Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor; ReachTEL: 53-47

New and new-ish federal voting intention numbers from Essential Research, ReachTEL and YouGov, plus a bonanza of same-sex marriage polling that is consistent only in pointing to a big win for “yes”.

Three new results on federal voting intention:

• The Guardian reports Labor’s lead in this week’s Essential Research fortnightly rolling average is 54-46, up from 53-47 last time. Primary vote numbers to follow later today. (UPDATE: The full results reveal the Coalition is down a point to 36%, Labor up one to 38%, the Greens steady on 10% and One Nation steady on 7%)

• A ReachTEL poll for Sky News, conducted on Thursday from an unusually big sample of 4888, has Labor’s two-party lead at 53-47, out from 52-48 at the previous poll on August 23. The primary votes are all but unchanged, with the Coalition steady on 34.5%, Labor down 0.3% to 36.4%, the Greens down 0.1% to 10.2% and One Nation up 0.6% to 11.0%. On 2016 election flows, the result would have come in at 54-46. The poll has Malcolm Turnbull leading Bill Shorten 51.7-48.3 on preferred prime minister; Turnbull’s performance rated as very good or good by 26%, average by 34% and poor or very poor by 39%; Bill Shorten’s respective numbers coming in at 31%, 31% and 37%.

• The YouGov poll for FiftyAcres maintains its idiosyncratic form in having the Coalition with a 51-49 lead on respondent-allocated preferences, compared with 50-50 a fortnight ago. After producing somewhat more conventional primary vote numbers last time, it’s back to having both major parties deep in the doldrums, with Labor down two points to 33% and the Coalition steady on 34%. The Greens and One Nation are also steady on 11% and 9%, with minor players soaking up the difference. Labor is credited with a fairly conventional 73% of Greens preferences, with the Coalition getting 68% from One Nation and 60% from the rest. A two-party result based on 2016 election flows would have come in at around 53-47. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1054.

Same-sex marriage survey latest:

• The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ yesterday released the first of what will be weekly estimates on the response rate for the same-sex marriage survey. It estimates that 9.2 million survey forms have been received, amounting to a turnout of 57.5% of eligible voters. The result will be announced on November 15.

• The ABS figure is at odds with two polls that have emerged in the last few days, which can only partly be explained by postal lag effects. A ReachTEL poll for Sky News, conducted from a sample of “nearly five thousand people”, found 79.5% identifying as having voted. This included 64.3% who said they had voted yes compared with only 15.5% for no, with another 6.0% saying they still intended to vote yes and 5.7% for no. The other poll is a survey for the Marriage Equality campaign finding 77% of those eligible had voted, including 69% of the 18-to-24 cohort and more than 80% of those aged over 65. However, the Essential poll comes in a good deal lower, with 47% saying they had already voted, up from 36% a week ago, and another 33% saying they will definitely do so.

• Essential Research now has support for same-sex marriage at 61%, up from 58% last week and 55% the week before, with opposition tracking from 34% to 33% to 32%. Of those who voted, 64% said they voted yes compared with 30% for no.

• Without providing further detail, Sky News relates that a ReachTEL poll “separate” to the one it commissioned itself had a 72-28 forced response split in favour of yes, reducing to 61-39 among those who said they had already voted.

“ The Sky News ReachTEL poll has 47.2% very concerned or somewhat concerned about “what might be taught in schools if same sex marriage is legalised”, compared with 42.8% for somewhat or not at all concerned.

• The YouGov poll found 64% of respondents saying they had discussed the survey with family, 54% with friends, 21% with work colleagues and 14% with others, with only 17% saying they had not discussed it with anyone.

Other recent attitudinal findings:

• The ReachTEL poll found a 53-47 split in favour of Labor on who was best to manage the energy crisis and rising power prices. It also found 41% would support more coal seam gas mining if it meant reduced gas prices, with 36% opposed.

• Absent qualifications about lower prices, a Research Now survey of 1421 respondents for the Australia Institute found 49% would support a moratorium on fracking in their own state, with 24% opposed. Seventy-four per cent said they would support higher renewable energy targets in their own states.

• The YouGov poll finds 42% saying Tony Abbott should “play a quieter role and not be so critical of Malcolm Turnbull”, compared with 31% for “he should continue to speak up in the media, even if it involves being critical of Malcolm Turnbull”. Results were fairly similar across different voting intentions, with the exception of One Nation, whose supporters were notably harder on Turnbull. It was also found that 40% thought it wrong of Tony Abbott to relate the headbutt incident to the same-sex marriage campaign, compared with 34% who thought it was right, with clear distinctions emerging in this case betweeen Labor/Greens and Coalition/One Nation supporters.

• Also from the YouGov poll, 59% were in favour of a royal commission into the banking industry, with 19% opposed.

• Essential Research has results from its occasional questions on trust in institutions and media organisations, but all we have from The Guardian is that the the federal police performed best on the former, with religious organisations, trade unions and political parties bringing up the rear, with the ABC as always taking the mantle of most trusted news organisation.

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.

1,728 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor; ReachTEL: 53-47”

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  1. I like the comment under Devine’s article that warns us Shorten is an admirer of Trudeau’s because he has met with him….apparently being an admirer of Trudeau’s proves he’s the Anti Christ or something.

  2. Ok, wasted a few minutes of my life reading that “article” by Devine.

    doGs, but she is a waste of space. Ms Plausibility….not.

  4. GG

    Genuine polls are usually conducted by third parties. Any polling conducted and released by an interested party is usually dismissed here – the most common one being internal party polling.

    To judge the genuineness of the poll we’d need a whole lot more information that Devine gives us.

  5. GG:
    The likely problem with those polls is overselection of the politically engaged (ie people who are inclined to participate in political polls) it’s unlikely that the No Campaign polling has solved that problem given that non-compulsory voting is a rarity in Australia which means we don’t have the data to compensate. Though hey, if they want to release their poll information and it turns out to be sone kind of standing non-political panel they’ve tapped for that purpose I’ll increase its credibility to me accordingly.

  7. joshgnosis: #respectfuldebate. This is truly vile stuff from Quadrant. quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/20… pic.twitter.com/sux14BHpaY

  9. So Trump blames the plight of the Puerto Ricans for his budgetary problems. What else would we expect from such a pathetic excuse for a human being?

  10. CTar1
    lizzie – “I wonder when countries which accept the secular ceremony as the primary one brought in the laws.”

    In Australia, civil marriage was instituted in the 1830s. It is not quite right to say it is the “primary ceremony.” It is the only ceremony that has legal effect.

  12. Melbourne reaching 50 degrees by the end of the century. Easy to believe as maximum temperatures have been trending up for some time. On Black Saturday (Feb 7th 2009) the temp in Melbourne reached 46.4 degrees.

  13. Unsure if already published, Essential results up on their own website, including primaries.

    Nats and Coalition total down 1.
    Labor up 1
    Others up 1.

    Remainder unchanged.

  14. Sen. John Thune blames shooting victims for failing to ‘take precautions’ and ‘get small’ to avoid gunfire

    Sen. John Thune (R-SD) on Tuesday responded to calls for increased gun control after the massacre in Las Vegas by telling reporters that shooting victims had a responsibility to protect themselves from gunfire.

    Words fail me.

  17. GT, Zoomster

    Given that Shorten, Di Natale and Turnbull all went to this years Mardi Gras in Sydney I think that reader needed to think a little deeper.

  18. GG What does the middle eastern goatherders’ inter tribal war rules manual tell us about the veracity of Miranda Devine’s journalism?

  19. I’m also usually sceptical of internal polling from groups that have an oar in the race. However, that doesn’t mean this poll is necessarily inaccurate given official pols have been most unreliable indicators to date. This poll also identifies that the impact on mothers about the impact of SSM on education and families is cutting through whether the Yessers like it or not.

    Perhaps WB can provide some more reliable background on whether this particular poll has psephological integrity.

  20. A comment from the Divine Miranda article. Not sure of the logic behind their conclusion 🙂

    Disillusioned 1 hour ago
    @Mark Newsflash. As a mum I do believe this “nonsense”. I don’t want my rights as a mother watered down to parent 1 or 2 or future parents and I don’t want my children’s rights taken away to a two gender marriage.

  23. Guytaur
    This is truly vile stuff from Quadrant. quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/20… pic.twitter.com/sux14BHpaY

    this and other articles point to the no to equality mob campaigning on from the survey, probs expected a low turnout, lack of interest boycott from Yes supporters. Campaigners in USA used such apathy to impose their own views, slogans similar to what we are hearing today.

    Save Our Children was a well-organized campaign that initiated a bitter political fight between unprepared gay activists and highly motivated Christian fundamentalists.
    Bryant took this strategy as a crusade, delivering speeches that intoned that Dade County’s passing of the ordinance “guts the law on the side of the unrighteous. If homosexuals are allowed to change the law in their favor, why not prostitutes, thieves, or murderers?”[17] She specifically connected homosexuals with child molesters, saying “Some of the stories I could tell you of child recruitment and child abuse by homosexuals would turn your stomach.”[17] Bryant resented the media depiction of her as hateful, saying that her inspiration came “out of love—not only love for God’s commandment and His word, but love for my children and yours. Yes, and even love for all sinners—even homosexuals.”[18]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_Our_Children

  24. Some more reading, seeing USA values from the 50s being transplanted to Australia.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Citizenship_in_Florida
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Legislative_Investigation_Committee
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_scare

    Sacking people because they are gay and committees to investigate gays.

    When the results of the survey are in the next push by the no mob will be for committees to examine the effect of the proposed legislation before it is passed.

  27. I don’t want my children’s rights taken away to a two gender marriage

    If they talking are about sex changes during marriage, then only legislation will allow the marriage to be legally recognised where the partners are of the same sex post sex change.

    if they are talking about their kids getting into a three way marriage, marrying two genders, that is bigamy and not proposed for the legislation

  29. GG
    “I’m also usually sceptical of internal polling from groups that have an oar in the race. However, that doesn’t mean this poll is necessarily inaccurate given official pols have been most unreliable indicators to date. ”

    Translation:
    I’m also usually sceptical of internal polling from groups that have an oar in the race. However, because this poll chimes with my preconceived notions re SSM, I’m going to subscribe to confirmation bias, and accept the poll as provisionally valid.

  33. kakuru @ #79 Wednesday, October 4th, 2017 – 10:26 am

    GG
    “I’m also usually sceptical of internal polling from groups that have an oar in the race. However, that doesn’t mean this poll is necessarily inaccurate given official pols have been most unreliable indicators to date. ”

    Translation:
    I’m also usually sceptical of internal polling from groups that have an oar in the race. However, because this poll chimes with my preconceived notions re SSM, I’m going to subscribe to confirmation bias, and accept the poll as provisionally valid.

    So, you don’t like the analysis of this poll because it does not fit with your pre-conceived biases?

    I thought so!

  34. GG Brilliant. I got my answer, then. You don’t know. I thought that you might be an expert in working out which bits of a given written work were utter bullshit, which bits were just tribal rallying cries, and which bits were the word of dog, to be followed by all mankind. Disappointed. You are just like Miranda Devine and Tony Abbott in this particular dilemma. I expect the admirable wisdom of George Pell will guide you all.

  36. GG
    “So, you don’t like the analysis of this poll because it does not fit with your pre-conceived biases?”

    Miranda Devine is the conduit for this “poll”, so I instinctively have doubts.

  37. The DT is published in Sydney where its biases are very well known. The story by Devine will be read by most as propaganda, which it undoubtedly is.

  38. C@tmomma

    Phoenix Red and victoria,
    You might be interested in this one. It references our Repug of the Week, Dana Rohrabacher:

    http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/03/gop-congressman-met-in-moscow-with-kremlin-linked-lawyer-at-center-of-russia-investigation/

    Again, it just slipped his mind that he had met with her.

    ***************************************************************

    THANKS C@tmomma- Rohrabacher is a real piece of work – it is amazing how many of these GOP, Kushner, Don Jr ….and the whole Trump Crime Family and Co and Associates have such terrible memories about who and what they were/are involved with. I sure hope Mueller/Schneiderman will be cure their selective amnesia with time to think about it with long stretch behind bars ….

  39. kakuru @ #86 Wednesday, October 4th, 2017 – 10:33 am

    GG
    “So, you don’t like the analysis of this poll because it does not fit with your pre-conceived biases?”

    Miranda Devine is the conduit for this “poll”, so I instinctively have doubts.

    So, I express some sce

    pticism and it’s “Confirmation bias”. You express doubts and it’s insight.

  40. When things are going south politically, ramp up the terrorism rhetoric:

    You would hope that they are looking at the intolerance being spouted by some of the no campaigners.
    the gay shootings in Orlando is a causal link to views that gays are unnatural and should be purged as the lord did to sodom and gomarrah.

    Australia had its own example of this with the christian terrorist who murdered the security guard at the family planning clinic in Victoria and was stopped before he killed all inside.

    turnbull should step up and calm and reassure people that such hate spouted by campaigners will not be tolerated and that terror laws are not aimed solely at non-christians.

  42. Sorry folks. I got up very early this morning and posted a pretty big Dawn Patrol on the previous thread and this is the first time I have been back on the computer since then.

  43. The failed media predictions of these 2017 masterstrokes by Turnbull coalition team would see the turnbull coalition team get a boost in the opinion polls

    1- Snowy river 2.0
    2- Gonski 2.0
    3-Trump phone call
    4-Terror propaganda
    5-Budget
    6-Finkel
    7-Personal attacks on Shorten/Labor
    8-Electricity /gas
    9-Calling early election
    10-Asylum seeker rhetoric.
    11.ABCC legislation.
    12 SSM Postal vote(pending)

  46. I was at a meting last night where current interactions with voters were discussed in some detail. Th strongest response coming from voters was around jobs and incomes. Households are finding it very tough. This will continue to drive anti-incumbent sentiment.

  47. Trump On Pins and Needles As More Bad Russia News Is Coming

    Whether or not collusion occurred and then can also be proven, there is mounting evidence that the White House anticipates damaging reports from the Russia probe.

    Manafort is but one piece of the Russian puzzle surrounding President Trump, including Flynn, Stone, Page, and Kushner. If the evidence against Manafort continues to build, it could make it easier to pressure him to turn on President Trump.

    If the White House was concerned about the Russia probe before, they must be more concerned now, perhaps because of what evidence or testimony Manafort could provide against the President if he were successfully squeezed hard enough to turn.

    One that is agreed upon by many within Trump’s White House is that Jared Kushner is a liability who could bring this White House down. More bad Russia news is coming for Trump. It is only a matter of when it arrives.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/10/03/trump-pins-needles-bad-russia-news-coming.html

  49. gg

    Whereas the Yessers are mainly made of yesterday’s zeroes!

    You’re right on this. The ‘Yessers’ are the average punter in the street, old and young, the not important or rich, the ‘lumpen proletariat’.

    Unfortunately for the ‘No’ supporters there are very big numbers of them.

  50. Trump Heckled As He Drives Past Hurricane Damage In Puerto Rico

    President Trump drove past hurricane damage in Puerto Rico while a woman held up a sign directed at the President that said, “You are a bad hombre.”

    Via The White House Press Pool as provided to PoliticusUSA, “Motorcade passed broken highway dividers and hundreds of downed trees on the way to next event, as small pockets of local residents could be seen along the route taking photos. One woman held up a sign that read “You are a bad hombre.”

    Trump’s trip to Puerto Rico is well on its way to being the worst post-disaster trip taken by a US president since George W. Bush checked out Katrina damage from the sky.

    Trump lives in a world of rich white people who are just like him. He doesn’t do well with regular people. In fact, it seems that he is happy to pretend that non-rich people don’t exist.

    America has a president of poor moral character who isn’t good with people, which explains both why Trump is failing as president while the country is making no progress.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/10/03/trump-heckled-drives-hurricane-damage-puerto-rico.html

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