Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

After two successive stronger results for Labor, Essential Research is back on Team 53-47.

The Guardian reports the Coalition has recovered a point in the latest fortnight rolling average from Essential Research, which returns to 53-47 in favour of Labor after two weeks at 54-46. After accounting for an apparent transpositional error in the report, I believe the primary votes are Coalition 38% (up two), Labor 37% (down one), Greens 10% (steady), One Nation 7% (steady) and Nick Xenophon Team 4% (up one). The poll also finds that 56% approve of the new national security ministry, with 18% disapproving; 45% expect it will strengthen national security, 28% think it will make little difference and 8% think it will weaken it; and 45% registering concern that Peter Dutton will have control over all security services, with 35% not concerned. The report provides an incomplete account of questions on an emissions intensity scheme taxing pollution above a certain level (54% are in favour) and the National Broadband Network (48% of the 40% who have it say it beats their previous service, but only 19% say it is much better, and 51% say it’s about the same or worse). Full results should be with us later today.

In other news, if you’re a Crikey subscriber you’ll find that I’ve had a lot to say about the Greens recently, in a report on the succession to Scott Ludlam’s Western Australian seat that may be showing its age; an account of the deficiencies of Section 44 (see also Laurie Oakes); and a look askance at conservative suggestions that the party is, uh, “cooked”.

UPDATE: Full report here. We also have bonus Newspoll questions on Tony Abbott, which find 58% favouring Malcolm Turnbull on “best values and leadership credentials” against 23% for Abbott, and pose a question on his future in politics that unusually doesn’t feature an option for him to leave it.

NOTE ON NEW COMMENTS ARCHITECTURE: Regular visitors will shortly notice that the design of the comments section has been overhauled. This has mostly been done for site performance reasons, to which it has made an immediate and massive difference. As you can see, there are lots of new features that people have long asked for. If we can get used to reverse chronological comments, I think it will prove to be a great outcome. A tip for acclimatising yourself here: you do not need to refresh the page to see new comments, and you will cause yourself an annoyance if you try. You will see, at the top of the comments thread, a green “x new comments” button when new comments appear – all you need to do is press this and they will slot into view. Also, for emoji that work, see here.

One way or another though, this is how it will be for the next few days, after which the situation may be reviewed.

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.

1,397 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

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  10. Just got back from an amazing Sigur Ros concert to find that you aren’t talking much about Canavan (surprised at that), petty squabbling happening (again – sheesh, sometimes I wonder if some come here deliberately to vent and be childish) and that I can’t find the time when a post occurred and that was the ONLY way I could navigate when I’d been away and wanted to backtrack because I could never get post numbers (and still can’t).

    I use an iPad Pro these days instead of a laptop … and I hate to say it but this format is worse!!!!!

  11. @jenauthor, from what I’ve witnessed the community here likes to keep up with the comments in a way that doesn’t particularly suit this new system, nor the last, and neither many modern comment feed setups. I mentioned earlier that despite this being a comment feed, users tend to want the experience of something more like a forum

  12. I don’t think there are post numbers in this setup, jenauthor.

    Re Canavan – no suprises that at least one of them would fall foul of that section. Just a matter of time, really. When they sort it out so Matt can get paid $300k+ again, perhaps they could get onto something useful.

    Squabbling – as always, best ignored.

  13. Zeh – one of the wonders of the online world is that some of the most popular “systems” have completely crap layouts. Facebook is a classic – in reality it is just a self-authored webpage within a strict template, and I find it incredibly messy. Why people think it’s good is beyond me.

  15. Personally, if we can get time stamps and page navigation I think this is a big improvement overall.

    Hopefully Musrum can work his magic on the few other nice features that were provided by CCCP.

  16. @nappin, this is true, but creating a crap layout isn’t something to aspire to. I wouldn’t say facebook was a self-authored webpage, far less than that. More like a self-service portal in reverse. Completely based in the narcissistic, taking advantage of that as much as possible, to harvest and sell your meta-self and then market with targeted ads back at you.

    @Barney, Those features are options within this new framework already, just a matter of someone deciding to switch them on or not, again really a choice I’d rather see available per user (there is no risk in this) rather than an admin setting.
    3rd party script wise, relatively trivial to convert a post age, to an absolute time.
    Flipping the entire feed vertically would also help in my opinion

  19. Why not start off by asking William to run a thread where we can thrash out how we’d like the site to work?

    Because, quite frankly, this has got nothing to do with how you’d like the site to work. It’s to do with the fact that about 70% of Crikey’s bandwidth was being taken up by non-paying blog commenters hitting “refresh” on Poll Bludger every 30 seconds. I happen to think the new configuration strikes an excellent balance between useability and the amount of resources it’s reasonable to expect Crikey to devote to it. I’ll be recommending a few changes, but not many.

  22. Zeh, if you’re still about, I’d welcome it if you could send me an email summarising what you think should be changed, at least so far as the settings on their plugin are concerned. pollbludger-at-bigpond-dot-com.

  23. If anyone is feeling hopelessly nostalgic, updated versions of the PB comments plugin are inbound. Version 0.7.0 (and above) will work with the new comments engine.

    Pretty much looks and acts the same as v0.6.4, but I’ve kept the round gravatars, and the inline display of images (which should work with both HTTPS and HTTP links). And the ‘Preview’ box will use the correct gravatar and username now.

    Haven’t included support for the new ‘Edit’ button, but you do get a ‘Preview’ button, which is nearly as good. Quoted replies should work for both emoji’s and images.

    Chrome version should be available here, shortly: http://bit.ly/2uPEZ1U
    Firefox version will be here, less shortly (whenever Mozilla gets around to reviewing/approving it): https://mzl.la/2uVQ3dY

  24. @a r, thought you’d be onto it quick-smart.
    @William Bowe, I’ve just installed wordpress and the wpdiscuz on a server of mine, I’ll look into it properly and get back to you tomorrow. Methinks it’s sleep time 😛

  26. That comment was particularly loathsome and inappropriate, especially since it obviously applies also the Cat, puffy and roger.

    What are you on about now? If you can’t handle your own comments being put under the microscope then you really do have problems.

  27. One of Australia’s most prominent musicians, Dr G Yunupingu, has died aged just 46 from illness in Darwin, his record label has announced in a statement.

    Born blind, the singer-songwriter from Elcho Island became the highest selling Indigenous artist in history, selling more than half million copies of his albums across the world, which were sung in his native Yolngu tongue.

    http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/indigenous-musician-g-yunupingu-dies-aged-46-voice-of-a-generation-20170725-gxipxl.html

    Wow so young!

  28. Ok, have managed to get pagination and timestamps sorted on my installation.
    However, people will need to get used to reading bottom to top, unfortunately there is a limitation with the wpDiscuz plugin where new comments are always placed at the top of the page, ignoring sorting order.
    However, I believe I’ve found a nice combination of settings. I’ll post more in the morning.

  29. Thanks, Zeh. This looks better. Now if some one could come up with a plugin to reverse the comments order to top down….anyone?

  30. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/25/labour-mp-says-shadow-minister-is-fundamentally-wrong-on-brexit

    A Labour MP has described the shadow international trade secretary’s position on Brexit as “fundamentally wrong”, calling his arguments “depressing and disingenuous”.

    Heidi Alexander said she believed Barry Gardiner to be “intelligent and witty” but that his Guardian article outlining why the UK should leave both the EU single market and customs union “could have come straight out of Tory central office”.

    The Corbyn line on Brexit is Tory-inspired.

  31. I quite like this set up.

    At first I felt like I’d spilt my tea all over the place, but I’m used to it now. It is interesting that re-arranged visual content can be so disorientating.

  32. Yes I agree.
    Zeh @ #1011 Wednesday, July 26th, 2017 – 12:05 am

    @jenauthor, from what I’ve witnessed the community here likes to keep up with the comments in a way that doesn’t particularly suit this new system, nor the last, and neither many modern comment feed setups. I mentioned earlier that despite this being a comment feed, users tend to want the experience of something more like a forum

  34. I like the newest-first set up. I think it will promote more free-flowing exchanges as the past more quickly vanishes from view.

  35. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-news-uk-eu-deal-talks-negotiations-secure-talks-european-union-steve-bullock-david-a7859106.html

    Former British EU negotiator says Brexit was a ‘terrible idea’ and even the Government doesn’t understand how bad it will be…

    Steve Bullock also accused government ministers of an ‘appalling dereliction of duty’ over a failure to understand the complexities of Brexit

    The British people have been sold a pup by the Tories and their accomplices in Labour, including the devious Corbyn.

  40. Republican And Democratic Senators Caught On Open Mic Calling Trump Crazy and Expressing Worry

    Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine were captured by an open microphone talking about Trump. Sen. Reed called Trump crazy, and Sen. Collins expressed her worry for the country.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/07/25/republican-democratic-senators-caught-open-mic-calling-trump-crazy-expressing-worry.html

  41. Trump Just Screwed Up Big League And Admitted His Russia Crimes At Press Conference

    At a press conference, Trump admitted that he is upset with Attorney General Jeff Sessions because he recused himself from the Russia investigation. Trump made it clear that killing the Russia investigation was a prerequisite for picking his attorney general nominee.

    The real reason why Donald Trump is mad at Jeff Sessions is that Sessions didn’t fix Trump’s Russia problem.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/07/25/trump-questions-jeff-sessions-loyalty-save-impeachment.html

  43. Briefly, I too don’t mind the new setup. Pages would be nice as I’m one of those weirdos who feel like they’re going to miss something if I don’t do a catchup. Or sometimes it’s handy to go back and read something for context.

  44. ‘Pissed-off’ Jeff Sessions won’t give ‘insane’ Trump the satisfaction of quitting: report

    Sources tell the Daily Beast that Sessions is getting fed up with Trump’s regular attacks on his work — including one on Tuesday morning in which the president said his attorney general had taken a “VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes.”

    “Sessions is totally pissed off about it,” one ally of the attorney general told the Daily Beast. “It’s beyond insane. It’s cruel and it’s insane and it’s stupid.”

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/pissed-off-jeff-sessions-wont-give-insane-trump-the-satisfaction-of-quitting-report/

  45. Now the comments are a lot better; perhaps now they can start working on subscriptions. I thought I would give it another go, sign up for the 21 day free trial and then, when they started nagging for money, subscribe. Didn’t get past entering my name; I was informed email address was in use.

    Rule 101; if you want people to hand over money; make it easy.

    I subscribe to the guardian; why because all they did was nag and I got sick of the nag. On principle I will never subscribe to any Murdoch rag. Read a free dead tree version of Sun/Herald last night; boy has that gone to the dogs.

  46. Additional Information
    Version: 0.7.1
    Updated: July 25, 2017

    ar, this is what I get when I go to that link you provided.

    Chrome tells me that version is already loaded.

    What differences should I see?

    I can’t see a preview button, and there are no pages. I find pages very useful for navigating, as well as a time stamp rather than how long ago something was posted. Is there any possibility of either of those?

    I’d rather see a comment in full, rather than the ‘more’ link. Often the comment is after the person has quoted someone else. I guess the page is now set up for phones, which have limited screen space, and people don’t like scrolling.

    Thanks for your hard work.

  47. Briefly:

    I like the newest-first set up. I think it will promote more free-flowing exchanges as the past more quickly vanishes from view.

    That would work if you were on the site 24/7, which I admit many are.

    It means, however, that finding an earlier post is as near as dammit impossible.

  48. frednk

    Absolutely agree that the sign up for subscription is confusing. Perhaps there is an alternative world where name means email address and vice versa.

  50. don
    “finding an earlier post is as near as dammit impossible.”

    Desperately need a time stamp and pagination. I think someone is providing them??

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