Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor

Essential’s latest produces an improved result for Malcolm Turnbull on personal approval – but not on voting intention.

The Guardian reports this week’s Essential Research fortnight rolling average result has Labor’s two-party lead steady at 54-46, with primary votes to follow later today (UPDATE: everybody steady, with Coalition on 36%, Labor 38%, Greens 10% and One Nation 7%). Nonetheless, Malcolm Turnbull records an encouraging result from Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, which have him up four on approval to 42% and down three on disapproval to 43% (UPDATE: Actually, he’s only up one point). Bill Shorten is at 37% and 47%, which compares with 36% and 47% a month ago (although The Guardian report says he is down three on disapproval – either this is wrong, or his disapproval rating is really 44%) (UPDATE: It’s the latter). Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is 42-28, little changed from last month’s 43-29.

The poll also finds 55% consider war between the United States and North Korea very or somewhat likely, versus 36% for somewhat or very unlikely. Asked to rate various potential concerns to personal safety, the order of concern ran terrorism, car accidents, nuclear warfare, catastrophic climate change, natural disasters, gang violence and family violence (of which you can make what you will). Also featured was a question on which major party best represents various interests, which produced familiar results.

UPDATE: Full report here.

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.

1,916 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. LU

    There were two large US airlines that went broke about 20 years ago when their auditors pointed out that the value of their frequent flyers points would not even go close to surviving mass use of them.

    Their points had no expiry dates!

  2. LU

    I had not heard of the Tiffin dilemma but of course I did know of Nixon and the petro dollar.

    Those of us who recall the oil crisis of the early 70s (which helped to undermine Whitlam from day 1) will recall when OPEC were seen as evil demons.

    I guess for the USA Nixon was pretty bloody clever (in hindsight) as he collected Saudi and the OPEC countries as friends and effectively undermined the eastern block.

    The thing is as far as I understand it that the world has shifted back towards the sort of crisis Nixon sorted with the petro dollar, so that some new arrangement is needed.

    In the absence of leadership from the USA it seems China and Russia have stepped up to the plate.

  4. Elaug

    I see.

    Well this crisis may probably shift public opinion in PR. They obviously now have a very unsatisfactory arrangement. They are tiny but bigger than other “independent Caribbean nations.

    Possibly they would be better off federating with the British and US Virgin Islands. almost a reasonable size then.

  5. C@tmomma
    briefly @ #1884 Thursday, October 12th, 2017 – 10:57 pm

    C@t….I believe they were the Hunt brothers…ended badly. A rogue trader from Nomuta tried the same thing with copper too…invariably these things fail

    Due to the fact that there are enough rational actors in the right places that will set things back on an even keel. Thankfully.

    Eventually the costs of keeping a hoard start to exceed the gains to be made by adding to it, at which point it is no longer possible for the hoarder to continue to buy. In the absence of buyer action, sellers soon dominate the trade and prices begin to fall, in turn impelling the progressive liquidation of the hoard and intensifying price falls….and encouraging new selling. The classic from Australia was the wool stockpile, which became totally over-bought and over-priced….and eventually had to be liquidated. And Melbourne real estate in the 1880s and 90s.

  7. DTT,

    Or simply China has a shed load of debt-fuelled inflation to export to the rest of the world, and needs a conduit for it that won’t bounce back and exacerbate the problem.

  8. daretotread
    LU

    The thing is as far as I understand it that the world has shifted back towards the sort of crisis Nixon sorted with the petro dollar, so that some new arrangement is needed.

    In the absence of leadership from the USA it seems China and Russia have stepped up to the plate.

    The idea of a USD “crisis” is a fantasy. There is no crisis. As for Russia, it is far, far too small to lead anything in economic or financial terms; and China does not have either a fully convertible currency or a transparent bond market, meaning the Yuan has no real use as a reserve asset.

    The creation of excess currency by the US and its acceptance in every market has very greatly extended the US monetary domain. The financial order is dollarised from start to finish, effectively subordinating export-dependant economies to the requirements of the US, which is able to call on the production of external economies at will, increasing the effective real wealth of US residents.

    As the US Fed reverses its past QE program, dollars will be deliberately un-created or annihilated. This will lead to dollar-shortage in external domains and will tend to increase the USD exchange rate. This will be deflationary in the US/inflationary in its counter-parties. Needless to say, this will be unpopular in the counter-parties, who will experience a decline in their real wages and a loss of monetary and fiscal flexibility.

  9. This will be a difficult precedent for the Australian govt regardless of who is in ‘power’.

    ‘Mixed feelings’ over Canada’s ’60s Scoop’ settlement.

    On October 6, the federal government announced it had reached a $640m agreement, in principle, with Sixties Scoop survivors across Canada who lost their indigenous identity as a result of the long-standing practice.

    http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/10/feelings-canada-60s-scoop-settlement-171010161100153.html

  14. Trump doesn’t stop trying –

    President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to make it easier for Americans to buy bare-bones health insurance plans and circumvent Obamacare rules — but the action faces possible legal challenges.

    Stymied in Congress by the failure of Senate Republicans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Mr Trump’s executive order appears to be his administration’s latest effort to undermine the 2010 law without action by legislators.
    …
    The stripped-down insurance policies allowed under the order are likely to entice young and healthy people away from the individual insurance markets created by the ACA. That could further destabilise those markets because only the sickest people would likely continue purchasing insurance on the exchanges.

    If this happens, experts expect premiums to rise rapidly, effectively eroding the law’s protection that people with pre-existing medical conditions cannot be charged more.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-obamacare-executive-order-sign-us-health-insurance-plans-latest-a7997256.html

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