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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  2. Mark Dreyfus‏Verified account @markdreyfusQCMP · 10h10 hours ago

    The plebiscite zombie is back – after banking $154m in MYEFO for dropping it, govt has allocated $170m in contingency tonight. Just ditch it

  5. Have a look at the pic of Truffles and Shorten at the 8.10 mark in the Guardian blog – talk about a pathetic looking man (I don’t mean Bill)

  6. Morning all. Well Comey gone. The first rule of political assassinations. – always assassinate the assassin afterwards.

  7. The Coalition has known at least since Abbott’s leadership (and probably forever) what the electorate want them to deliver – they prove it time and time again, every election campaign, when their mantra is basically “We’ll give you what Labor says but it will cost less.”

    It has been their stubborn belief that, despite these promises, they can sell a totally different package once in government.

    So the Coalition has finally recognised they can’t sell the product they’ve been trying to spam the populace with.

    They can only really change what they’re doing if they recognise that the salesmanship isn’t so much at fault as that the product is totally unmarketable.

    Significantly, Morrison on the ABC last night said to Sales that by abandoning the 2014 zombie measures they had settled for second best – which suggests that belief in the product is still there.

  13. As for the budget, on infrastructure a lot of detail was missing on how and when spending would occur. Here in SA there is no new spending in the next four years, just a lot of re-announcement of existing spending. Similar with Victoria. The winner really was Sydney, and NSW and Qld country. Where were those marginal seats again?
    http://budget.gov.au/2017-18/content/glossies/jobs-growth/html/jobs-growth-01.htm

    There is also this generous gift to the financial spivs:
    “To ensure each dollar of infrastructure funding goes further so we can build more projects, the Government is identifying and pursuing ways to deliver infrastructure through more innovative financing methods, rather than signing cheques to the States and Territories.”

    Have we not already had enough PPP schemes go broke?

  14. Victoria

    I still think Comey should have stuck to not saying anything about the emails or revealed the investigation into Trump to stay balanced. It was not his place to insert himself into the politics.

    However once he did this seemed to be inevitable.

    Comey opened the door to compromising the independence of the FBI.

    The motives for Trump firing Comey are very transparent and a gross abuse of power.
    However the stick used as an excuse was provided by Comey in the first place.

  16. Socrates

    “To ensure each dollar of infrastructure funding goes further so we can build more projects, the Government is identifying and pursuing ways to deliver infrastructure through more innovative financing methods, rather than signing cheques to the States and Territories.”

    The Goldman Sachs solution.

  17. My how things change. A few short months ago Comey being sacked would have brought on loud cheering from Trump opponents . In fact many called for it .

  18. Have a good day all in the new workers paradise. ScoMo said last night that wages will rise in real terms by 2.5% this year. Awesome! And ScoMo would not lie.

  21. Oscar the cat arrived back home this morning dragging a rabbit trap. Got as far as the fence around the house but couldn’t get through. Fortunately we found him. Used multigrips to get the trap off his front paw. He purred.
    Backtracked him for over a km to the neighbour’s boundary. Brave little tike has dragged it all the way.
    No major damage except for a bit of blood. Walking normally.

  22. Wow even Assange can see this for what it is

    wikileaks: If James Comey or any other former or current FBI officers have information as to why he was fired, we want to help: wikileaks.org/#submit

  23. Guytaur

    I think Comey had a very valid reason for revealing it. He pointed out at the time that had he kept quiet he would then be open to accusations of a cover up.

    Remember the Repugs were at the time yuuugely pissed off with him because although he said Clinton was an idiot she had not committed any crimes re server/emails. He did so despite a stack of pressure under questioning and maintained the line of negligent but not criminal. The Repugs thought it was in the bag re her “guilt”.

  26. wikileaks: If James Comey or any other former or current FBI officers have information as to why he was fired, we want to help: wikileaks.org/#submit

    LOL! Yeah right.

  28. Poroti

    Thats Comey excuse for getting involved in politics. By doing so he inserted himself into politics against Justice Department guidelines.

    That was the start of the end of the independence of the FBI.

    However don’t get me wrong I think it was a human mistake. Not a conspiracy.
    This firing is not justified and is very Nixonian.

  29. Wow, Donald Trump is behaving just like Vladimir Putin and turning the USA into the Russia of Putin at an alarming rate!

  30. Guytaur

    That was the start of the end of the independence of the FBI.

    Ho ho ho . J Edgar Hoover anyone ? All those organisations are in some way or another politicised.

  31. Victoria

    Like it or not they are players in this game. Their reaction just tells us how egregious they see Trump’s action as.

    Maybe Assange is not a genius when it comes to politics and has actually been a right wing leaning guy duped by the Russians. Maybe.

    I liked Confessions reaction. Laughing is to me the right response

  35. don @ #11 Wednesday, May 10, 2017 at 6:07 am

    But to be serious, (though I prefer the Harold interpretation) your reading comprehension of Wikipedia is atrocious.

    Jeez, Don. It was a throwaway comment meant to be light and humorous. I have no idea what the fucking H stands for. To waste 4 posts on this over 2 threads? Please go buy yourself a sense of humour. I think they are the ‘budget special’ this week.

  36. Has anyone done the sums as the whether the Turnbull education funding is Gonski 0.9, 0.8 or whatever fraction it is to Gonski 1.0? Don’t let Turnbull get away with Gonski 2.0.

  37. To be crystal clear to all. I am not defending Trump. As a candidate he praised Comey for his actions on Clinton emails.

    The excuse is just that an excuse. Not a believable one.

  38. In his letter to Comey Trump says he is sacking him to restore public confidence in the FBI. If he really wanted to restore public confidence he’d sack himself instead!

  39. I guess the jester was right after all…..

    Conversation

    JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUΔL³³º¹ @th3j35t3r

    #BuckleUp It’s gonna be a rough few weeks America. And that’s about all I’m gonna say on the matter, aside from… keep the bubbly on ice.
    1:48 PM · Mar 22, 2017

  40. Lizzie
    Re legality of rabbit traps.
    Actually I think that you are right. Serrated jaw traps are illegal, I’ll have to inform the neighbour. $2500 fine.

  42. This could be why Trump acted on Comey

    Conversation

    Claude Taylor @TrueFactsStated

    Was receiving new information when news came in. Filing under RUMINT for now: FBI has placed holds on over 50 individuals assoc w/ Trump.
    8:48 AM · May 10, 2017

  44. Fess

    You would hope that some Republicans who are not corrupted in this Imbroglio would move quickly to stop Trump. Things are gonna get messy

  47. Comey just couldn’t compete with the staying power of J Edgar Hoover:

    John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972), better known as J. Edgar Hoover, was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. He was appointed as the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigation — predecessor to the FBI — in 1924 and was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972, aged 77. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency than it was at its inception and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.

    Later in life and after his death, Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive abuses of power began to surface. He was found to have exceeded the jurisdiction of the FBI,[1] and to have used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.[3] Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting presidents.[4] According to biographer Kenneth Ackerman, the notion that Hoover’s secret files kept presidents from firing him is a myth.[5] However, Richard Nixon was recorded as stating in 1971 that one of the reasons he did not fire Hoover was that he was afraid of reprisals against him from Hoover.[6]

    According to President Harry S. Truman, Hoover transformed the FBI into his private secret police force. Truman stated: “we want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.”[7]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

  49. Most significant news for the YTD?
    It has to be the sacking of Comey.
    The US is no longer crabwalking to the death of the Republic.

  50. The New York Times article+analysis of the Comey sacking.

    President Trump has fired the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, over his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, the White House said on Tuesday

    The firing puts Democrats in a difficult position. Many had hoped that Mrs. Clinton would fire Mr. Comey soon after taking office, and blamed him as costing her the election. But under Mr. Trump, the outspoken and independent-minded Mr. Comey was seen as an important check on the new administration.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html?_r=0

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