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. Blood In The Water: Mitch McConnell Throws Trump Under The Bus By Defending Bob Corker

    It was a sign of presidential weakness, and just how much some Senate Republicans can’t stand him, that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended Bob Corker from Trump’s attacks.

    Frank Thorp V
    ✔ ‎@frankthorp

    McConnell at Paris, KY event: “Senator Corker is a valued member of the republican conference in the senate and a key player on the budget.”

    The message to Trump is clear. If forced to choose between the President and their colleagues, Senate Republicans will choose their colleagues. The Senate Majority Leader doesn’t respect his own president, and what is even worse is that McConnell went out of his way to defend Corker, even though the Senator from Tennessee is retiring.

    The Trump/McConnell feud is alive and well, and McConnell smells blood in the water when it comes to Trump. This president is wounded and reeling, and a top member of his own party would rather defend a guy who is cruising into retirement than Donald Trump.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2017/10/09/blood-water-mitch-mcconnell-throws-trump-bus-defending-bob-corker.html

  2. ‘All the warning signs are there’: Morning Joe begs Republicans to remove Trump before he launches nukes

    Republican strategist Steve Schmidt said enough is enough: It’s time for Republican lawmakers to remove President Donald Trump from office before he recklessly provokes nuclear war.

    Schmidt told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that he wasn’t ready to leave the GOP, as the “Morning Joe” host had, but he urged some of his fellow conservatives to show the same courage and honesty as Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN).

    “We have a president who is clearly out of his depth,” Schmidt said. “The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has acknowledged it. Foreign heads of state understand it, as well.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/all-the-warning-signs-are-there-morning-joe-begs-republicans-to-remove-trump-before-he-launches-nukes/

  3. PhoenixRed:

    From the NYT article below:

    The White House spent Monday morning telling its allies that Mr. Corker is responsible for the fight, not Mr. Trump, and that the senator was an attention-seeking obstructionist. But few of Mr. Trump’s allies accepted that narrative. One close associate of the president, who asked not to be identified to discuss the situation more candidly, said Mr. Trump’s entire agenda could be dead because Mr. Corker has a lot of friends on Capitol Hill.

  5. Lizzie @ #34
    Yes, If the shoe was on the other foot Tony would have Malcolm dead, buried & cremated by now.
    The fact that he has such a (not so) small but strong following is disheartening.
    He is our Trump.

  6. Bill refers to Katharine Murphy’s dodgy/unclear math above. Not a first – her mind appears to be pretty fuzzy early in the morning (and the rest of the day as well).

  8. It’s possibly for the best that Turnbull has abandoned the CET.

    Better to have a good ETS legislated in early 2019 than a low ambition CET legislated in early 2018 and taking effect in 2020.

  9. The good thing about Abbott. He shot himself and the climate deniers in the foot with the Climate Change is good for us.

    The deniers don’t want climate change to exist so calling it good doesn’t work as an argument. Its an admission it exists.

    Everyone else is given a weapon to point out that the biggest NO campaigner has admitted climate change exists.

    This puts Abbott in the Roberts category and thus his government he was Prime Minister of in that category.

    It will take time for the followers who believed Abbott to admit to their mistake. However their fervent belief has suffered a real blow. This is a turning point in our nations narrative on climate change.

    Finally!!

  11. fess

    …but, but, they should just leave Trump alone because he is some kind of idiot savant whose total lack of knowledge about anything means his mind is unclouded and pure and thus he relies solely on instinct, and we know that that’s natural and therefore it’s good.

  22. The govt obviously thinks that the burying of the CET is electoral poison, despite the usual bluff and bluster.

    The SMH has the front page story:’Coalition defies the science on energy’, whereas the dear old ABC ignores the story all together as far as I could hear, in favour of cyber security shock horror.

  23. Abbott is totally pitching for the leadership. The most unbelievable thing is not that he wants it but that the Liberals might re-appoint him.

  24. RenewEconomy‏ @renew_economy 19h19 hours ago

    Coalition had sought to dodge CET because renewables were too “costly”, now it is arguing they are too cheap

  25. briefly:

    Yep Abbott’s efforts are obvious. I just hope PvO is right in saying he has more chance being the next LOTO than the next PM!

  26. radioactive puppy‏Verified account @marrowing Sep 22

    I can’t believe it’s 2017 and we’re still living in Toney World even though he’s a washed up backbencher

  29. zoidlord @ #76 Tuesday, October 10th, 2017 – 9:35 am

    radioactive puppy‏Verified account @marrowing Sep 22

    I can’t believe it’s 2017 and we’re still living in Toney World even though he’s a washed up backbencher

    Because he gets coverage. If this was some second rate high school debate, and he was tasked with first speaker for the No Case, it wouldn’t draw any more attention than a few giggles from the back rows.

    I so agree with those who see his value is nailing their coffin. Long may he make fools of himself and them.

  30. zoidlord @ #74 Tuesday, October 10th, 2017 – 9:34 am

    RenewEconomy‏ @renew_economy 19h19 hours ago

    Coalition had sought to dodge CET because renewables were too “costly”, now it is arguing they are too cheap

    This, my friend, is the application of quantum physics at the LNP political level.

    Simultaneous equivalent opposite same states together with remote coupling whereby an adherent of the Abbott school of “Cat in the Box” sub branch can remotely sense the state of mind of his confreres in parallel universes.

    Catch up with the new science to be taught at a Hillsong Sunday School for kiddies in your neighbourhood.

    Sorry (but not very) to borrow the following:-

    You know it make sense. 😈

  31. Morning all – I see Abbott has again imbibed a little too much red before flying too close to the sun befiore opening his mouth to vomit the usual nonsense.

  32. Abbott logic.

    Mr Abbott said that extreme weather events in Australia are no more damaging than they were in the 1800s.

    “In Australia the floods are not bigger, the bushfires are not worse, the droughts are not deeper or longer, and the cyclones are not more severe than they were in the 1800s. Sometimes, they do more damage but that’s because there’s more to destroy, not because their intensity has increased,” he said.

    He added that 100 years of photographs of Manly beach in his electorate on Sydney’s northern beaches do not suggest that sea levels have risen. But he said that even if the climate was warming, it could be better overall because “far more people die in cold snaps”.

    “In most countries, far more people die in cold snaps than in heatwaves, so a gradual lift in global temperatures, especially if it’s accompanied by more prosperity and more capacity to adapt to change, might even be beneficial,” he said.

    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-says-climate-change-could-be-beneficial-because-more-people-die-20171009-gyxi9y.html

  34. jenauthor @ #81 Tuesday, October 10th, 2017 – 9:49 am

    Morning all – I see Abbott has again imbibed a little too much red before flying too close to the sun befiore opening his mouth to vomit the usual nonsense.

    Except Jenauthor, I would argue this is neither misfortune nor accident, but a calculated sober attempt to retro justify an untenable position defiant of the findings of the best scientists and researchers world wide.

    (But I know what you mean 😉 )

  35. jenauthor
    Morning all – I see Abbott has again imbibed a little too much red before flying too close to the sun befiore opening his mouth to vomit the usual nonsense.

    He’s proving himself to the ideologically-driven Liberal base…to a desperate membership.

  39. Yep just like a reality TV show.

    Things are getting a little “Real Housewives” around the White House.

    In one of the stranger sideshows to his presidency, President Trump’s first and third wives, Ivana and Melania, respectively, on Monday had a very public war of words — and his second wife, Marla Maples, is getting some shade out of the spat, to boot.

    Here’s a breakdown: To promote her new book, “Raising Trump,” about parenting Trump’s three eldest children, Ivana Trump gave a Monday interview to “Good Morning America” in which she made some comments sure to privately raise the hackles of the woman occupying the role of Wife of Donald.

    “I’m basically first Trump wife. Okay?” Ivana Trump said. “I’m first lady.”

    …

    But instead of letting those slights ride, Melania Trump took a page out of her husband’s playbook, the one that famously decrees he hit back harder at anyone who takes a swing.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/10/09/ivana-trump-says-shes-the-first-lady-and-drops-mouth-bombs-while-promoting-her-new-book/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_ivana-melania-250pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.4d8957023f11

  40. ABS will be updating the response rate to the ME survey later today. Based on some simple assumptions, I’m estimating the response rate will be 65% (up from 57.5%) and tracking towards a final response rate of 73%.

    Having a second data point would definitely help refine that.

  41. michaelkoziol: Tanya Plbersek on @SkyNewsAust says Tony Abbott has left the realm of the merely destructive and entered the realm of the weird #auspol

  42. With regards to TA and his latest musings hopefully the old saying of ” whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad” applies

  44. With the citizenship 7 being heard over the next 3 days, what’s the likely order:

    Are they deciding the cases 1 at a time and deciding after each? Or hearing from everyone, then deciding on everyone?

  47. Ah, Tony and Donald. Chaos. Idiocy. Random mind games. Look at moi. Keep looking. At least with Tony they are only stupid and irrelevant words and winks. But Donald has direct and secret access to a button that would kill millions. I pray for our children, almost daily.

  48. Can someone economically cleverer than I am please look over the Pirate Party’s policy on the establishment of a Universal Basic Income and rates of taxation etc and let me know if it is vaguely sensible or whether it lives in cloud cuckoo land?

    I’m not sure how this would work in the real world, so any input from an economics wonk would be greatly appreciated.

    To clarify: I am speaking about the Pirate Party’s policy specifically, not the concept of a UBI generally.

    https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform#Economic_reform

  49. Voice Endeavour @ #58 Tuesday, October 10th, 2017 – 9:07 am

    It’s possibly for the best that Turnbull has abandoned the CET.

    Better to have a good ETS legislated in early 2019 than a low ambition CET legislated in early 2018 and taking effect in 2020.

    Agreed. Finkel’s solution was always second-best. I hope he has the grace to resign over the LNP dropping his main recommendation.

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