Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

Six weeks on, Essential Research finds the budget has done the government more harm than good, as the Lowy Institute reports a mixed bag of attitudes about the United States.

Labor’s lead remains steady at 52-48 in this week’s reading of the Essential Research fortnight rolling average, from primary votes of 38% for the Coalition (steady), 35% for Labor 35% (down one), 9% for Greens 9% (down one) and 9% for One Nation (up one), whose curious resurgence was the subject of an article I had in Crikey on Monday. Also featured are Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, which find Malcolm Turnbull down one on approval to 36% and down three on disapproval to 45%; Bill Shorten steady at 34% and down two to 43%; and Turnbull leading 39-26 on preferred prime minister, up from 39-31 last month. In other findings, the poll also records only 17% saying the recent budget improved their perception of the government, compared with 30% saying it made it worse; a 41-32 majority in favour of a clean energy target if it resulted in price rises of 5%, turning into a 50-21 deficit if they rose 10%; and 64% favouring investment in renewables in a no-strings-attached question compared with 18% for coal.

Also out yesterday was the Lowy Institute’s annual survey on Australian attitudes to international affairs and the direction of the country. Among many other things, the results find Australians continuing to rate the alliance with the United States highly (53% very important and 29% fairly important, recovering to near 2015 levels after a dip to 42% and 29% last year), with Donald Trump’s influence on perceptions of the US rating slightly less badly than George W. Bush in 2007 (60% said Trump contributed to an unfavourable opinion of the United States against 37% for no, compared with 69% and 27% for Bush). However, the proportion of respondents rating the US as Australia’s best friend has slumped from 35% to 17% since 2014, with the beneficiary being New Zealand, up from 32% to 53%. Only 20% now say they have a “great deal” of trust in the US to act responsibly in the world, compared with 40% in 2011.

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.

1,400 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor”

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  1. jimmydoyle @ #1149 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 5:56 pm

    Player One – I don’t need to refute your arguments. Other posters have done that over and over again so comprehensively as to render it unnecessary.

    I don’t think I have ever used that as an argument against renewables

    Yes you do – you did it two pages back – hence my accusation of intellectual dishonesty.

    Where?

  2. Antonbruckner11

    Jezza hits the lead:

    The Independent editorial yesterday was headlined that Corbyn was looking increasingly “Prime Ministerial” .

  3. Turnbull, Birmingham and the MSM would be very prudent if they toned down their victory lap over the ” huge Gonski political win ” meme.

    I do not think Shorten will be worried at all by the ongoing hubris. It will Bly be a matter of time before the states and territories add up the figures and calculate the huge financial impost Turnbull has hit them with out of the blue with no warning or consultation. Once the states do awaken then it will be on.

    The ineptitude of the Turnbull government is amazing. No consultation with the Catholic sector, no consultation with the states and then Turnbull locking the states into funding 80 per cent of their education funding without even talking to them.

    States must ante up 80 per cent of education funding for their public systems, the Commonwealth just 20 per cent while Turnbull legislates the Commonwealth funding 80 per cent of private schools some if which will continue to be high fee charging schools.

    The states will not be happy at being shafted.

    Cheers.

  4. ctar1 @ #1148 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 5:56 pm

    Bemused

    We are sending 2 P3 Orions according to reports I have seen or heard.

    There’s already some in Singapore doing patrols IIRC. Surveillance or whatever they may just retask them.
    I doubt they’d let off a Harpoon (too f’ing expensive). Grin.

    And not many ships as targets in the back blocks of Mindanao.

  5. player one @ #1147 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 5:55 pm

    jimmydoyle @ #1137 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 5:41 pm

    PlayerOne
    And again with the money? That this seems to be your main objection, and that you would prefer to continue to burn coal rather than reduce emissions by 50% shows how twisted your priorities are.

    If cost is no object, then why not reduce emissions by 100% and build solar + battery?

    We’ve been through this one already today. I’m fine with that – even at huge cost – but while we are doing it, we can also be retiring coal plants by replacing them with gas.
    How can anyone object to this?

    We’ve been through this before.

    In the time it would take to build the plants (4 – 5 years greenfields) you could build the required amount of renewables & battery. Several different posters who actually deal with PV manufacturers have explained this to you, and I’m sure the wind turbine manufacturers could do the same.

    Hydro and wave I’m not so sure, they are much more complex methods of generation, and require suitable geography.

  9. VP

    The wife of former ATO deputy commissioner Michael Cranston allegedly received payments described as “wages” from a company allegedly involved in a tax fraud scheme.

    I wonder if they paid 100% of her tax and super? Grin.

  10. PlayerOne @ 12:50pm
    Fine with me. We know the cost of that option – about $1 trillion. And while we’re waiting for all these solar panels, wind turbines and batteries to be deployed, let’s use gas instead of coal, at a tiny, tiny fraction of that cost, but for a substantial reduction of our C02 emissions.

    If money’s not an issue, how could anyone possibly object to that?

    The attack on renewables is implicit in your decontextualised dollar figure – a tactic straight from the Lying Liberal playbook, I might add!

    By the way, and I’ve said this before, I am not opposed to the use of gas as a transitional source – if that’s what the market determines is the best use of capital.

    What I am opposed to are your flimsy and nonsensical arguments.

  11. Bemused

    And not many ships as targets in the back blocks of Mindanao.

    Harpoons are just very expensive surface attack missile. They can be set to go ‘there’ and hit the ground.

  12. Re the debt levy mentioned above. The original leglisation from 2014 had a sunset clause, so the government would have to legislate to extend it.
    Labor of course proposed this, but the Government wasn’t interested.

  14. peg

    The wash up seems to be that Gonski needs much the same funding that it ever did, but the Feds are passing on the costs to the States and pocketing the difference.

  15. Bemused

    Please please please let there be such a trial……………………and as icing 5cm deep on the cake he is shackled to co conspirators Bush and Howard. It would be a moment of supreme satisfaction.

  16. From Tony Burke:

    ‘Tanya Plibersek held up a photo in Question Time of Malcolm Turnbull at a school in the remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands. The photo was used in this year’s Closing the Gap report. The school is set to receive a $100,000 funding cut next year compared to the actual funding it received in 2015’

    Great outcome, huh, peg?

  17. How can Birmingham/Turnbull possibly say that they’ve “fixed Gonski for ever” when they prove, time and time again, that nothing survives further than the next election.

  19. Grimace
    In the time it would take to build the plants (4 – 5 years greenfields) you could build the required amount of renewables & battery.

    Yes, and after a little research I found this little gem about the time-period involved in converting a coal plant to gas:

    Every potential project begins with an extensive study phase in which a number of pros and cons must be considered before undertaking a project that could cost several tens of millions of dollars. Typically from study phase to delivery of equipment takes about two-and-a-half years, although some projects have taken four to five years to develop.

    So, 2 to 5 years to convert a coal plant to gas – I wonder how many panels and wind turbines we could build in that time-frame? I wonder how much cheaper they’ll be in two years time?

    http://www.power-eng.com/articles/print/volume-119/issue-6/features/coal-to-gas-plant-conversions-in-the-u-s.html

  20. jimmydoyle @ #1160 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:09 pm

    The attack on renewables is implicit in your decontextualised dollar figure – a tactic straight from the Lying Liberal playbook, I might add!

    It was not “decontextualized” – it came from a report Grimace posted, as I said. Did you notice he did not object to the figure? Also, I am not a Liberal – but what would it matter if I was?

    Also, what part of “Fine with me” didn’t you understand? I was using the cost comparison merely to point out that the additional cost of using gas in place of coal during the transition was insignificant.

    By the way, and I’ve said this before, I am not opposed to the use of gas as a transitional source – if that’s what the market determines is the best use of capital.

    Money again, as always. No mention of C02 emission reduction at all, as usual.

    What I am opposed to are your flimsy and nonsensical arguments.

    No, what you are opposed to is anything that does not fit your preconceived notions of what you want the solution to be. That’s why I refer to you as “solar warriors”.

  21. Fairfax has belatedly discovered that the States, including NSW, were not consulted and consider themselves conned by the Libs. Turnbull tells them to stump up huge extra sums or lose Gonski funding for public schools.

    This is essentially a rerun of Turnbull’s earlier attempt to make the States impose income taxes to pay for schools and hospitals. That went down like a lead balloon. So it’s the Catholic sector, Labor and now State governments that will be actively campaigning against Conski. What will the Greens do?

    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/its-a-bit-rich-gonski-20-passes-parliament-forcing-state-governments-to-increase-school-funding-20170623-gwxbrf.html

  22. To clarify, coal is free to the miner. If you doubt this, try to write a hypothetical profit and loss account for a coal miner. Nowhere in such a statement will there be an expense item called “coal”. Miners do not pay for coal. It is free to the miner. They sell it so of course it’s not free to others. But the fact remains, in the first place, coal is free. (We could say they pay royalties, which is a kind of a supply price. But this simply accentuates the point: the minerals are free in the first place, whether to the State or, in the absence of a royalty, to the original extractor.)

    The development of renewable energy technologies places all holders of these technologies in the same relation to energy supplies as miners have been in the past with respect to coal (or gas or oil). That is, they have (so far at least) free access.

    The miners are in a capital intense business. Their advantages are in scale and in access to capital markets. They also have titles to the resources. These advantages are being very quickly eroded by renewable energy technologies, which can be successful on the micro scale, with low capital and which require no titles.

    It is precisely because their peculiar advantages are threatened by new technologies that the miners have sought to frustrate their adoption. Even though they have access to free coal, they are being under-bid by their non-miner competitors and their markets are shrinking even more quickly than they expanded in the first place. The same is true for oil and gas producers, which is why the fossil fuel markets are now glutted.

    In fact, the energy markets will become completely saturated as more renewable supplies are introduced. This is obviously happening even as we watch.

  24. A construction company manager has been arrested and charged after allegedly threatening to track down a union safety organiser and saying he would “attack you and your family”.

    Police arrested the site manager at Melbourne-based building firm VCON after a 26-year-old female Trades Hall employee received the disturbing email in her inbox on Wedne

    “F–k off you scum c–t!,” the email began. “If you continue to attack my livelihood I will track you down and attack you and your family!! This is your first and final warning!!”

    The site manager was charged with the criminal offence of using a telecommunications service to menace. He has been released on bail.

    Builder VCON and an associated firm, Element Five, have been in the crosshairs of an escalating campaign run by the construction union and Trades Hall officials, who accuse the companies of a “shocking” safety standards, with one workplace death, 104 “serious incidents” and 23 improvement notices in the past two years.

    Organisers from Trades Hall have been handing out flyers outside one of Element Five’s work sites and running an email and petition campaign. The menacing email was allegedly sent by the site manager in response.

    http://www.theage.com.au/business/workplace-relations/building-manager-arrested-charged-over-threats-to-attack-union-organiser-20170623-gwxas8.html

  26. Player One
    Did you notice he did not object to the figure?

    Err, yes, Grimace did in fact object to the figure.

    You failed to post said link, nor did you provide information as what the figure referred to e.g. what period of time did it cover – 5, 10, 50? Is that the cost for Australia, the OECD, or the whole world?

    No, you just flung it out there – so, like I said, decontextualised.

    That’s why I refer to you as “solar warriors”

    But, but, but… I thought you didn’t like “name-calling”! Now you’re just being precious.

  27. Lizzie
    Before people reach for their lace hankies and smelling salts when ever some construction union person says something frightful they should remember that companies in the game play just as hard. Both sides are not great fans of the “Marquis of Queensbury Rules”, for good or ill it is a ruthless industry.

  29. It’s all very well chopping into the banks for some dough but when it comes to ‘who pays’ then between the customers, the shareholders, the borrowers, the lenders, the employees and the directors, who will finish up paying?
    My guess is the directors will look after their interests first, then those of the shareholders (also being directors in part) and after that……….well it doesn’t matter does it? The banks will effectively launder any impost on themselves down the line ……………………Now, if banks were in a truly competitive situation rather than being part of a 4-way monopoly/oligopoly or whatever term is appropriate, things may be a little different.

  30. Samantha Maiden‏Verified account @samanthamaiden · 9m9 minutes ago

    Liberals under age of 40 have dubbed Liberal HQ Menzies House “a museum”. Stand by for some announcements in that space. A new Feedback?

  31. A note on coal to gas comversion.

    The largest, most complex and most expensive part of a coal fired power station is the boilers. With gas comversion you replace the boilers. And its not even that simple. Older non supercritcal turbines won’t take supercritical steam so a gas comversion is forced to operate at lower efficiency.

    In a lot of cases its more economical to just build a new gas plant.

    Gas does have a use – as a backup heat source for a solar thermal plant with thermal storage.

  32. jimmydoyle @ #1176 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:37 pm

    Err, yes, Grimace did in fact object to the figure.

    I must have missed that. But if so I’m surprised, because it comes from the report he posted on his preferred solution – $800 billion in new investment, plus the costs of writing off existing generation plants.

    You failed to post said link, nor did you provide information as what the figure referred to e.g. what period of time did it cover – 5, 10, 50? Is that the cost for Australia, the OECD, or the whole world?

    The report was discussed at length a few days ago. I don’t feel the need to go back over all previous discussions each time I post, or re-post all links. I expected most people interested would have remembered it.

    No, you just flung it out there – so, like I said, decontextualised.

    Additional context was added within a few posts. On the same page, I think.

    But, but, but… I thought you didn’t like “name-calling”! Now you’re just being precious.

    Fair call, I suppose. Although the name is not intended to be personally insulting, merely descriptive of the blind faith many here have that solar alone will “save the day”. It won’t – not without help.

  33. The Tasmanian Government’s horror week in the upper house has continued, with MLCs swinging the axe on its contentious forestry legislation.

    The bill would have allowed logging in 356,000 hectares of forests two years earlier than a moratorium would have allowed.

    It was defeated in the Legislative Council, with seven MLCs voting it down, with five in favour

    …Greens leader Cassy O’Connor welcomed the continued temporary protection of the forests.

    “This is a two-year reprieve for some of the most carbon rich forests on the planet,” Ms O’Connor said.

    Terry Edwards of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania.
    Photo: Terry Edwards says Tasmanians are sick of the forestry debate. (ABC News)

    “We’ll be there along with the wider conservation movements fighting to make sure those forests are protected into reserves.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-22/logging-plan-defeat-for-tasmanian-government-in-upper-house/8641876

  35. It would be really good to get out of this meaningless loop with P1, and discuss some of the more interesting and important challenges and opportunities arising from disruption of the power industry.
    e.g. effect on inequality, decarbonisation of transport, peer to peer energy trading, effect of massive deployment of solar and storage behind the meter on the grid and overall energy market, blockchain trading, best use of surplus capacity, effect of solar panels on literacy levels in Indian villages, solar desalination etc etc

  36. jimmydoyle @ #1176 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:37 pm

    Player One
    Did you notice he did not object to the figure?

    Err, yes, Grimace did in fact object to the figure.
    You failed to post said link, nor did you provide information as what the figure referred to e.g. what period of time did it cover – 5, 10, 50? Is that the cost for Australia, the OECD, or the whole world?
    No, you just flung it out there – so, like I said, decontextualised.

    That’s why I refer to you as “solar warriors”

    But, but, but… I thought you didn’t like “name-calling”! Now you’re just being precious.

    I am quite interested in seeing a portfolio of renewables rather than any one technology. This will reduce the need for storage as it is unlikely all renewables will be producing low output at the one time.
    I would like to see Solar PV, Solar Thermal, Wind, Wave and any other viable technologies.

  39. Player One – if you’re going to use figures from a report to make your argument, then it is incumbent upon you to provide the source, irrespective of whether or not it was discussed “a few days ago”, so that people can examine that source and decide for themselves – particularly if they weren’t around at the time it was discussed.

    You need to look up academic integrity and start practicing it.

  40. trog sorrenson @ #1185 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:57 pm

    It would be really good to get out of this meaningless loop with P1, and discuss some of the more interesting and important challenges and opportunities arising from disruption of the power industry.
    e.g. effect on inequality, decarbonisation of transport, peer to peer energy trading, effect of massive deployment of solar and storage behind the meter on the grid and overall energy market, blockchain trading, best use of surplus capacity, effect of solar panels on literacy levels in Indian villages, solar desalination etc etc

    I suggest you go to the RenewEconomy forums for that. Here, we discuss electricity policy because it is current political news.

  41. jimmydoyle @ #1169 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:23 pm

    Grimace
    In the time it would take to build the plants (4 – 5 years greenfields) you could build the required amount of renewables & battery.

    Yes, and after a little research I found this little gem about the time-period involved in converting a coal plant to gas:

    Every potential project begins with an extensive study phase in which a number of pros and cons must be considered before undertaking a project that could cost several tens of millions of dollars. Typically from study phase to delivery of equipment takes about two-and-a-half years, although some projects have taken four to five years to develop.

    So, 2 to 5 years to convert a coal plant to gas – I wonder how many panels and wind turbines we could build in that time-frame? I wonder how much cheaper they’ll be in two years time?
    http://www.power-eng.com/articles/print/volume-119/issue-6/features/coal-to-gas-plant-conversions-in-the-u-s.html

    Now now JD, P1 would have us believe that commissioning a new utility scale gas power plant is as quick and easy as popping down to Coates or Kennards to hire a 10 kVa generator, then plugging it into your DB when you get home and firing it up. I hope you didn’t post something to contradict them.

  42. Bemused

    I would like to see Solar PV, Solar Thermal, Wind, Wave and any other viable technologies.

    If you combine wind and solar pv with some storage you can get pretty good coverage. Also load shifting. e.g. Water heating should occur during the middle of the day. Poor solar radiation levels will be less of an issue as we install extra (cheap) panels. Extra panels can be installed at a relatively small marginal cost.
    Solar thermal is having trouble competing on cost with solar pv plus batteries, although I guess this could change.
    Wave power has never really got going. A lot of heavy, clunky, expensive engineering.

  43. trog sorrenson @ #1192 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:07 pm

    Bemused

    I would like to see Solar PV, Solar Thermal, Wind, Wave and any other viable technologies.

    If you combine wind and solar pv with some storage you can get pretty good coverage. Also load shifting. e.g. Water heating should occur during the middle of the day. Poor solar radiation levels will be less of an issue as we install extra (cheap) panels. Extra panels can be installed at a relatively small marginal cost.
    Solar thermal is having trouble competing on cost with solar pv plus batteries, although I guess this could change.
    Wave power has never really got going. A lot of heavy, clunky, expensive engineering.

    Carnegie in WA seem to be having some success.
    Solar thermal updraft also seems to have some attractions, notably 24/7 operation.
    And if part of your portfolio is more expensive but improves reliability, then maybe it is still a cost worth paying.

  44. player one @ #1182 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:51 pm

    jimmydoyle @ #1176 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:37 pm

    Err, yes, Grimace did in fact object to the figure.

    I must have missed that. But if so I’m surprised, because it comes from the report he posted on his preferred solution – $800 billion in new investment, plus the costs of writing off existing generation plants.

    You failed to post said link, nor did you provide information as what the figure referred to e.g. what period of time did it cover – 5, 10, 50? Is that the cost for Australia, the OECD, or the whole world?

    The report was discussed at length a few days ago. I don’t feel the need to go back over all previous discussions each time I post, or re-post all links. I expected most people interested would have remembered it.

    No, you just flung it out there – so, like I said, decontextualised.

    Additional context was added within a few posts. On the same page, I think.

    But, but, but… I thought you didn’t like “name-calling”! Now you’re just being precious.

    Fair call, I suppose. Although the name is not intended to be personally insulting, merely descriptive of the blind faith many here have that solar alone will “save the day”. It won’t – not without help.

    Grimace would like to confirm that he didn’t object to the figure. He would like to point out that as usual, P1 is misrepresenting the context in which the discussion took place.

    P1 made a statement that s/he hadn’t seen any scenarios modelled where Australia could reach 100% renewable energy in the energy sector by 2030, and I posted one:
    https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/article/downloads/ISF_100%25_Australian_Renewable_Energy_Report.pdf (my apologies to P1 if this is not the report I originally posted.

    I’m not supporting or defending the $800b figure. I do put forward that much of Australia’s generation assets are going to have to be replaced in the next couple of decades and that will cost a great many billions of dollars, so in quoting $800b (assuming that number is accurate) P1 is being disingenuous because we will have had to spend a huge amount of money replacing generation and grid assets regardless of the technology used.

  45. jimmydoyle @ #1189 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:01 pm

    Player One – if you’re going to use figures from a report to make your argument, then it is incumbent upon you to provide the source, irrespective of whether or not it was discussed “a few days ago”, so that people can examine that source and decide for themselves – particularly if they weren’t around at the time it was discussed.

    I’m sorry you seem to have completely missed the point of my original comment, even though I have now explained it to you in detail. That you are so keen to sidetrack the debate down this rabbit hole, presumably demonstrates that you cannot refute the actual point.

    You need to look up academic integrity and start practicing it.

    And you need to look up “ad hominem” and stop practicing it.

  46. Lizzie

    A construction company manager has been arrested and charged after allegedly threatening to track down a union safety organiser and saying he would “attack you and your family”.

    I wonder if they knew of this before Setka suddenly became the big news ‘villian’ a couple of days ago?

  48. Grimace – thank you for posting that link – I had come across that report in my attempt to search for what P1 was referring to. The $800 billion figure is the cost of the “Advanced Renewables Scenario” (just one scenario in the report) over fifty years and which includes the cost of converting to entirely electric transportation and heating systems, alongside electricity production.

    It’s also worth pointing out that 800 billion is considerably short of 1 trillion – it is not equivalent of rounding up $8 to $10.

  49. On a completely different topic, there was a lot, and I mean a lot, of piteous bleating and frothing outrage from the banks this evening on PM about SA’s proposal to, let’s be frank about it, skim a little of the banks profits for state coffers.
    I found myself sniggering, as no one, bar the bankers, their families, friends, associates and shareholders, could give a toss about them.
    Whoops, hang on, that would be a lot of people with super, wouldn’t it?
    Still, where are the states to get the $ to fund Gonski 2.00, courtesy of Turnbull, let alone anything else?

  50. grimace @ #1194 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:17 pm

    P1 made a statement that s/he hadn’t seen any scenarios modelled where Australia could reach 100% renewable energy in the energy sector by 2030, and I posted one

    No, I asked you what your ‘preferred path to decarbonization’ was, having just detailed my proposal, and this was the report you posted in response.

    Now who is misrepresenting?

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