no evidence (yet) that it’s working to Corbyn’s advantage.

    Why would anyone think increasing anti-Brexit feelings would help Corbyn?

  9. Player One

    You’re so right. The only thing he did that could be criticised was his occasional use of “ah” when thinking. But that’s boring now 😉

  10. Barney In Go Dau

    The poison Potato has arse covered as he used lots of “I have been advised that” ,”My advice from XYZ has been that” etc while pedaling lies. If shit its the fan a suitably unimportant underling will be scapegoated.

  11. Guytaur
    “So the writer is wrong to say the Tory vote has shrunk this week?”

    Dunno. That’s one poll. The aggregate tracking polls show even more daylight between the Tories and Labour.
    Corbyn is a dud. Sadly, Labour is going to get done like a dinner. On the night of June 8, Corbyn will have only himself to blame.

  12. lizzie
    I remember my father, back in the seventies, complaining that he wasn’t able to find a job because he was over forty.

  13. Kakaru

    Yeah the one poll that the headline article introduces the term Bregret.

    It may be the start of a trend. The tracking poll is not picking this up yet because its one poll to be confirmed or disproved by others over time

  14. Those conservatives are right up to the minute – just got a notification on twitter that someone had ‘liked’ a criticism the local Libs made of me in 2012…

  15. @ Kakuru – I probably should have expanded my point a little.

    You win a UK general election by winning seats, not votes.

    UKIP did not win seats (they won a seat I believe, 1/650) last election. The Tories do not need to worry about putting resources into their seats to protect them from UKIP. They never have needed to worry. They also do not have UKIP seats that they can target to gain.

    As this election is Hard Brexit (Tory/UKIP) vs Soft Brexit Labour vs No Brexit LDP/SNP, any seat that had significant UKIP voters, will already be quite pro-Brexit, as so would be likely to vote Conservative at the next election regardless of whether UKIP is doing well or not.

    So yes, UKIP collapse gives Tories more votes. I’m not convinced it will give them more seats.

    Also, people who voted Conservative last election, and Remain in the referendum are likely to switch to Lib Dems (who are up from 7% to 10% over the past 6 months). This may gain Labour seats if the order was Con > Labour > Lib Dem. Or it may gain the Lib Dem’s seats, which still benefits Labour in the event of no majority government.

  16. Kakaru

    May has gambled on Brexit being the winner.

    Bregret shows that may have been a major miscalculation.

    Corbyn campaigning as outsider with people against elites. May just do a lot better than thought.

    These are the same commentators that said the Brexit vote would fail

    So sceptical is ok. Assuming outcome I think is another thing entirely.
    Pollsters in UK have been working on accuracy.

    However saying now Labor will win is a long long shot. However if that one poll is picking up a real change things could be getting interesting

  17. Zoomster

    Yes, it was ‘well known’ that 40 was over the hill.
    I can only assume that the researchers are young enough to think they have discovered something new. And the reporters…

  18. Lizzie
    ‘George Monbiot
    I’d rather live with Jeremy Corbyn’s gentle dithering in pursuit of a better world than give May a mandate to destroy what remains of British decency’

    Well, George, the beauty of having Corbyn as the utterly incompetent left LOTO, is that you get to have both.

    What is with the far Left around the world that they don’t get simple binaries?

    They think that Trump/Clinton is the same thing.
    They think that Le Pen/Macron is the same thing.
    They think that Shorten/Turnbull is the same thing.
    They really do.
    Sanders, Melanchon, Corbyn and Di Natale are on the same page here.
    Dangerous, deluded, destructive dolts.

  19. Scotty going on about other countries set company tax rates as if that’s all there is to compare.

    ‘Effective’ tax rates???

  20. BK

    Morrison is spruiking trickle down economics yet again.

    Here’s a man who never learns. He just quotes from his backers, I think.

  21. The Cathy Wilcox‏ @cathywilcox1 · Apr 25

    I’ll note that the one subject most guaranteed to receive angry letters in my 28 yrs of cartoons, besides Middle East politics, is ANZAC.

  22. Rachel Maddow Delivers An Epic Takedown Of Trump’s ‘Ridiculous’ Tax Reform Plan

    “If your plan for comprehensively overhauling that tax code is one page, double-spaced, with deep indents and almost no numbers, that’s a lot of things, but that’s not a tax plan.”

    Donald Trump is so desperate to point to some evidence that his first 100 days weren’t a total failure that he released a phony tax proposal on Wednesday – a one-page document he called a plan.

    He was hoping his flimsy, one-page piece of paper would be enough to convince the American people that his first three months in office haven’t been a total flop, but Rachel Maddow wasn’t having it.

    Instead, she exposed to plan for what it is – a complete sham

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/26/rachel-maddow-delivers-epic-takedown-trumps-ridiculous-tax-reform-plan.html

  23. I’m not sure that ‘Australians’ are angry. Yeah, a few people get p*ssed off and abusive. That’s not a new phenomenon.

    When my sister was married, twenty nine years ago, a drunk guest threatened to bash me (I was a bridesmaid). A friend of mine, a few years earlier, was assaulted in his bed by a couple of drunks he’d dissed from the window. So weird misdirected anger isn’t something new.

    I did a quick google of ‘road rage’ for example, and immediately came up with examples from New Zealand and London.

    The term originated, of course, in the US. It isn’t just an Australian concept, as the writer seems to imply.

    I’m getting a little tired of random anecdotes being plucked out of the air to prove something (racism, sexism, etc etc) about ‘Australians’.

    Of course, the counter point of that is universal virtues being described as “Australian” when they’re simply “human”.

    SOME Australians ARE racist, sexist, prone to irrational outbursts of rage, exceptionally courageous, generous, etc etc – and SOME Australians always have exhibited these faults and virtues. I would go so far as to say that SOME Australians always will – and that the same can be said for SOME British, SOME Americans, SOME Turkish, SOME Greeks…etc etc etc.

  24. Noel Mundy, Tasmania’s state director for charity Mission Australia, told a Senate inquiry on Wednesday that his clients have become victims of domestic violence after receiving a Centrelink debt letter.

    “We’ve unfortunately heard a couple of cases of domestic violence that {have} arisen out of this,” Mundy said.

    “The partner is saying, ‘You should have paid this’ – it just creates that tension in the household and very, very sadly children are being neglected in some cases.”

    Mundy has accused the government of breaching its duty of care by leaving vulnerable people isolated, anxious and distraught. He said it has pushed some people to the brink of suicide and violence.

    “Sudden claims of massive debts can have a negative impact on people… especially those in strained family relationships,” he said.

    Tudge “is not aware”.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliceworkman/debt-recovery-triggered-dv?utm_term=.steOLDpRK#.nxA2ZkNlK

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