Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor; YouGov: 52-48

Essential has Malcolm Turnbull losing ground on personal approval, but not voting intention; YouGov does the opposite.

No change on voting intention this week from Essential Research, with Labor continuing to lead 54-46 on two-party preferred (UPDATE: Actually, it was 53-47 last week. Labor is up a point on the primary vote to 38%, the Coalition is down one to 36%, the Greens are down one to 9%, One Nation is steady on 8%). Monthly leadership ratings confirm Newspoll’s picture of declining personal support for Malcolm Turnbull, who is down five on approval to 37% and up six on disapproval to 49%. However, Bill Shorten hasn’t done brilliantly either, being down two on approval to 35% and up four on disapproval to 48%, and making only a slight dent in Turnbull’s 42-28 lead as preferred prime minister, which now stands at 40-28.

Other findings:

• Forty per cent approve of a requirement that for MPs to provide declarations about their eligibility, while 44% say this does not go far enough. Forty-nine per cent say MPs found to have been invalidly elected should should repay their public funding, compared with 30% who thought otherwise.

• Forty-five per cent felt the same-sex marriage postal survey was a bad process that should not be repeated; 19% felt it good, but not one that should be repeated; and 27% thought it a good process that should be used more often.

We only have the report from the Guardian to go on at this point, with primary votes to follow with the publication of Essential’s full report later today.

The fortnightly Fifty Acres-YouGov poll records a break to Labor, who are now 52-48 in front after uncharacteristically trailing 51-49 in their last few polls. However, the pollster’s distinguishing peculiarity – the strength of support recorded for minor parties – is more pronounced than ever, as the Coalition sinks five to 31% and Labor only picks up one to 34%, with One Nation up two to 11% and the Greens up one to 11%. As usual, the two-party total is based on a respondent-allocated preference flow that gives three-quarters of the One Nation vote to the Coalition.

The pollster also has its occasional personal ratings for a range of politicians, which are unusual in being relatively favourable over all, and having low uncommitted ratings. Contrary to the other pollsters, Malcolm Turnbull records little change since early September, with approval steady at 44% and disapproval down one to 47%. Bill Shorten is up two on approval to 45% and down two to 44%, and Pauline Hanson’s ratings are not unlike those of the major party leaders, with approval up three to 45% and down two on disapproval to 48%. Also featured: Richard Di Natale (up three to 29%, down six to 33%), Nick Xenophon (up one to 53%, steady on 28%), Bob Katter (up one to 37%, steady on 41%), Tony Abbott (up two to 36%, down one to 56%) and Christopher Pyne (steady on 32%, up one to 45%).

Other findings are that respondents want same-sex marriage legalised straight away if the survey result is yes, though 42% think opponents should vote with their consciences in parliament; they overwhelmingly favour a “full parliamentary audit” on Section 44; and they want a much harder line on tax avoidance and evasion.

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.

969 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor; YouGov: 52-48”

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  1. <p.Ides of March says:
    Tuesday, November 14, 2017 at 9:14 pm
    How can Burke confirm that LNP will direct preferences to PHON in Bennelong when we dont even know if PHON is standing a candidate??

    He’s creating a little mischief by planting ideas in the minds of the voters, especially Chinese and Koreans?

  3. Just watched last nights the Drum.

    Chris Bergs support and defence of the Paterson bill was beyond reality.

    I did a parody analysis of the Paterson bill and some of Bergs points almost matched mine exactly.

    His argument basically came down to we’re giving them so much, so it’s only right that they should concede something back to us.

    Truly deranged!

  4. Just further on the Drum episode, I think it was fortuitous that Berg was not in the same studio as Jacqueline Maley, as she looked like she was ready to rip someone a new arsehole after having to listen to Berg’s vacuous arguments.

  5. I listened to Price and Bolt tonight on 3aw and one of their RWNJ listeners rang in with a very interesting comment on the Bennelong by-election. He said he has always been a died in the wool Liberal supporter but voted against Alexander in 2016 because he (Alexander) was one of the 54 who voted for Turnbull when Abbott was overthrown; and he said he intended to do the same thing again this time.

    When Bolt put it to him that if Alexander lost it could conceivably lead to the Liberals losing government he said he was ok with that because it would mean the end of Turnbull. One can only hope that there are plenty more like him in the seat of Bennelong.

  6. Don’t think so. These people are rare as hens’ teeth, but they squawk loudly.

    2GB overnight shocks (and Alan Jones) STILL going on about the Christine Forster coat-ripping exercise from the other day.

    They live in another world.

    Why right-wing politicians are so afraid of them I’ll never know.

  7. I watched – for about five minutes – Credlin, Jones and Patterson talking on SKY. Their argument was that Turnbull had promised that the ME Bill would protect religious freedoms, therefore Patterson’s Bill needed to trump Dean’s, or Malcolm would be guilty of the Biggest Lie Ever.

    Poor Turnbull – he still hasn’t realised that it doesn’t matter how nutty you go, the RWNJs will want you to be even nuttier.

  11. Quote of the day re: the KK nomination has to be from little Greggy Hunt, “Kristina Keneally fought for Eddie Obeid. John Alexander fought for Australia on the international [tennis] courts.”
    overreach much greggy

    As for the ferry they should have called it Brian.

  12. BiGD

    I saw last evenings ‘Drum’.

    You’re right that Maley looked fairly angry.

    Berg’s one of those people whose opinion on almost everything is wrong. You are safe not taking any notice of him.

  14. Henry:

    Even PvO reckons the govt is over-egging its attacks on KK.

    Peter van Onselen‏Verified account @vanOnselenP
    51m51 minutes ago
    As government MPs line up to declare Kristina Keneally such a bad egg now that she’s running for Bennelong, consider this: why did Malcolm Turnbull appoint her to the Indigenous Referendum Council? #auspol

  15. Diogenes

    I’m taking that as a compliment. Cassandra’s predictions were always correct but her curse was that no-one would believe her.

    You are in good company.

    Mike Seccombe in The Saturday Paper – How the Greens drive policy: https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2017/11/11/how-the-greens-drive-policy/15103188005492

    Very often for the Greens, though, it has not paid off and they have led change without benefiting as a result. The father of the party, Bob Brown, talks of “the Cassandra thing” – a reference to the Greek myth of Cassandra, gifted with foresight but fated not to be listened to.

    For instance, early in his time in the Tasmanian parliament, Brown introduced legislation to ban semi-automatic firearms, warning of the prospect of a massacre. It was voted down. After him Christine Milne tried a couple more times without success. Then, seven years down the track, came the Port Arthur massacre and the state and federal parliaments finally acted. John Howard got the credit, but the legislative model was Brown’s.

    Brown recalls in 2004 the Liberal-National and Labor parties “were practically elbowing each other out of the way” in their eagerness to legislate against same-sex marriage.

    Yet even then, public opinion was turning on the matter and was already nearly evenly split. Since 2008 – by which time we had polls showing majority support for marriage equality – there have been 22 bills put forward, nine sponsored by the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young. It has taken a decade for most of Labor and some of the Coalition to catch up.

    The list of issues on which the Cassandra party has been out in front is long…

    Not all of these have been implemented, but all fit a pattern: they start in left field with the Greens and become mainstream. One or other of the major parties, usually Labor, catches up some time after the public does.

    During the byelection campaign, Victorian Labor has swiped a number of other Greens policies, too.

    :::

    If politics is about identity as much as policy, we are witnessing an attempted identity theft by Labor in Northcote.

  17. ratsak @ #640 Tuesday, November 14th, 2017 – 7:16 pm

    Dio,

    I’ve always accepted it’s a high risk move. As you can see from the News Ltd smear chorus above we know how this is going to play out from their side. If that bites hard Alexander could even get a swing to him.

    I think it will backfire as Briefly noted it did on Aly. But I’m not claiming that the electors of Bennelong will so hold.

    But if anyone can be rehabilitated out of that last NSW Labor term it will be KK.

    And the Libs are no cleanskins. It’s NSW. Corruption in Macquarie St has a proud history back to at least Bligh. Plenty of people might end up thinking that letting KK do to Bennelong what she did to NSW might not be worse than letting Trumble continue doing to Australia what he has been doing to Australia.

    As I see it is that internationally we are seeing headline after headline of accounts of women being abusee, insulted, assaulted and degraded in their work. If the lnp and murdoch and his flunkies take up the cudgels to abuse, insult and degrade KK a woman not on local matters but just a smear openly and publicly they could be overstepping and fall in a big heap.

  18. GG

    I don’t understand the huge backlash against Hannity about Moore. This is what I read about it:

    [“Every single person in this country deserves the presumption of innocence,” Hannity said. “With the allegations against Judge Moore, none of us know the truth of what happened 38 years ago. The only people that would know are the people involved in this incident.”

    The Fox News host added that Moore “should step aside and leave the Senate race” if the allegations are true.]

    Is that so horrendous? Hannity is a total knob but that quote those comments could easily be have made here about any number of people without a pile-on.

  19. Confessions @ #713 Tuesday, November 14th, 2017 – 5:50 pm

    Henry:

    Even PvO reckons the govt is over-egging its attacks on KK.

    Peter van Onselen‏Verified account @vanOnselenP
    51m51 minutes ago
    As government MPs line up to declare Kristina Keneally such a bad egg now that she’s running for Bennelong, consider this: why did Malcolm Turnbull appoint her to the Indigenous Referendum Council? #auspol

    Because he was never going to listen to it, so he could appear bipartisan as it didn’t matter.

  20. PHON, may not yet be registered in NSW, that was the main reason they didn’t contest New England.

    So it is likely there won’t be a PHON candidate.

  21. The fact that an oxygen thief like berg makes a career out of political and economic punditry just goes to show how shallow the talent pool is in Tory land. I’m on the wrong side of politics. i reckon that has I become a Tory, I’d be deputy PM at least by now.

  23. Dio:

    Surely the backlash against Hannity is because of his extreme partisanship? No way in hell would Hannity be saying such things if Moore were a Democrat.

  24. The 25 Manus island refugees accepted by the US all had existing family or extended family connections in the US, in addition to passing the vetting.

    This is a reasonable first step,the question of course is how many more will they accept.

    Up to 122 indeed.

  27. Another of Trump’s unrealistic election ploys –

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A year after Donald Trump was elected president on a promise to revive the ailing U.S. coal industry, the sector’s long-term prospects for growth and hiring remain as bleak as ever.

    U.S. utilities are shutting coal-fired power plants at a rapid pace and shifting to cheap natural gas, along with wind and solar power. And domestic demand makes up about 90 percent of the market for U.S. coal.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-coal-revival/a-year-after-trumps-election-coals-future-remains-bleak-idUSKBN1DD0IA?il=0

  28. Correct Ross, they do have a NSW senator.
    It will be interested to see given the demographics of the seat if they do run a candidate.

  29. Sounds like he was like Turnbull. Really enjoying his time in Asia –

    MANILA (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump left the Philippines on Tuesday without attending an annual East Asia Summit, due to delays in the schedule of the program of meetings.
    …
    Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would attend Tuesday’s summit in his place, a senior White House official said, adding the event was running too late.

    The meetings in Manila were approximately 90 minutes behind schedule.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-asia-departure/trump-skips-east-asia-leaders-summit-sends-tillerson-instead-idUSKBN1DE0R2?il=0

  30. Another woman comes forward, clearly a bridge too far for Republicans who are stepping up their rhetoric on Moore.

    Senate Republican leaders on Monday waged an urgent campaign to pressure GOP nominee Roy Moore to withdraw from the Alabama Senate race amid allegations of sexual misconduct, declaring him “unfit to serve” and threatening to expel him from Congress if he were elected.

    But Moore showed no signs that he was preparing to step aside, even as another woman came forward, accusing him of sexually assaulting her in the late 1970s when she was 16 years old.

    The fusillade from Senate Republicans started Monday morning in Louisville, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) called on Moore to end his run.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mcconnell-calls-on-roy-moore-to-end-senate-campaign-following-accusations-of-sexual-misconduct/2017/11/13/1ca48d56-c890-11e7-aa96-54417592cf72_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_mooregop-1200pm-winner%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.23daa53c5bdc

  32. Cry me a river, Pegasus!

    Maybe if The Greens got more than a 9%PV they could implement their far -sighted policies. They should be grateful some of them do eventually get implemented.

  33. Aung San Suu Kyi hasn’t shown any enthusiasm for the round of meetings in Asia in any video I’ve seen.

    Another ‘I really don’t want to be here’?

  35. Diogenes,
    In your efforts to defend Roy Moore and gather together the evidence to do so you must have missed the fact that he was banned from the local Gabena Shopping Mall for harassing the local high school girls -or that the attempted rape of a 16 year old girl involved choking her?

    But let’s wait for conclusive proof and not believe the women who were the girls Roy Moore ‘allegedly’ attacked, eh?

    Um, no thanks.

  36. OK, so I was in the shower and for whatever reason had a thought about the HC and ‘reasonable steps’ regarding the eligibility of the Labor members. I would like to know what other bludgers/legal eagles think of the following logic.
    Putting timelines in context, and thinking slightly outside the box (or rather, inside), the reasonable steps determined by Labor’s lawyers and followed by candidates would have been based on the best understanding of the HC’s interpretation of S44.
    At that time it would have been the Sykes & Cleary ruling. As such, it would be unreasonable to expect said lawyers and candidates to have predicted a future HC ruling, such has been handed down recently. In this sense could it be argued that the current ruling should be disqualified from being applied to those members’ ‘reasonable steps’ test, as the current ruling was not available at the time?

  40. Zeh,

    Windhover will tell you you’re dreamin’

    and he’d be 100% right.

    If the HC decides they’re out, then they’re out and no arguments about what they thought Sykes meant will be worth a pinch of piss.

  41. Mikeh:

    Someone else is also limbering up ahead of tomorrow:

    Lyle Shelton‏ @LyleShelton
    2h2 hours ago
    Looking forward to being on @sunriseon7 just after 7am previewing the big announcement. Win or lose, millions of Australians have been awakened to the challenge of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience & parents’ rights.

  42. Moore has become the GOP’s litmus test. The refusal or hesitancy to denounce him is a consequence of where Murdoch’s Fox News has led the party. The GOP has gone so far to the right that it is about to veer off a cliff. The Fox News audience is old, white and in a cane-stomping rage at the way America is going. It believes in the media mendacity that Trump proclaims, and Fox News incessantly echoes. Aside from Fox News, it will trust only similar sources.

    But look. Look, in fact, at Virginia. In last Tuesday’s election, the repudiation of Trump was beyond argument. Non-whites went Democratic in a big way. So did the more affluent suburbs, young people and women. What’s left for the GOP is rural, less educated, less affluent and, to be charitable, less young. On the back of any envelope, it’s a bad business plan.

    Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump have long been friends. Murdoch has occasional access to the Oval Office, where he advises Trump — the amoral leading the immoral. Trump is 71; Murdoch is 86, and the median age of a prime-time Fox News viewer is 68. Anyone can see where this is going. The grim reaper has become a Democratic poll watcher.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-rupert-murdoch-destroyed-the-republican-party/2017/11/13/0d41e68e-c8ad-11e7-b0cf-7689a9f2d84e_story.html?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.3cbe10a9937b

  44. Dio

    You have a good point.

    Certainly I think it probable that moore is a sleazy molster, butsince we stil have the rule of law, we should give every peron a fair hearing.

    In Russia in the 50s you were declared insane if you were a political threat. These days you are accused of sexual misconduct.

    Thing is I am aware of several cases of deliberate allegations which were untrue. For example there was a Uni Lecturer accused of molesting a student. The University went to water and was all ready to suspend the guy. then (lucky for him) he found travel records showing he was out of town on the day in question.

    Now I m not for an instant saying that Moore is not guilty. I do not know, but in rushing to condemn him you are behaving like the women of Salem.

    Mind you I am not up with the details and if he really did attempt to rape a girl and was banned from the mall etc, then yeah lock him up (or knacker him or both)

  45. dtt
    From my limited reading, I believe the women are telling the truth but he hasn’t even been charged yet. It’s not so much he should get the benefit of the doubt; I’ve read plenty of books about people in his situation who turned out to be guilty but there have also been a few who were innocent. It’s not black and white.

  46. If that is the full extent of Hannity’s comment then I agree with it. But then he would have to apply that presumption of innocence across the board to all his pronouncements about people to be given any regard for saying it.

  49. We had a very interesting speaker at our local Labor branch this evening. The speaker was Dr Anne O’Neil (google her), a survivor of a multiple murder. She talked about inter-personal violence, PTSD, public silence, education, recovery from trauma, blame and politics and the under-regard of the knowledge and capacity of victims. She’s a great thinker and exponent of change.

    I think she’s one of the best voices I’ve heard.

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