Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor

A budget eve widening of the Coalition’s electoral deficit from Essential, while a private poll finds cabinet minister Christian Porter struggling in his marginal seat on the fringes of Perth.

The regular Essential Research result is the only entry in an inevitably quiet week of opinion polling, to be followed by a post-budget deluge next week. This result is a good one for Labor, who tick up a point on two-party preferred to lead 54-46, with the Coalition down one on the primary vote to 37%, Labor up one to 38%, the Greens up one to 10% and One Nation maintaining an ongoing trend in dropping a point to 6%. Despite that, the regular monthly leadership ratings find Malcolm Turnbull up two on approval to 37%, although he is also up one on disapproval to 48%. Bill Shorten is up one on each, to 34% and 45%, and his deficit on preferred prime minister has narrowed from 39-28 to 39-31.

Other findings relate to the government’s university funding, with university funding cuts (28% to 56%) and student fee hikes (30% to 60%) heavily opposed, but lowering the threshold for student loan repayment slightly favoured (47% to 44%). Thirty-one per cent rated that students should pay a lesser share of the cost of their degrees, 20% thought it should be more, and 37% thought the current ratio (42% paid by students, 58% by the government) was about right. The poll also finds 71% rating a return to a budget surplus as important, versus only 19% for not important.

One other poll tidbit: the Financial Review reports a poll conducted by WA Opinion Polls for Labor-aligned communications company Campaign Capital finds cabinet minister Christian Porter trailing 52.2-47.8 in his Perth outskirts seat of Pearce, from a swing of 5.8%. The primary vote numbers make no distinction between “other” and “unsure”, so I’m not exactly sure what to make of them, but for the record they have Labor on 38.0% (34.3% at the election), Liberal on 33.8% (45.4%), the Greens on 8.0% (11.0%) and One Nation on 10.4% (uncontested). The poll was conducted a fortnight ago from a sample of 712.

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.

1,323 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. @Zoomster

    Great link! Will have to check it out as soon as I am able. My totally uninformed opinion is that if chauvanism is affecting the way the electorate votes it’s mostly happening in richer electorates, not more working class ones, contrary to popular opinion. I do however believe there is a tendency for both major parties to run female candidates against one another. Whatever increases representation though I suppose.

    There has obviously been a resurgence in chauvanistic thinking in the LNP since the election of Abbott though and it seems like a culture / perception that Turnball hasn’t really been able to change. This is of course a gift to labor and it’s totally idiotic that Turnball isn’t prioritising tackling this as a point of difference between him and his predecessor.

  2. Bemused – I was wondering if a LV electrical cable may have accompanied the optical fibres. This could make sense as connecting each of the nodes to nearby powerlines would have been exe. There is no evidence I can see suggesting they connected the local Node to the powerlines across the road.

    Then again, nobody on this street has connected to NBN yet due to the stories of all the problems and low speeds others have experienced.

  3. High winds and extreme fire danger usually coincide. A blackout with a fire raging nearby is a concern for everybody in the area. We use CFS app and live traffic apps along with emergency radio to plan what to do as well as phones to call for help or coordinate plans with local friends and family (some elderly).

  4. This ‘Bowerbird’ Prime Minister is Colour Blind. Everything he picks up is Red. So bereft of original ideas is he. It’s hardly a recommendation to his skill as a politician to point that fact out.

  5. Ides of March – I may or may not be somewhat blinded by my pet hatred of Farrelly. I report, you decide.

  6. Reachtel delivers a budget flop for Malcolm.

    What a humiliation for the conservative rump this week has been. Spectacularly repudiated by the people and the parliament and returned to their swamp with tails between their legs.

  7. simon aussie katich @ #1302 Friday, May 12, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    Bemused – I was wondering if a LV electrical cable may have accompanied the optical fibres. This could make sense as connecting each of the nodes to nearby powerlines would have been exe. There is no evidence I can see suggesting they connected the local Node to the powerlines across the road.
    Then again, nobody on this street has connected to NBN yet due to the stories of all the problems and low speeds others have experienced.

    For a start, there are much greater distances to the ‘exchange’ equivalent so greater voltage drop. Just not feasible IMHO.
    NBN has had to negotiate with all the local supply authorities to power the nodes.
    Just a further example of the idiocy of the whole undertaking.
    Also, the old exchanges had big batteries, but even they would run out in a prolonged blackout.
    The power cabling to the node could have been undergrounded from a nearby pole.

  8. @A R,

    Yeah yeah I heard it all before, even from the battery creator himself said there was new developments coming but we never heard them again.
    Just like Fraudband, we keep hearing these technologies are going to be the win.

  9. zoidlord @ #1221 Friday, May 12, 2017 at 12:19 pm

    Why are you so protective of Batteries, you either have vested interest in them or you know someone who does.

    I am neither pro- nor anti- batteries. I am just not optimistic about their prospects of being deployed in sufficient volume in time to do much good. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t deploy them – it just means hey are not really going to do much to reduce C02 in the short to medium term.

  10. When I had fttp installed I took the battery backup option. My understanding was that it was if my property experienced a blackout and presumably the fibre was still active. It’s supposed to last about 4 hours. Most blackouts don’t last that long but that could easily change if storm intensities increase as appears to be occurring.

  11. Yeah, I seem to remember a fair number of the anti-Labor trolls were going on about how the battery backup only lasted 4 hours at the time and how this was an outrage of Conroy’s making blah blah blah.

    Now it seems the FTTN provides no service, by default, in the case of emergencies. Woo hoo. Cue outrage?

    I was kind of surprised that the original FTTP backup was speced so low in terms of operational time – although it may have been from the fact it (I guess) supported old POTS handsets, so needed to generate a 48V ‘local loop’ on the house-facing side, which is probably not ideal from an energy efficiency point of view, but the passive fibre to the ‘exchange’ should have been able to be powered off of moonbeams and rainbows nigh indefinitely I would have thought, and would have been much more reliable than the old copper wire POTS system – in a big storm or bushfire situation the lines/power in the telephone exchanges were highly likely to go down under the same conditions that would have brought the mains power down.

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