Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor; Newspoll: 50-50 in Bennelong

Labor records an unexpectedly strong showing in a Newspoll from Bennelong, and maintains a big national lead from Essential – although the latter also records a lift in Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings.

The Australian has a Newspoll survey of Bennelong ahead of this Saturday’s by-election, and while the sample is a very modest 529, the results area a turn-up: a 50-50 tie on two-party preferred and a 39% tie on the primary vote, with the Greens on 9%, Australian Conservatives on 7%, the Christian Democratic Party on 2% and others on 4%. The two-party total would appear to be based on an allocation of at least 80% of Australian Conservatives and Christian Democratic Party preferences to the Liberals, presumably based on the latter’s preference flow in 2016. By contrast, The Australian reported last week that Liberal internal polling had them with a 54-46 lead.

Courtesy of The Guardian, the latest reading of the Essential Research fortnight rolling average has Labor’s national two-party lead at 54-46, down from 55-45. However, the monthly leadership ratings record a substantial improvement for Malcolm Turnbull, who is up four on approval to 41% and down five on disapproval to 44%, while Bill Shorten is up a point to 36% and down there to 45%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister increases from 40-28 to 42-28. Other questions related in The Guardian involve sexual harassment and energy policy. More on this, along with primary vote numbers, when Essential publishes its report later today.

YouGov-Forty Acres: 50-50

The relatively volatile YouGov series for Fifty Acres is at 50-50 this fortnight, after Labor recorded a rare 53-47 lead last time. As usual though, this is based on very strong respondent-allocated preferences to the Coalition. The primary votes look relatively normal this time, with Labor up three on the primary vote to 35%, the Coalition up two to 34%, the Greens up one to 11%, One Nation down three to 8% and the rest down three to 13%. Other questions include a finding that 40% think Malcolm Turnbull should “stand down and let someone else take over”, compared with 39% who say he should remain.

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.

1,497 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor; Newspoll: 50-50 in Bennelong”

Comments Page 7 of 30
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  2. I didn’t watch Q&A, but the best takeaway of the event seems to be the one Murdoch ran with. That he is an arrogant arse who confuses winning an argument with addressing an issue. He just couldn’t resist scoring points with the questioners.

    EDIT: The Murdoch press that is.

  3. @ChkChkChk….I have screenshot to demonstrate… but I have no idea how to upload an image………

    You can go to a site like imgur.com…..https://imgur.com/

    create an account…it is free…upload to your account….then select your image…copy the code for that photo…and paste here.

  5. By contrast, The Australian reported last week that Liberal internal polling had them with a 54-46 lead.

    Liberal internal polling? A quick straw poll of the Liberal Party Bennelong volunteers perhaps?

  6. Maude
    “Careful, your latent racism is showing, Edwina.”

    There’s nothing latent about Edwina’s racism.

    It’s nice to have her back. She took a well-earned break after handing out One Nation fliers in the Qld election. Very tiring work.

  7. SK,

    Yes, I would trust Newspoll before internal poll leaking any day.

    From memory, most of the seat polling was too kind to the L-NP at the last federal election. But also from memory, that was mainly Reachtel.

  8. Saw the BBC item re the reporter trying to escape the spy cameras (CCTV) in a Chinese provincial city. He was found in about 10 minutes by the look of it. As he said ruefully, the 6-7 cops who surrounded him at the bus station did not seem to be in on the joke. The Chinese company manufacturing this gear passed all this off as “If you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.” Seem to have heard this line somewhere before. According to the item some million(s) of these spy cameras are to be used in China……….this city was just a test to see if it worked. The secret is the ability of the camera to match face recognition from identity cards to the data base……..good to see democracy still doing so well in China………….Oh, but wait, don’t CCTV cameras infest a lot of the public areas in the UK at the moment?

  10. Grimace,

    Regarding your Bennelong prediction list, mine was KK by 1 vote, but I guess that’s hard to translate into your list so don’t worry about it 🙂

  12. Oh, but wait, don’t CCTV cameras infest a lot of the public areas in the UK at the moment?

    Yes, yes, keep going that way and soon you be buying gold bullion and burying it in the Bungle Bungles with tins of beans and a hunting bow.

  14. Labor should replace Dastyari with an incredibly smart and intelligent and hard-working and credible woman.

    It is a pity she is wasted on Bennelong.

  17. @ Boewar, she may not be. IF she loses the ballot on the weekend she should be a shoe-in for the senate.
    The Libs may well wish she had won.

  19. ChristineMilne: @chriskkenny The Liberal Party is kowtowing to the Chinese Govt at its fundraiser in WA. A Chinese Govt rep at every table. #auspol

  22. ChristineMilne: @samdastyari resignation, political donations, foreign policy influence and selective leaking make case for national ICAC yet again. #auspol

  23. C@tmomma @ #255 Tuesday, December 12th, 2017 – 11:29 am

    The ABC have truly become junkyard lapdogs of the Coalition. No sooner had Sam announced his resignation from the Senate than the ABC talking head had an interview with the Hong Kong Pro Democracy campaigner that Tanya Plibersek met, so as to try and dig more anti Labor dirt up.

    I don’t think that even the commercial TV networks were that pro-actively devious and scabrous.

    This is just absurd.
    Who he was and what he stood for were matters of current interest as was whether or not he had met Tanya Plibersek or anyone else.

  24. Have only caught part of Shorten’s presser right now, but he’s on fire in what I have seen so far. Coming as as very confident, articulate, and convincing.

  25. Oh, so the Perth news about the Chinese so-say at every Liberal table at a fund raiser for the defeated Liberal member for Perth at the recent State election is now making itself known a bit more widely now. I wonder why?

  26. booleanbach @ #257 Tuesday, December 12th, 2017 – 11:32 am

    Obviously the You Gov people did not like the look of the Galaxy research always finding a 4 point higher difference favouring the ALP between the two polls. Now they can fix that and bring the polls back to 50:50 just in time to save Malcolm from 30 negative Newspolls in a row

    Another absurdity.
    Do you really think any organisation striving to establish their reputation and legitimacy would do that?
    What is their stake in Turnbull’s future?

  28. lizzie @ #159 Tuesday, December 12th, 2017 – 7:05 am

    Well, we all know why. Is Alexander so naive?

    Last week, it emerged that a former close adviser to Mr Huang, Tim Xu, was working on the campaign of Liberal candidate John Alexander in Bennelong.

    Mr Alexander said he never spoke to Mr Xu.

    “We’ve got 600 volunteers, he was one of them,” he said.

    “I read about it in the paper and by the time I read about it, he was no longer with us.”

    He said he did not know why Mr Xu was no longer involved with his campaign.

    “I don’t know why he came, I don’t know why he left,” he said.

    Having 600 volunteers on his campaign sounds like a very optimistic assessment of the number of volunteers on his campaign. Looking at Alexander’s campaign pictures reveals nowhere near that number. I’d also be surprised if he hadn’t spoken with Mr Xu, even if only to thank him for volunteering on his campaign.

    Keneally, on the other hand, has an army of volunteers pictured in her campaign photos. I would be interested to see what the final count of voters that Keneally and her volunteer army had a one one one discussion with.

    Based on the 300 volunteers that went door knocking a couple of weeks ago, assuming they were out for 4 hours and 20% of people were home, gives 24,000 doors knocked on* and 4,800 actual one on one conversations with persuadable voters. In a single day.

    Between the door knocking which would be happening both days every weekend and probably most weekdays, and the phone banking, Labor is going to get very close to having had a one on one conversation with every persuadable voter in Bennelong.

    If Labor don’t win the by-election, it won’t be due to a lack of effort.

    * it depends on how spaced out the targeted houses are, 20 – 25 doors an hour when door knocking is about average

  31. .@samanthamaiden reports @TaraMoriarty and @mfullilove are in the running to replace @samdastyari in the Senate. More: bit.ly/2koJZUn

  34. You know, watching Keneally and Shorten speaking in tandem right now, I really don’t get the claims made by a certain poster here about Keneally somehow being a far better communicator than Shorten. Which isn’t to say that Keneally isn’t a strong performer – she is – but, on balance, I’m finding Shorten to definitely to be the stronger communicator here.

  45. For those of you with your knickers in a twist about the David Gillespie matter: today’s hearing is NOT to decide whether he’s disqualified; it’s to decide, among other things, whether a “common informer” action of the sort being brought against him by the Labor candidate can even allow the Court to disqualify him – as opposed to simply awarding the common informer the damages contemplated by s 46 of the Constitution. The reason there’s no coverage of the hearing is not a conspiracy: it’s just a very technical PRELIMINARY question of law that’s involved.

  46. TE

    Well thats news. Should be covered. Its not even anti LNP to ask. HC throwing it out would give more confidence to the LNP retaining numbers in HOR.

  47. Asha Leu says:
    Tuesday, December 12, 2017 at 1:07 pm
    You know, watching Keneally and Shorten speaking in tandem right now, I really don’t get the claims made by a certain poster here about Keneally somehow being a far better communicator than Shorten. Which isn’t to say that Keneally isn’t a strong performer – she is – but, on balance, I’m finding Shorten to definitely to be the stronger communicator here.

    I can’t remember the last time I saw Shorten use what I call his ‘story telling’ voice. He speaks much more naturally these days and can shift the intention of his tone more fluently (such as shifting from light hearted to making a serious point).

  48. @TE:For those of you with your knickers in a twist about the David Gillespie matter:”……….

    There’s a lot of knicker twisting going on here here at times…….lol Makes it interesting…..lol

  49. billshortenmp: Does he regret cutting your penalty rates? Nope.

    Does he regret cutting schools funding? Nope.

    Does he regret his dud NBN? Nope.

    Does he regret increasing middle class taxes, or giving multinationals a tax cut, or freezing Medicare? Nope, nope, nope. pic.twitter.com/8ogv1WvX0p

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