Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor; YouGov: 51-49 to Coalition

The gap narrows in the latest Essential Research poll, which also finds strong support for a clean energy target.

This week’s reading of the Essential Research fortnight rolling average records an unusually solid two-point move in favour of the Coalition on two-party preferred, reducing Labor’s lead to 52-48. Nothing in The Guardian’s report on primary votes, so those will have to wait until later in the day. What we do have in the report is that 65% support a clean energy target, 74% back support for renewable energy and “a majority” support Labor’s goal of 50% renewable energy by 2030. Sixty-one per cent say the government is not doing enough “to ensure affordable, reliable and clean energy” (down from 71% in February), with only 15% saying it is doing enough (steady). Forty-two per cent say Tony Abbott should remain in parliament (down a point since April), with 30% saying he should remain (down two).

The fortnightly YouGov poll maintains the usual peculiarities of the series, most notably a headline two-party figure showing the Coalition with a lead of 51-49, based on low primary votes for the major parties and a strong flow of One Nation preferences to the Coalition (two-thirds, along with 27% of Greens preferences and half of the remainder). With preference flows like those of the 2016 election, Labor would come out about 52.5-47.5 ahead. The primary votes are Coalition 34% (steady), Labor 32% (down one), Greens 11% (steady) and One Nation 11% (up two). The poll also found 67% had voted in the same-sex marriage survey, of whom 61% voted yes and 35% no. The remainder, including the 20% still likely to vote, broke 54% to 28% in favour. Thirty per cent said companies declaring their support for same-sex marriage gave them a more favourable view of their brand, compared with 20% less favourable and 46% no difference.

Other findings: 37% thought the Constitution should be changed to allow dual citizens to run for parliament, with 45% opposed; 56% favoured stricter gun laws, compared with 7% for less strict and 34% for “remain about the same”; and 42% would deem it a bad thing if the government dropped its clean energy targets for 2020, compared with 32% for good thing. Asked to pick out of a list of 16 most important issues for the next election, health came out tops on 44% (though this was down five since August), with unemployment, living standards and the economy next placed on 30% each.

Note also that a Queensland state results from Newspoll came out overnight, which you can read about 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.

1,690 thoughts on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor; YouGov: 51-49 to Coalition”

Comments Page 31 of 34
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  1. Australia would only have coalition (small C) Governments if we had a MMP voting system like NZ, or PR. Our political parties might be different too. I think that Labor would be more or less the same, given that the Greens split off from the left of Labor’s base a long time ago. Maybe the Liberals would be split between a Centre-Right grouping and hard right. The Nationals, with a 5% share of the vote, might struggle to get into Parliament in some elections if we had a 5% cut-off. Maybe they’d throw their lot in with the hard right. Maybe genuine centrists like X could get enough votes to be a force in National politics.

    So Australia would probably alternate between Liberal-hard Right Coalitions, which is more or less what we have now, and Labor-Green. Maybe Centrists would be in the mix. Maybe we could get Grand Coalitions of Liberal (minus hard right)-Centre-Labor.

  2. I think an interesting event in the NZ election was when a group of business CEO’s came out and said that voters shouldn’t be scared of the Labour’s economic plans. They described them as fairly modest but they believed that some more equity around wages needed to be shown to the lower earners to help boost retail in NZ.

    Can’t remember any of our business groups doing that.

  3. Did anyone else notice Ardern referrring to Shorten as a world leader but nobody else? She probably doesn’t know if Tony or Malcolm is PM.

  4. Steve

    Would your MMP adopt seats and lists? Smaller parties can get into NZ parliament by winning a seat if they fall short of the 5% vote target (ACT in NZ for one). I imagine thats where the NATs would find themselves.

  6. Ides – I didn’t think through to that level of detail, but you’re right. Small parties with a geographically concentrated base (like the Greens and maybe X) can run in member constituencies. A party like the Greens with 9-10% support widely spread would go for lists.

  8. To be precise, NZ Labour is in a Coalition with NZ First, Winston Peters is going to be Deputy PM, NZ First will get 4 Ministries and the NZ Greens are only going to provide Confidence and Supply to the Labour government & obtain some Ministries.

  11. dtt

    ‘In other words by week two of her leadership ..’

    Virtually none of the events you describe happened ‘by week two’.

    1. She had about 90% support in caucus. Her initial polling was better than Rudd’s, so her public support was high as well.

    2. He didn’t resign. He was advised there was a spill on and decided not to contest it. He knew he didn’t have the numbers. And Gillard knew her man, hence her reluctance to push him out.

    3. No Labor MP said anything at all nasty about Rudd until he decided to re contest the leadership a year later. Indeed, particularly in the first few weeks, members of caucus heaped praise upon him. This is why the msm concluded it was all about polling, which it wasn’t.

    4. See 3.

    You’re welcome to criticise Gillard, and I’m quite happy to do so myself. But you’re not entitled to make up your own facts.

  12. Reverse Ferrett – that’s like John Laws did for the Big Banks.

    I think Labor should squeeze as many concessions as it can now, give the Coalition a hard time while doing so, ultimately support it if it’s better than what we have now (nothing) and is fixable by a Government that actually wants to reduce emissions, then fix it when they win Government.

  14. A R @ #1497 Thursday, October 19th, 2017 – 7:05 pm

    You’ve got the comments set to display in chronological order, in which case you probably have a comment box at both the top and the bottom of the page. If so, maybe you’ve cleared out the bottom box but left the old text in the top box. I think in that case the text in the top box will be picked up if/when the ‘Quote’ button is pressed, and then essentially resurrected into both boxes.

    Case #2 should be fixable, if that’s what you’re encountering.

    I do have comments set to display in chronological order, but I only see a comment box at the bottom of the page! Should there be another one?

  15. CTar1: No, Australia’s business groups are too in bed with the Coalition to ever say anything nice about Labor. The sad reality of Australia being an increasingly plutocratic/kleptocratic nation means that, as found in independent scholarly analysis, the quickest path to getting rich is to know the right people.

    As I believe I’ve said before, we are cursed in being a first-world nation with third-world governance structures. The level of corruption, of cronyism, of simple “She’ll be right mate, let’s not worry” mis-governance is just heartbreaking. Vast quantities of wealth wasted at every turn, gifted out to rich donors, flogged off on short-term middle class welfare, when it should be spent making this country a social, economic and cultural powerhouse – a beacon of hope which this Earth seems increasingly to need.

    Instead, what do we get? Lazy, disinterested politicians getting into office because the over-concentrated media outfits decide they’re preferable (for their owners’ interests) to a Government that will actually govern, and slant their coverage to degrees that would make Randolph Hearst blush for shame.

  18. “‘Labor Party sources say they will eventually sign up to the scheme, but will have a bit of fun in the meantime.’

    FFS what Labor Party ‘source’ would say such a thing??”

    Mar’n? Richo?

  19. keating on the money, again.

    The 73-year-old, who was Australia’s 24th prime minister and has virtually unrivalled status within the Labor Party, slammed the “bald utopianism” underlying the case for change, which assumed rules would never be bent by doctors and families when it becomes more convenient for carers or financial beneficiaries to see a gravely ill person die sooner.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/dont-do-it-paul-keating-in-11th-hour-bid-to-stop-euthanasia-laws-20171019-gz4473.html

  21. Actually, it’s interesting to note that it’s actually The Greens now who are on the wrong side of history and that it is no surprise that NZ First has more in common with NZ Labour than with NZ Nationals.

    The Neoliberal/Left Edge immigration policies are on the nose. Brexit proved it, Trump proved it. Not that I support one iota of the rest of the policy suite advanced by Trump or the Tories, or the Hansons of this world, but we have just seen NZ Labour power to victory with an anti immigration policy front and centre.

    I have said it before, the best Environment policy is an anti immigration policy. Sure, we need an orderly flow of migration, but the days of laissez faire open doors for all who want to come to Australia as refugees are over.

    The best Employment policy is an Australians First policy.

    The best Housing policy is an Australians First policy.

    We have to start thinking of Australia First.

  23. Player One @ #1513 Thursday, October 19th, 2017 – 6:33 pm

    I do have comments set to display in chronological order, but I only see a comment box at the bottom of the page! Should there be another one?

    There is, but also there isn’t. As in, the second comment box exists in the markup/DOM, but is not visible in the UI. You can confirm its presence by running the following snippet in the browser’s console:

    jQuery(‘textarea

    name$=comment

    ’).length

    You’ll get a result of ‘2’, indicating that there are two comment fields on the page. Which is probably the cause of the issue with the quotes. Probably using tacking a ‘:visible’ filter on there will fix it, as in:

    jQuery(‘textarea

    name$=comment

    :visible’).length

    That would should return ‘1’.

  25. Barney in Go Dau

    …

    I’d imagine it would cause considerable wear and tear, and be a one off.

    I have felt for years that Menzies must be rotating at a useful speed.

  26. Listening to some of todays news on ABC – it is incredibly frustrating that we can so easily decide to spend untold billions on submarines, tollways to nowhere and yet cannot spend just a little of those taxes to house the women & children subject to domestic violence and the homeless in our cities. It seems it is either one or the other but not both. Sad!!

  27. BiGD
    Frydenburg shows what a joke the NEG is, announce a policy then do the modelling after, give the states who are to implement it 24 hours for input.

    Sounds more and more like howards back of the envelope MDP brain fart.

    Backending emission controls means zero done until becomes absolutely necessary, like international pressure.

    Just another way to delay action again, reeks of know approach on super, ME, republic, delay delay delay

  28. Boris, it would be better to name them the Inertia Party, I reckon. Coalition is a word that connotes agreement/cooperation and that is something we can all agree the current govt ain’t.

    Not agreeable
    Can’t agree or cooperate on anything.

  29. Zoomster

    You too should not make up your own facts!!!!

    1.. She had about 90% support in caucus. Her initial polling was better than Rudd’s, so her public support was high as well.

    Since I was talking about the public opinion this is irrelevant. In any case 90% is absurd given I could name 30% hostile, including 50% of the previous leadership group of 4. However as we now KNOW Rudd’s polling was in a temporary decline and had bounced back at the time of the Gillard takeover. That was my point. Rudd was not in a long term irretrievable fall unlike the situation in NZ. That was my point. The polling data on which Gillard made her decision was flawed or at least premature.

    2. He didn’t resign. He was advised there was a spill on and decided not to contest it. He knew he didn’t have the numbers. And Gillard knew her man, hence her reluctance to push him out.

    Again what you said was irrlevant. My point related to the expectation (which many had) that once pushed out Rudd would resign and skulk away. This clearly was never his style and to assume he would just fade away was clearly pretty thick headed.

    3. No Labor MP said anything at all nasty about Rudd until he decided to re contest the leadership a year later. Indeed, particularly in the first few weeks, members of caucus heaped praise upon him. This is why the msm concluded it was all about polling, which it wasn’t.

    Zoomster. Find me the quotes where anyone said nice things about Rudd. I want some from Gillard, Swan, Burke, Shorten, Combet, as the key players. The stuff about Rudd making them work too hard came out very early.

    It was not all Gillard’s fault but those around her were thick as bricks.

  30. C@T – I agree that we should be dramatically cutting immigration numbers and drastically limiting the ability of foreign investors to own Australian land and housing, but a phrase like “Australians First” has a distinct pointy white hat ring to it.

  31. About one in three hospital deaths are speeded up artificially – usually by way of ever-increasing doses of morphine for pain relief which has the deliberate objective of the side effect of death. These accelerated deaths are nearly always triggered after doctors, family and patients are consulted, but the process is haphazard and there are few real checks and balances.

    In this context, arguments that euthanasia should not be legalized because the checks and balances might fail here and there are self indulgent and utterly absurd.

  33. dtt

    I notice you had to redefine all your points in order to ‘prove’ me wrong. It is not my fault if you are unable to express yourself clearly.

    Also, you made the initial claims, the onus of proof is on you. According to you, Labor MPs were being openly nasty about Rudd in the first weeks of Gillard’s government. It should be absolutely no effort at all on your part to find one of these, so go to it.

  34. DTT Sometimes the things you say defies any description. I’d suggest your opinions do not encompass the entire breadth of all knowledge.

    As I recall much of what Zoom has said is correct – some things are fuzzy though.

    Moving goalposts by specifying what is relevant and irrelevant after the fact is not an honest argument.

  35. Daretotread wrote:

    Strategically Gillard was a fool. Firstly she agreed to step into the leadership prematurely, misjudging the depth of Rudd’s fall or her own support. This was a pretty rookie mistake.

    Well, she was PM longer than Rudd, or Abbott or (so far) Turnbull. Until one of them beats her in the longevity-in-office stakes (Turnbull looking increasingly unlikely to do so), I think the put-down that she was a “rookie” is somewhat premature.

    Gillard made a lot of mistakes. I’m the first to admit that. But one mistake she did not make was selling her soul. Another was that she turned up for work every day, and made a pretty good fist of it.

  36. Dtt
    Crazy Kev may have got good polling but he was and one real fith nutter who no one could work under.
    All his behaviour from Labor telling him they did want him to the people emphatically telling him they didn’t want him reflected poorly on him. That the electorate went for abbott by such a huge margin reflects this.

    A person’s character can be judged on how they handle and bounce back from rejection.
    He failed miserably.

  38. BB “Gillard made a lot of mistakes. I’m the first to admit that. But one mistake she did not make was selling her soul. Another was that she turned up for work every day, and made a pretty good fist of it.”

    Agree. And she achieved this with barely a moment’s clear air, running a minority Government while under constant attack from her own side and by a feral Opposition supported by a feral media.

  39. Pierce. A name to remember in the debate we are about to have.
    The RWNJ in charge of the Australian Energy Markets Commission.

    And it appears that the Coalition, which took months to consider Finkel, accepted this proposal from the ESB* on the very day it was received.

    The ESB letter is date-marked October 13, and that is the same day the Coalition revealed it was about to unveil its new policy to the party room on October 16. So much for careful consideration and review.

    There are also concerns about the role of John Pierce, the fiercely conservative head of the AEMC, and the extraordinary powers he appears to have conferred on himself.

    The basis of the ESB policy document, which Pierce is said to have largely authored, is that new reliability and environmental guarantees are to be written into the market rules. As the principal market rule maker, he will be the final arbiter of the policy design and how this will be done.

    It is not a prospect that makes the renewable energy industry comfortable, given his attacks on renewable energy targets and household solar in the past, and his fierce defense of incumbent interests.

    *ESB – Energy Security Board. Turnbull’s overnight assembly of political hacks and toadies designed to give him a fig leaf to wear in his battle with Abbott.
    http://reneweconomy.com.au/coalition-energy-target-may-require-a-go-slow-on-rooftop-solar-48404/

  40. In the midst of the Barnaby Joyce citizenship crisis in August, Ms Bishop declared she would “find it very difficult to build trust” with New Zealand’s Labour party following revelations that a Australian Labor figure made contact with a NZ Labour MP.
    Ms Ardern returned fire, calling Ms Bishop’s “false claims” were “highly regrettable”.

    Maybe some advice can be passed on to Ms. Bishop…. before offering an opinion engage brain.. especially handy if you happen to work in foreign affairs

  43. Andrew Bolt has just nominated Andrew Hastie as the one he would pick to replace Turnbull and give the Liberals a chance at the next election. I kid you not.

  45. Darn
    Andrew Bolt has just nominated Andrew Hastie as the one he would pick to replace Turnbull and give the Liberals a chance at the next election. I kid you not.

    Kiss of death. 🙂

  48. Greensborough Growler

    You will find the NZ ;nutters’ left or right are middle of the road compared to Australian ‘nutters’ from the left and right.

  49. An unwelcome intervention by Paul Keating.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/dont-do-it-paul-keating-in-11th-hour-bid-to-stop-euthanasia-laws-20171019-gz4473.html

    zoomster @ #1540 Thursday, October 19th, 2017 – 8:19 pm

    Boer

    And exactly that happened to a relation of mine in a nursing home. As far as I know, there wasn’t even a doctor involved.

    Happens all the time.
    The NO case just don’t want to acknowledge and regulate it.

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