Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor

Essential Research polls on early election prospects and the next stage of same-sex marriage, and records little change on voting intention.

The latest Essential Research result appears to have Labor leading 54-46 (it says 52% to 46% in the report, but it also says there is no change). GhostWhoVotes was somehow able to relate that the primary votes were Coalition 35% (down one), Labor 38% (steady), Greens 9% (steady) and One Nation 8% (steady). The poll finds 47% saying the government should run its full term, compared with 37% who favour an early election. Thirty-six per cent said they expected Labor to win the next election, compared with 20% for the Coalition, and 18% for a hung parliament.

The poll also found 63% of the view that marriage celebrants should be allowed to refuse to officiate at same-sex weddings, with 27% opposed. Other related issues were finely balanced: 48% opposed the notion that businesses should have the right to refuse service to gay weddings, while 43% supported it; 42% supported parents being able to remove their children from classes that did not reflect a traditional view of marriage, while 44% were opposed.

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.

1,860 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor”

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  2. When were Waters and Ludlam first advised that they might be unconsititutional?

    Was it well before the date that they finally outed themselves?

    Will the AFP investigate them for making a false stat dec, which is a crime?

    Will they pay back their pay?

    Will they refuse their Super?

  3. greens approach on the RET was similar to that on Malaysia for AS proposed by Gillard, totally rejected that too.

    wasnt perfect, but would have led to some AS getting processed and order, but greens wanted all in 100-150k a year, instead got zero under abbott.

    at times the greens mirror what howard told abbott, if labor propose a good policy counter it with that only the lnp can properly implement it and destroy distort it, as with the NBN to demonstrate this.

    greens do similar with labor policies, oppose it on the grounds only greens solution is right, all in or zero, no credit to labor, push people to greens, but they risk pushing them away instead.

  4. Good Morning

    I see the usual suspects are going hammer and tongs on Green v Labor.

    I suspect a few trying to resist the inevitable change.

    Just as Labor is not perfect so it is with the Green.

    Part of the problem is there are some Labor people still prattling the myth that the Greens did something wrong by not being in lock step with Labor all the way.

    This is why the cries of betrayal. These same people deny facts like the Greens helping Labor get worlds best legislation on climate change into place.

    These same people blame the Greens for a lack of trust.
    These same people then go on about the Greens for not supporting a Labor policy on immigration when it was the direct opposite of the Greens immigration policy.

    These same people indeed claim the Greens will never be in government so are irrelevant.
    Despite the fact, the Greens are in government in several jurisdictions around the world including some in Australia.

    The fear of a minor party that is never going to form a government is palpable.

    Never is a very long time.

    I think its also clear the Greens could not do a worse job than the current LNP catering to the hard right.

    The party that is the real enemy of progressives.
    The party that solely has the blame for the mess that is today’s immigration policy. I agree with that of the Greens, however, I do see why Labor has its policy. I think Labor at the moment in its silence is being complicit all because of a fear of being seen as soft on people smugglers.

    The only reason this wedge works is due to the perception of Western Sydney. As we saw with the Marriage Equality vote that perception is true to some extent. However it’s not usually at play in elections even in those electorates when Labor is strong on the issue which it has not been since Rudd caved over the Tampa issue.

    A lot of people have fallen back into old habits that Australia is somehow a conservative country. We know from polling and the Marriage Equality vote this is not true.

    Victoria once the conservative jewel in the crown of the LNP has been shown to be Australia’s most progressive state. With those that are behind not that far behind.

    The reason Mr Shorten is ahead in the polls is Labor is appealing to that progressive side of politics just as Mr Rudd did. The disappointment came when Mr Rudd could not be as progressive as he should have been.

    Look at the desperate ditching of fact based evidence the media had to go to in support of an opposition now our government and see the inevitable results.

    The lesson is the failure here is not appealing to progressive voters. The lesson is Labor could never go to the right and debase itself by ditching evidence and morality and ethics to win an election. The others just beat you.

    There is a very very good reason a Federal ICAC is popular with voters.

    There is a very good reason most voted yes in the ME campaign.
    There is very good reason most back Assisted Dying Laws

    Being progressive is a Labor strength as it stands for decency fairness and better outcomes for the Australian people.
    The same goes for the Greens no matter if you think they are ineffective or whatever.

    The right is seeking to impose the US style of dog eat dog Darwinism as economic policy despite all the evidence to the contrary. This backed up by a media that actively campaigns against progressive politics and loves nothing better than to push divisions between Labor and the Greens but minimises worse divisions on the right.

    Don’t lose sight of this basic core fact in your attempt to appeal to the centre. The centre is not where we are told day after day after day after day it is.

    One reason I think Mr Shorten is going to be a great Prime Minister is he can see this fact.
    Labor is in the centre already. The LNP is in freefall. this is the right time for Labor to be moving to the left exactly as Mr Shorten has been doing.

    As a result, the Green polling has fallen. Its certainly not helped the LNP.

  5. dont agree with bw idea of informal voting as it can be argued to do so at any election which is why I voted for libs in 2013.
    understand why they put krazy kev back in for party political reasons, greens were on the nose playing games so abbott was only sane choice.

  6. Bushfire Bill @ #1457 Thursday, November 23rd, 2017 – 4:20 am

    Who was the bastard that linked to the guy with the steam-powered rocket who’s trying to prove the Earth is flat?

    You knew I’d click on the YouTube links, didn’t you?

    And you KNEW I’d follow the links further right up to the video where they said that if the Earth was round then airline pilots would be dipping their noses every 5 minutes to account for the curvature.

    And you absolutely knew that they’d interview a Delta Airlines pilot who swore he’d never had to dip his nose in 25 years of flying… DIDN’T YOU?

    Come to think of it, that pilot’s right. The Earth is now flat by my reckoning.

    I’m off to watch videos on Trickle Down economics. That theory’s got a lot going for it.

    Actually a cruising aircraft maintaining an altitude has to constantly dip its nose to avoid climbing, but this has nothing to do with the Earth’s curvature, it’s because the aircraft becomes lighter as it burns its fuel.

    Long haul pilots like to make use of this to climb slowly to a new altitude, the action is called a cruise climb and doesn’t require any additional thrust or the loss of ground speed associated with other methods of climbing.

  7. Boris Thursday, November 23rd, 2017 – 10:20 am Comment #1495

    [Super started at 3% under Keating and has grown to 9.5 with labors aim of 15%, I feel if the greens had had a say in super in the early years it would still be stuck in parliament with the greens insisting they would not support it unless it started at 15%.]

    I don’t recall where the Greens have been in the debate on ‘Super’ but bearing in mind the Liberal Party’s ongoing support for the private superannuation industry (i.e. the banks) and their ongoing whinge about the ever increasing cost of social security why are the Liberals not pressing for increases in the basic superannuation rate for workers to relieve pressure on the pensions component of the social security budget in the future?

  8. England with 4 quicks and a spinner and a part-time medium pacer.

    Australia with 3 quicks (with history of injuries) and a spinner and two batsmen coming into game with ‘soreness’.

    I am tipping – draw.

  9. Ides of March says:
    Thursday, November 23, 2017 at 7:53 am
    Things comments on this site rarely delivers

    Unbiased commentary on the Liberal Party

    Unbiased commentary on the National Party

    Unbiased commentary on the Labor Party

    Unbiased commentary on The Greens

    Unbiased commentary on all the politicial parties.

    Not a problem. You are the self styled expert. Show us how it is done!

  10. Boris says:
    Thursday, November 23, 2017 at 10:51 am

    It’s not in the interests of the G’s to each agreements with Labor on anything much at all. Their goals are served by standing away from Labor. They can campaign on points of difference, not on agreement. The creation of difference – the use of decoy tactics – is necessary for G survival.

    This means the substantial effects of policies are not important in themselves and, as a result, good policy can go up in smoke.

  11. Oh goody P Duddy will be able to “accessorize” Truffles’BOO! with his Blackshirts

    New security and terror threats facing our nation will be outlined by @TurnbullMalcolm later today. #9Today pic.twitter.com/YzhINTwYBZ

    — The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) November 22, 2017

  12. Once you get to the edge the pilot has to finagle the plane around the edge and then fly upside down on the far side so that the coffee does not spill out of your plastic cups and make a mess on your tray.

    Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Just shows how much YOU know BW.

    There is a massive ice field circling the flat earth, with cliffs thousands of feet high. This stops the oceans from leaking out and serves as a barrier that ships can’t get past.

    “The Government” makes sure that the few mariners who actually see these precipitous cliffs report only that they strayed into either an Arctic or Antarctic ice sheet.

    The ones who impress me are those who claim that not only is the Earth flat, but that the sun and all other planets, stars and galaxies revolve around the central pancake.

    When I say “sun” I mean a flat disc that emits light,not to be confused with the “moon”, which is another flat disk that emits other light.

    Haven’t you ever wondered why the moon so precisely eclipses the sun when it passes in front of it?Eh? Have you?

    It’s because they are the same size, both flat, and move in such a complicated manner that they can only have been set in motion by A Superior Being (probably God, but it could be aliens too… debate rages within the Flat Earth society on this point).

    You may scoff at all this. Indeed, others scoff too. When our Steam-Powered Rocket Man ran an on-line Go-Fund-Me campaign to raise $150,000 , “The Government” nobbled it. He only received $350. Hardly enough to buy the distilled water he uses for steam, much less the firewood needed to heat it up. But he persisted and managed to fly about 400 metres. Imagine how far he’d have made it if he’d got the whole $150-grand!

    It’s all here…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3feaiPcv6yE

    Once Mad Mike recovered from his injuries, he was straight back in the saddle.

    One wonders whether he mightn’t be the perfect PHON candidate?

  13. BarnsGreg: #Manus Dutton’s comments today are fueling hatred, violence and the media I have spoken to internationally is shaking its collective head in disbelief at his conduct.

  18. why are the Liberals not pressing for increases in the basic superannuation rate for workers to relieve pressure on the pensions component of the social security budget in the future?

    lnp line is business cant afford it CTar1.

    main lnp objection is that it gives workers control over their future and tax breaks that were exclusive to the privileged, but also takes money from their other mates.

    previously had to be invited to join the company super fund, it was a sign that you had “made it”.

    also Industry super funds take money from struggling financial advisers and insurance companies. Insurance options through Industry super funds are far better and cost effective than outside those funds, way better.

  22. sallymcmanus: Whilst we encourage all Australians to go back to eating Streets ice cream, I would not want this to be seen as an endorsement for having ice cream for breakfast #workersunitedwillneverbedefeated twitter.com/unionsaustrali…

  24. Bakunin at 8.55 am:

    Thanks for the link. A thought-provoking read.

    Your conclusion: [In other words the Australian Greens were the result of the inability to make progress, not the cause.] is not entirely obvious to me.

    First, the article goes to some pains to support the Boerwar thesis that prior to the Greens, environmental interests were listened to within both major parties – as a means of attracting swinging voters. Thus environmental issues: uranium mining; Franklin Dam; etc were important election issues as referred to.

    Secondly, although it is true the article refers to the hostility of Keating towards environmentalists that you quote, the source of the quote (a paper written by Dr Joan Staples) has this to say at p.11:

    “The rise of the Australian Greens as a national political party also played a part in Keating’s
    anti-environment stance. Throughout the 1980s, various state-based Green parties contested
    state and local elections, at times with significant success, as when the Green Independents
    gained the balance of power in Tasmania in 1989. However, it was August 1992 that the
    national Australian Greens emerged as a political party (Lohrey 2002, 35), and it was the
    1993 election at which the nationally federated Australian Greens first contested seats in the
    Parliament of Australia.”

    It might have been as if Boewar had written it.

    I reach 2 conclusions. First that Keating’s opposition to environmental issues was undoubtedly a catalyst (cause) to environmentalists forming the Greens political party .

    Secondly, that upon the environmental movement being captured by a political party (the Greens) the political advantage to the ALP in advancing its environmental policies, retrograde as they have often been, as being better than those of the LNP was able to be damaged on 2 sides. On the one side for destroying jobs, investment etc and on the other for not doing nearly enough. This has meant that it has been politically better for the ALP to be neutral environmentally and this is precisely how Keating seems to have reacted.

    Without the Greens as an alternative environmentalists would have had to concentrate their efforts on changing ALP policy (or LNP policy) where, given the bilateral nature of our political system, the effective decision-making power resides. It may be that in a future world the Greens become an important political player (in policy implementation terms) where changing a Greens environment policy might have relevant implications for Australian governance. But that aint now.

  27. Arrogant liar.

    Peter Dutton says only the difference between the Manus Island detention centre and the alternate accommodation, which some asylum seekers don’t want to move to, is they’ll have to cook their own meals, rather than “à la carte service at the current centre”.

  28. Ides of March says:
    Thursday, November 23, 2017 at 11:18 am
    Don

    I am not calling myself ubiased at all.

    That must make bias very hard to detect, then!

  29. Zoomster:

    Now here’s a project to get behind!!

    http://www.sciencealert.com/man-launch-himself-in-homemade-rocket-to-prove-earth-is-flat

    So, just to check that I’m understanding here. This genius, who freely admits that he “still (has) much to learn about rocket science” and that he’s “really behind the eight ball” on “this whole tech thing”, is building a homemade steam-powered rocket, so that he can prove the earth is flat at an altitude of… 500 metres?

    Is he not aware that the standard cruising altitude of a commercial plane is about twenty times higher than that? Or that many skyscrapers also reach higher than 500 metres? He could achieve the same thing by hopping in an elevator or booking the plane ticket – it would a lot cheaper, and his loved ones won’t have to suffer through what would have to be a truly awkward and embarrassing funeral.

    Then again, I’m not sure why I’m still expecting anything even vaguely resembling logic from these morons.

  31. BW, I still can’t come to grips with the crackpots who believe this stuff.

    I keep thinking that it has to be a joke.

    That would also go for ‘Trickle Down’ economics and a befief that tax cuts for big business would create jobs.

  33. MrDenmore: The @AusFedPolice seem to spend to prefer terrorising refugees, unionists & public interest whistleblowers than fighting crime and corruption at the highest levels

  34. BB & BW,

    Anyone with a brain knows full that the world is a disc atop four elephants which stand on top of a giant turtle floating through space.

  35. CloverMoore: @1petermartin Health experts, economic experts, politicians, transport planners, engineers…all questioning WestConnex. When will the Premier admit she got it wrong?

  36. guytaur,

    ” Yes Minister ” on more than one occasion made the point that the best way to cover up a leak and the identity of the leaker is to have a internal enquiry.

    Cheers.

  39. Bushfire Bill:

    BW, I still can’t come to grips with the crackpots who believe this stuff.

    I keep thinking that it has to be a joke.

    Until very recently, I had just assumed flat-earthers were all trolls who were in on the joke. I was mildly stunned when I discovered that they are people in 2017 who genuinely, unironically believe this stuff.

  40. “JulieBishopMP denies she made the cabinet leak and calls for a formal investigation. ”

    Until Bishop denies her staff were the sources of the leak she is denying nothing.

    Just ask Michaelia Cash.

  42. Windhover

    Add in to that that environmental activists have left the majors for the Greens, so the internal pressure to deal with environmental issues has been lessened. This is particularly unfortunate for Labor, as it left the field open for unions who had a vested interest in keeping their people in jobs (not blaming them for that) – timber millers, coal miners, etc – without a balancing view…I was told more than once that a policy position I was putting forward would be voted down on the floor of Conference if I didn’t modify it.

  44. zoomster

    This is particularly unfortunate for Labor, as it left the field open for unions who had a vested interest in keeping their people in jobs (not blaming them for that) – timber millers, coal miners, etc – without a balancing view

    Amen to that. It has led to a number of unimaginative ‘solutions’.

  45. I’ve been thinking about Boer’s observations. There’s a lot of sense to them.

    The Gs, by directing prefs to Labor, help elect Labor candidates instead of Libs or Nats. This gives the LNP practical reasons to denounce the Gs and the themes or values that G’s promote or with which they seek to identify themselves. If anything, the more success the Gs have had, the less the LNP have been willing to adopt pro-environment politics of any kind. Even stranger, the LNP have really tried to make political capital out of anti-environmental positions. LNP/G differentiation goes a lot further than environmental matters, of course, and this is driven by something they have in common – by their need to attract voting support away from Labor.

    So what we have is the most historically successful electoral array in Australian politics – the LNP, in its various iterations – is firmly positioned against environmentally friendly politics/policies/themes/values. This has served the environment as well as other values particularly badly.

  46. Asha Leu says:
    Thursday, November 23, 2017 at 11:22 am
    Zoomster:

    Now here’s a project to get behind!!

    I read this as self-parody. It is hilariously daft.

  48. briefly @ #1542 Thursday, November 23rd, 2017 – 7:41 am

    I’ve been thinking about Boer’s observations. There’s a lot of sense to them.

    The Gs, by directing prefs to Labor, help elect Labor candidates instead of Libs or Nats. This gives the LNP practical reasons to denounce the Gs and the themes or values that G’s promote or with which they seek to identify themselves. If anything, the more success the Gs have had, the less the LNP have been willing to adopt pro-environment politics of any kind. Even stranger, the LNP have really tried to make political capital out of anti-environmental positions. LNP/G differentiation goes a lot further than environmental matters, of course, and this is driven by something they have in common – by their need to attract voting support away from Labor.

    So what we have is the most historically successful electoral array in Australian politics – the LNP, in its various iterations – is firmly positioned against environmentally friendly politics/policies/themes/values. This has served the environment as well as other values particularly badly.

    Add to that, the seats where the Greens are in play to win are predominately Labor seats.

  49. http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-fake-economics-cookbook-how-to-make-bad-transport-projects-look-good-20171121-gzqd3x.html

    But the biggest fudge is the simplest. It’s what you choose to compare. By not comparing the costs and benefits of the (much) cheaper rail alternatives to those of WestConnex or the Sydney F6 Extension, the government made their figures look good – but good compared to what? Economics is about choices. Studies that don’t examine choices are neither economic nor meaningful.

    Each of Australia’s two biggest states is engaging in an unprecedented transport spending spree, often with the help of willing partners in the finance industry hungry for access to tolls. Neither can demonstrate convincingly that it is getting value for money.

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