Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

Essential Research goes the other way from Newspoll on voting intention, while both pollsters suggest the same-sex marriage plebiscite will record a high participation rate and a resounding yes vote.

Essential Research moves a point in favour of the Coalition this week as a particularly strong result for Labor a fortnight ago washes out of the two-week rolling average, leaving Labor’s lead at 53-47. Primary votes are only provided for the minor parties, so we’ll have to wait on that for the release of the full report later today (UPDATE: here it is: Coalition steady on 37%, Labor down two to 37%, Greens steady on 9%, One Nation steady on 8%). The poll also finds 33% in favour of committing military support to the United States in the event of conflict with North Korea, with 38% opposed and 26% uncommitted. Sixty-one per cent believed parliament should have a say on the matter, with only 22% favouring the prime ministerial prerogative. On the question of the biggest threats to global security, The Guardian relates the results the most favoured responses were, in descending order, terrorism, North Korean aggression, climate change, US aggression, Chinese aggression and Russian aggression.

Essential also provides one of two sets of new numbers on the same-sex marriage plebiscite/survey, the other being a second tranche of results from the weekend’s Newspoll. Both record similarly strong majorities saying they will participate: 63% for definite and 18% for probably from Essential, compared with 67% and 15% from Newspoll. They also both find supporters more likely to vote than opponents, although in both cases this is based on very small samples of prospective non-voters. The two pollsters get different outcomes on the question of whether the postal plebiscite should be held: Newspoll records 49% “in favour” and 43% “opposed”, while Essential has 39% approval and 49% disapproval. Newspoll also finds 62% in favour of “guarantees in law for freedom of conscience, belief and religion if (parliament) legislates for same-sex marriage”.

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.

574 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. lizzie @ #138 Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017 – 9:41 am

    C@tmomma

    Thanks.

    I know it’s already been discussed, but could someone confirm that if I write extra words on my ballot paper, as well as voting (such as ‘what a bloody waste of money’), my vote will still count?

    I don’t think anyone can say definitively, but if they apply the same rules as the AEC does, then you can write whatever you like provided it does not identify you.

  2. For GG, if and when he turns up. Please justify this, from the SMH (posted last night, but repeated here)

    “Father Michael McArdle was reportedly so distressed by his acts of child sexual abuse in Queensland that he would often seek the succour of the confessional. Over a 25-year period, before he was convicted in 2002, he confessed to sexually assaulting children an estimated 1500 times to 30 different priests. In keeping with Catholic tradition in Australia, the priests did not report his crimes to authorities, but moved him on to different parishes, to greener pastures.”

    Evil, straight out evil, perpetrated by the Roman Paedophile Protection Society, as led and instructed by multiple popes. And they think their views on the confessional and marriage should take precedence over those of decent society. Deranged.

  3. I have seen statements attributed to the ABS that writing and drawing on your form is fine as long as it does not obscure your vote. i.e. keep the boxes clean for your tick.

    However they also said that placing glitter or other foreign objects in your envelope will invalidate your vote.

    I would imagine such identified envelopes would not be opened and be destroyed due to safety concerns.

  4. Barney

    The HC’s Sykes ruling made it clear that any interpretation of the Constitution had to be reasonable. They recognised, for example, that sometimes it’s impossible to relinquish citizenship imposed on you by another country, so they introduced the idea of ‘reasonable steps’ and dealt with the hypothetical situation where another country ‘games’ the system to make all MPs ineligible.

    So it is highly highly highly unlikely that they would go with an interpretation of S44 which might make a significant number of pollies ineligible, or one which would make it impossible for some people to stand at all (as I’ve pointed out before, you can’t relinquish an entitlement, and you would look pretty silly trying to do so).

    Of course, absurd readings of the Constitution aren’t out of the question, but past performance suggests the HC favours sensible solutions.

    —-

    So let’s list our predictions for the HC outcome –

    Mine: The HC will uphold the concept of ‘reasonable steps’ and Waters, Ludlum, Roberts, Joyce, Carnarvon and Nash will be goners.

    Second most likely: they will rule that someone born in Australia has a reasonable belief that they are solely an Australian citizen, and Joyce and Nash will be waved through.

  7. adamgartrell: When we ask Labor MPs about any doubts they give us full, detailed timelines of their renunciation. You refused to do the same for 48 hours. twitter.com/michaelkeenanm…
    17 Aug 6:29 AM from Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

    Thats from the journalist thats been best at unearthing the citizenship issue.

    Puts Tony Jones performance on QandA last night into perspective.

  10. Tony Jones knows on what side his bread is buttered, and very expensive butter it is.

    Incidentally, I agree with one think that Hanson has said, and that is that the salaries of ABC employees should be made public, since it is the public that pays their salaries.

    I believe that it happens with the BBC.

  11. “So let’s list our predictions for the HC outcome –

    Mine: The HC will uphold the concept of ‘reasonable steps’ and Waters, Ludlum, Roberts, Joyce, Carnarvon and Nash will be goners.”

    Respect Barney’s points on this, but agree with the above. Somehow cant see the HC ruling in a way that subjugates the primacy of Australian Law, in Australia, to whatever the law is in another country. Isn’t the only way for that to happen by agreed treaty between the countries involved?? At a practical level i think the “reasonable steps” thing will be important.

    There may be some wriggle room here on individual cases where the link to dual nationality was so obscure that there is some question of was it in fact “reasonable” that the person didn’t pick it up??

    Problem with that line is that if it proves the ALP vetting process has been comprehensive and effective, then maybe what they have been doing sets the bar for “reasonable steps’ ?? Its not as if the ALP process has been secret squirrel business that none of the other parties knew about.

  12. Rather than risk your vote in the SSM survey being rejected simply resist the urge to add comments or sketches to the paper.

  13. BK

    “At last! Some action from the ACCC over the representations made about broadband speeds. But is it enough? I can see a number of holes in their monitoring proposition.”

    I hear that Optus are now offering contract downgrades to some clients where contracted ‘up to’ speeds are much faster that what is actually possible.

  14. Yabba88, the 4th panel on that cartoon should be ‘Forgive me father, for I voted yes in the SSM survey’, with the priest taking confession going ballistic.

  17. [I agree with one think that Hanson has said, and that is that the salaries of ABC employees should be made public, since it is the public that pays their salaries.]

    So long as she pushes for all MPs and Senators to be drug and alcohol tested before entering the parliament chambers then I might agree.

  18. Primaries: L/NP 37 (0), ALP 37 (-2), GRN 9 (0), NXT 3 (+1), ON 8 (0), OTH 6 (0)

    Also, if the ALP have lost 2, and 1 went to NXT(theoretically), where did the other one go!?!

  20. adrian
    Tony Jones knows on what side his bread is buttered, and very expensive butter it is.

    Incidentally, I agree with one think that Hanson has said, and that is that the salaries of ABC employees should be made public, since it is the public that pays their salaries.

    I believe that it happens with the BBC.

    _________________________________

    I’ve yet to see anyone who does not agree on that point. It might surprise some people who think these guys are all lefties how much their own salaries might make them more sympathetic to a party that is more sympathetic to those with high incomes.

    As for Jones himself, he is constantly tiresome as he makes the show about him, rather than the guests. So may times he has thrown in a snarky comment as the last word and not given the panellist the right of reply.

  21. So the ABS is going to be bastardised by the government:

    If it’s being run by the ABS, rather than the AEC, does that mean the responses will be demographically weighted according to the population?

    No. Finance minister Mathias Cormann advised BuzzFeed News that responses would be counted on a one person, one vote basis.

  23. The ABS has not indicated that glitter would “invalidate” a person’s vote.

    What the guy did was discourage people from putting glitter in the envelopes as it could cause the electric envelope-opening machine to malfunction, and in the process mangle votes to the point of making it unable to discern the voter’s intention.

    It is possible that both YES and NO votes might get mangled, but the real issue is one thing f OH&S for the ABS workers.

    Glitter may be fabulous to chuck around, but much less fabulous when you have to deal with the after-effects.

  25. C@tmomma

    As always (except for ReachTEL who go to a decimal point in primaries) its lost in rounding. None of the Essential primaries are the same as last week, they’d all have moved a little bit. ALP movement might be only 1.6 points, NXT might have shifted from 2.4 to 2.6, and who knows what the others did underneath their roundings.

  27. C@tmomma @ #171 Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017 – 10:41 am

    So the ABS is going to be bastardised by the government:

    If it’s being run by the ABS, rather than the AEC, does that mean the responses will be demographically weighted according to the population?

    No. Finance minister Mathias Cormann advised BuzzFeed News that responses would be counted on a one person, one vote basis.

    Unbelievable. Well, silly me, nothing is unbelievable with this mob. Bastardisation is their speciality. Weighting would undo all their scheming and plotting to skew it to the right.

  30. Zoomster

    So let’s list our predictions for the HC outcome –
    __________________________________

    Mine is that the court will distinguish the Sykes case to the circumstances of the two candidates in that case. These are situations where the candidates demonstrably knew at the time that they had held other citizenship and had not taken sufficient steps to register their renunciation with the government concerned. This would include people who had travelled on foreign passports issued in their name (including those born in Australia).

    I don’t think the judges would want to reject the majority decision outright in favour of Deane’s formula (although it has rejected an established line of decision-making before) and distinguishing a case to its facts and treating the other thinking of the judges as just thinking aloud (obiter dicta) would simplify the problem.

    The reason why I think it will take that course is not to help the government or smaller parties out of the mess but to avoid future grief for itself.

    This formulation would clear everyone except Canavan and Ludlam. Those would depend on findings of fact in their cases.

  32. “Newspoll also finds 62% in favour of “guarantees in law for freedom of conscience, belief and religion if (parliament) legislates for same-sex marriage”.”

    Replace same-sex marriage with inter-racial marriage, or any other characteristic, and it’s quite disturbing.

  33. If the postal thingy goes ahead I am going to give a straight response with no decoration of the paper or add-in glitter. I’m not worried about invalidating the response, I just don’t see any value in doing it and making life harder for those people who have to process the responses.

  35. If the ABS is not being allowed to apply their normal processes (e.g. demographic weighting) to the fake survey / plebiscite, this torpedos the whole fiction that this is a ‘survey’ as per Morrison’s instructions.

  36. One comment in Kelly’s sermon on SSM stands out
    ‘abundant… evidence that individuals and institutions will be intimidated after the marriage law is changed’.
    Is he referred to an employee who might be sacked if they get married as a result of this legislation by a religious organisation?

    That sounds like intimidation to me.

  37. TPOF @ #183 Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017 – 10:52 am

    If the postal thingy goes ahead I am going to give a straight response with no decoration of the paper or add-in glitter. I’m not worried about invalidating the response, I just don’t see any value in doing it and making life harder for those people who have to process the responses.

    Good point about glitter and any other things in the envelope, but writing on the ballot paper should not cause any issues, although fairly pointless.

  38. TPOF

    The advice in the buzzfeed article is direct from the ABS.

    No guessing needed. e.g. you can draw a dick on the form and not invalidate your vote.
    I agree there are better forums available to protest. However, for those that are going to protest anyway, accurate advice is much better than saying don’t do it.

  39. C@t

    My dad did it! Is this the new ‘The dog ate my homewrok!’ for guilty, evasive MPs!?!

    ___________________________________________

    If you look at the arrival card picture in the Guardian article, there is no way that a 10 year old could have filled it out.

    I think the Sudmalis thing is going to ridiculous extremes and shows Shorten’s judgement in not playing along. FFS, she was a 10 year old girl in unusual circumstances and, as we have seen from the Nash case, it does not even matter. What matters is whether she took steps before her nomination for the seat to renounce any possibility of UK citizenship!

    I, for one, think this whole business is ridiculous, even though it is playing very well to Labor’s advantage.

  40. C@tmomma @ #181 Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017 – 10:50 am

    My dad did it! Is this the new ‘The dog ate my homewrok!’ for guilty, evasive MPs!?!

    In fairness, wasn’t she like 10 years old at the time? You don’t see many 10-year-olds filling out their own travel documents nowadays. Can’t imagine things were that different back in 1966.

    News reports claiming/implying that she filled out the card herself seem like sloppy journalism, in my opinion. If she wrote this herself then she had way better handwriting than most people her age:

  42. It may be against ABS legislation for them not to provide an accurate statistical result to a survey, even if the government directs them.
    If they want a 1 vote one value then they should use the AEC.

  44. CT

    Thanks for linking that ABS statement. The key section is:

    Publishing Statistical Information

    The Australian Statistician will publish the statistical information on 15 November 2017 through the ABS Website.

    Results will be official statistics in the form of a count of response (Yes, No and Invalid) by Commonwealth Electoral Division (CED), State/Territory and National.

    Information from the Electoral Roll will be used independently to produce a participation rate by age and gender for each Commonwealth Electoral Division (CED), State/Territory and National.

    The answer to the survey question is anonymous so information on actual survey answers by age or gender will not be available.

    ___________________________________

    So that’s the final word. General statistical information on participation level, but nothing to statistically extrapolate the responses into a national attitudinal view.

  45. John Reidy @ #192 Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017 – 11:02 am

    It may be against ABS legislation for them not to provide an accurate statistical result to a survey, even if the government directs them.
    If they want a 1 vote one value then they should use the AEC.

    Every institution and every protocol they touch they soil.

    From the CTar1’s abs link below:

    The survey envelope is designated to be for the survey response only and is not a channel for correspondence, complaints or other communication. Any extraneous material inserted in the envelope with the survey form will be destroyed and, due to processing machinery or possible contamination, may result in the survey form also being destroyed and therefore not processed.

  47. TPOF @ #189 Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017 – 10:56 am

    C@t

    My dad did it! Is this the new ‘The dog ate my homewrok!’ for guilty, evasive MPs!?!

    ___________________________________________

    If you look at the arrival card picture in the Guardian article, there is no way that a 10 year old could have filled it out.

    I think the Sudmalis thing is going to ridiculous extremes and shows Shorten’s judgement in not playing along. FFS, she was a 10 year old girl in unusual circumstances and, as we have seen from the Nash case, it does not even matter. What matters is whether she took steps before her nomination for the seat to renounce any possibility of UK citizenship!

    I, for one, think this whole business is ridiculous, even though it is playing very well to Labor’s advantage.

    That’s as may be. So why behave childishly by hanging up on the journalist? Twice!

  49. TPOF

    Fair enough. I just wanted to make the point so a deluge of comments would not deter yes voters who want to make a protest on the form. Not that I think there is many of them here.

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