Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor

Labor maintains its wide lead in an Essential Research poll that also gauges opinion on party polarisation, same-sex marriage and foreign leaders.

Primary vote numbers will have to wait until the full report is published later today, but The Guardian reports that the latest fortnight rolling average from Essential Research has Labor maintaining the 54-46 two-party lead it opened after a one-point gain last week.

Among the other findings:

• Seventy-one per cent agreed both sides of politics should meet in some place called “the middle” more often; 45% said they would consider voting for a party that sat in it; and another 45% (or perhaps the same one) agreed that Australian parties were “too ideological”, compared with 37% who perceived no substantial difference between them (I assume these two were separate options to the same question, although this is unclear).

• Yet another question on same-sex marriage finds 61% supportive and 26% opposed, and 50% supporting a binding plebiscite compared with 23% for a vote by parliament and 9% for a non-binding plebiscite followed by a parliamentary conscience vote.

• Questions on foreign leaders found 51% had a favourable view of Justin Trudeau, which would be an impressive result for a Canadian Prime Minister on name recognition, never mind approval. Angela Merkel on 43% and Emmanuel Macron on 41% both rated higher than Theresa May on 33%. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both rated 16%, and 6% had somehow formed a favourable view of Kim Jong-un. All of these numbers will become more meaningful when we see the full report, which will hopefully also include results for unfavourable.

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.

1,344 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. Good work Abbott.

    1. He will have received all the same reports and advice as Trumble, so he will know all the problems.

    2. Perhaps more importantly, Credlin will have seen it to and understood it.

    3. If Dutton is going to act as Trumble’s Praetorian Guard then Tones will see him as the enemy.

    4. Most importantly when Abbott talks on this issue most of the Cabinet will be nodding their heads in agreement. Trumble will have pissed off a lot of supporters who have been dead against this sell out to Reichstuber-SS Dutton from the start.

    Trumble’s latest greatest genius reset is all about getting the loons on side. If Abbott comes out and tells the loons that it is an idea he rejected because it’s a bad idea, and can get the Moderates (sic) backgrounding that on this issue he’s not crazy, Shorten will tear it apart just by asking for more details and giving the Libs space to fight.

  5. Confessions
    Wednesday, July 19, 2017 at 6:41 pm
    I think Perth would qualify as sprawling. It’s just that it sprawls north to south, obviously constrained in the east by the Perth Hills.
    *****************************************
    I can vouch for that.

    I live in Ellenbrook (far north east) and drove to a Muja, which is a couple of hours south of the metro area on Monday. On the way I stopped to pick up someone who lived close to the city and then someone else from Mandurah (far south). It was about an hour and 45 minutes from my place to Mandurah, and the traffic was quite light due to school holidays.

  7. Confessions
    Wednesday, July 19, 2017 at 6:42 pm
    Citizen:

    I posted the Buzzfeed article about the Nat Senator’s proposal on the previous page or one before that.

    Sorry, I missed that. Hopefully any form of plebiscite on SSM never happens.

  9. Mari:

    OMG SO much to see in that Rowe! The crows (or are the bats?) circling, Brandis looking askance with suspicion at Dutton, Turnbull looking cowed and on an inferior horse in the background, Morrison screaming from the outer, Abbott is there, and the castle in the background mirroring a polluting coal-fired power station.

  10. I’m motivated by common sense, and my only impediment is bureaucratic inertia. I’m Malcolm Turnbull. Those reports of how I voted in that 2015 Cabinet meeting are lies (and god I hope nobody leaks a transcript to prove that I’m lying right now).

    Also, why is Waleed missing this? Condition of Turnbull’s appearance?

  11. Grimace:

    I continue to be amazed at how far north and south of Perth people are buying but still working in the city or inner suburbs and commuting.

  12. Mari re: Rowe thank you.
    Note blinkers and long teeth in Brandis’ nag. Note Brandis’ nag being led by Dutton. Note the look on Brandis’ face. If looks could kill. Not sure about the meaning of the emblem on Brandis.
    Look at the small size of a rather wan looking King Turnbull.
    Is Rowe saying that Dutton is a HAM actor and not a real minister?

  14. Confessions
    People commute from the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane , which is like 1-2
    Hour on a good run , and a visit to Hell on a bad one in peak hour.

  16. Boerwar’s right about Brandis’ nag in Rowe. And I didn’t see the PLOD under Dutton’s horse.

    Always so very much to see with his cartoons. He’s brilliant.

  17. Watchers/readers of The Handmaid’s Tale will identify with this and, like me, figure it’s even more grist to the mill of how not so far from reality or even feasibility Attwood’s writing can fall today.

    Public executions took place most often between 1994 and 2000, during which North Korea struggled to control its people suffering in a nationwide famine, it said.

    “They hanged people in crowded places like markets and left the bodies there for hours to instill fear among the people,” said Oh Se-hyek, a North Korean defector who conducted the interviews for the mapping project.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/world/asia/north-korea-execution-sites.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

  19. Just thinking about the live export industry suing for compensation. I guess their argument is they only sold the poor things. Not responsible for putting them on the stinking livestock ships, for them being terrorised out of their wits till being beheaded in a massively inhumane manner.

    Reminds me of the arms industry. We don’t pull the trigger….

  20. Anyone else see this story? The Govt gave Foxtel 30 mil to help broadcast professional female sports matches or less well known/popular sports to a wider audience. The money was awarded without a tender and an FOI came back saying there was no docs given to make the justification. I dare say the ABC might have been the better option.

  21. Re Rowe. What is going on with the red by Abbott. Yes there will be red budgie smugglers but it seems to have spread/sprayed/smeared. Tones pissing blood ?

  29. Grimace
    “I didn’t think so. How are we able to avoid tolls when other cities can’t?
    *************************************************************
    Corruption”
    Bingo! Plus ideology and lack of planning caused by corruptly caving in to developers. Size and density do not explain which cities have toll roads. Brisbane started building toll roads in the 80s when it was smaller than Perth is now, and had low density. But it had Joh and Russ Hinze. Melbourne got them with Kennett.

    There are places that put in road pricing for the public interest, using the money raised to fund public transport, and focusing them on high value job areas like CBDs where the drivers can afford them, rather than whichever corridor has the most plebs to fleece. Stockholm is a good example. Ours are not. Ours are gifts to Mac bank, CPB, and Transurban.

    In the Australian states that have toll roads, I have never seen a clear policy published by any government, Labor or Liberal, on the reasons why some corridors are selected to be toll roads and others are free.

  30. I remember the film version of The Handmaid’s Tale, with Robert Duvall and Natasha Richardson. Even though it did not have the production value or breadth of storytelling it was still compelling when I saw it as a teenager.

    Having now seen six episodes of the new series, without question the most interesting character is Mrs. Waterford. Other women in the series have had their freedom stripped from them. But she gave it up willingly, in a sense. Watching her react to a world she had a hand in creating has been the most intriguing development during the series.

    I must say the Australian actress portraying her is extremely good, and I hope more good roles come her way.

  35. Socrates:

    So toll roads occur when political ideology, corruption and selling out to vested interests intersect?

    WA has had its fair share of political ideology, corruption and selling out to vested interest, but this still doesn’t explain why toll roads are essentially an eastern states thing. I’m not trying to be ornery, but if there is something we in the west can learn from eastern staters about how to avoid this pernicious state of affairs, I’m all for it.

  37. Fess’

    The three biggest states eith the most growth with constrained government budgets. That had stronger elements of Neoliberalism in both the Coalition and Labor.

  38. Puff, The Magic Dragon.

    CanJoh in Quinceland when he was Mayor of Brisvegas got a reputation as a real go go man for tunnels with tolls. The prick even changed road routes to funnel people in to them when they inevitably proved uneconomic. Now why would CanJoh keep making the same mistake ? Hmmmm ?

  41. Ides:

    I’m sorry but I don’t understand what that means. In WA we’ve had years of economic growth that was essentially squandered by the former govt. Yet still we haven’t had to embrace road tolls *touches anything wood*

  42. Fess:

    Both Labor and the Coalition in WA are also less oh fey with Neoliberalism. When did you get Sunday trading in WA etc?

  43. Another blood boiler! A former pope’s brother ensnared in yet another catholic church sexual abuse scandal. This is nothing short of an international cartel of childhood sexual abuse.

    For decades, a “culture of silence” pervaded a Catholic music school where the brother of a future pope directed a renowned boys’ choir, contributing to an environment in which at least 547 children were abused, a lawyer who carried out an investigation of the mistreatment said on Tuesday.

    The estimate of the number of children abused was far greater than a previous figure, 231, that the lawyer gave last year.

    The choir — the Regensburg Domspatzen, literally the Cathedral Sparrows — dates to the 10th century and continues to perform at Sunday Mass in Regensburg’s 16th-century Gothic cathedral. The choir’s music director from 1964 to 1994 was the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, whose younger brother, Joseph Ratzinger, reigned as Pope Benedict XVI from 2005 to 2013.

    Father Ratzinger, now 93, has apologized for slapping boys during his tenure, and said he stopped administering corporal punishment when the church banned it in 1980. He has denied awareness of sexual abuse taking place, and the new investigation does not implicate him in it.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/world/europe/germany-sexual-abuse-boys-choir.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

  44. The prick even changed road routes to funnel people in to them when they inevitably proved uneconomic.

    That’s what we do in Sydney. Expect Military Road Mosman to be converted to a goat track when the Manly Tunnel is opened. Mind you, that road is bad enough now. I have a theory that if you break down there you’ll still be carried along at 5 kph and be dumped at the other end like that unfortunate Swiss couple who fell into a crevasse all those years ago and whose bodies recently showed up at the end of the glacier.

  46. Ides:

    We don’t have Sunday trading in WA, but I was talking about road tolls.

    Sorry, I should’ve just left it alone and relied upon Google.

  47. Poroti
    Yes WA did well with the rail lines, kudos to Alannah McTiernan and a group of competent senior public servants. The recent Roe 8/ Freight Link fiasco shows that Perth is not immune if the politics goes bad and people do not protest.

    As for CanDo in Qld, to say that he fits the pattern is an understatement. At least the 80s Qld toll roads were owned by the state so the likes of Macbank were locked out. Cando certainly ended that.

    Fess
    I hope my comments on Roe8/Perth Freight Link answer your question. Perth is not immune to the same forces and its only defense is an informed citizenry.

  48. Fess

    Not trying to be insulting, in fact its a mild compliment. Im saying WA politics is less enthusiastic about subdizing private for profit toll roads because the ideology in WA is less Neoliberal than the east.

  50. steve777 @ #994 Wednesday, July 19, 2017 at 8:23 pm

    That’s what we do in Sydney. Expect Military Road Mosman to be converted to a goat track when the Manly Tunnel is opened.

    Yes, I expect so. Except … guess what? … many of the toll roads are so congested that the non-toll roads in Sydney are often just as fast as the toll roads! But ssshhh! Don’t tell anyone!

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