Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

Essential Research closes its account for the year by recording a slight improvement in the Coalition’s position, and a generally more positive outlook than in recent years.

The final Essential Research result for 2017 (actually released yesterday, but who’s keeping score at this time of year) has the Coalition gaining a point on two-party preferred for the second week in a row, reducing the Labor lead to 53-47. They’re also up two on the primary vote to 37%, with Labor steady on 38%, the Greens down one to 9% and One Nation steady on 7%.

Essential closes the year with a particularly interesting series of supplementary findings, one of which is that only 29% approve of tax cuts to medium and large businesses, with 54% opposed. On political donations, overwhelming support is recorded for immediate disclosure of donations (84% versus 6%) and politicians’ meetings with companies donors and unions (82% versus 5%), very strong support for a ban on foreign donations (67% to 16%), capping donations at $5000 (59% to 20%) and banning donations from companies and unions (58% to 22%), but opposition to banning donations altogether and replacing them with public funding (30% to 50%).

Another series of generalised questions on how things have been going over the past year suggest Australians are feeling a good deal more positive than they have at any time since this annual series began in 2013. In particular, there are greatly improved perceptions on the state of the economy; neutral but improved ones on respondents’ personal financial situations; greatly improved, but still somewhat negative ones on how “the average Australian” has fared; and a view on “Australian politics in general” that remains highly negative, but is still greatly improved. Included for the first time is a question on “the planet”, with 20% consider to have had a good year versus 42% for bad.

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.

2,526 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

Comments Page 5 of 51
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  2. EdwardJWHunter: “What happened has stunned electricity industry insiders and given food for thought over the near to medium term future of the grid, such was the rapid response of the Tesla big battery to an event that happened nearly 1,000km away.”

    Apparently Victoria was saved from a blackout by the South Australian Tesla Battery.

  5. Oh Dear.
    Coal generation units dying like flies. That’s four in a week.

    A 700MW unit at the Eraring coal fired power station in New South Wales tripped on Monday afternoon, taking to four the number of big coal units that have failed without warning in less than a week.

    The failure of the Eraring unit at 6pm on Monday follows unexpected trips at of a 420MW unit at Milmerran in Queensland on Tuesday, a 700MW unit at Mt Piper in NSW on Wednesday, and a 560MW unit at Loy Yang A (unit 3) in Victoria on Thursday.

    The Mt Piper unit remains out of service, due to tube leaks, along with a 420MW unit at Liddell (out for six months due to turbine blade issues), and lingering problems at another 560MW unit (Unit 1) at Loy Yang A, which has been out for more than a month since tripping in early November.

    It means that, aside from the unexpected trips, the equivalent of another Hazlewood power plant (more in fact) is out of service and unavailable as the summer heat intensifies.

    http://reneweconomy.com.au/intermittent-another-big-coal-unit-trips-thats-four-week-47037/

  7. JFC

    … in the coastal rocks near Inverloch, south-east of Melbourne, a meat eating dinosaur left its mark 115 million years ago.

    The footprint, frozen in time in the Bunurong Marine Park at Flat Rocks, is recognised as a site of international significance.

    But last month, park rangers discovered vandals had taken a hammer to the footprint at the Dinosaur Dreaming site, one of the few polar, or ice-age, dinosaur sites in the world.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-20/dinosaur-footprint-damaged-by-vandals-inverloch/9275060

  9. Furthermore the maximum rental assistance is based on a fortnightly rent of $295.93 ($147.965 a week). Try finding a place to rent for less than $150 a week in any major town or city.

    It was recently found (ACOSS I think) that of the hundreds of properties (flats, houses, etc) advertised as being available to rent, there was only 1 that a person on any type of government payment could afford to live in.

    1.

    One.

    Singular.

  10. MikeCarlton01: Julia Gillard’s sex life was open slather for the media – not least in that atrociously shitty little ABC-TV show ‘At Home with Julia.’ Strange, then, that a heavy silence cloaks Barnaby the Bonking Beetroot. Double standards ?

  11. Good Afternoon Bludgers ฅ’ω’ฅ

    Much as I would like to do my bit for the world this afternoon and turn the air conditioning up a couple of degrees, I am turning Conservative for the rest of the day until the cool change comes through, and so I won’t.

    Too. Bleeding. Hot. Out. There.

    #weatheronPB

  13. New Agriculture Minister David Littleproud … for 20 years prior to politics a ‘rural banker’ with NAB and Suncorp.

    An ‘ideal’ pro-big banks placement in Cabinet while a RC into the banks is underway.

  14. Guytaur,
    Remember also the behind the hand slurs about Julia that questioned her sexuality and alluded to Tim being her ‘beard’, just so she could become PM?

    Yet not one Liberal has ever been outed or aspersions cast.

  17. Cat

    Yes. I remember that. Its the exact same bigotry on display we saw during the Marriage Equality debate.

    Facts and truth don’t matter to bigots.

  18. CTar1,
    I also heard last night that Littleproud is related to Chris Stone, the NSW Public Servant who was stood down over the MDB water theft.

    And guess who is our new federal Water Minister? His cousin.

  19. …students have, as long as I can remember, shared houses. My sons have been paying $125 and $150 a week (this year). It’s not hard to find a rental property for $450 a week (3 students) or $600 (four). (I just searched Box Hill, for example, and found four four bedroom residences for $600 or less.

  20. Guytaur,
    Facts and truth don’t matter to the Coalition! That’s where the slurs originate.

    Like Barnaby, just shoulder charge your way to victory.

  22. guytaur @ #202 Wednesday, December 20th, 2017 – 11:47 am

    EnviroVic: Woah…when a Victorian power station tripped last Thursday, the big Tesla battery in SA jumped to the rescue in milliseconds. envict.org/2BHnlBn

    pbs.twimg.com/card_img/942932522467336193/M7Br4BMe?format=jpg&name=800×419

    You mean mechanical devices are unreliable and solid-state technology works as advertised? Quelle surprise!

  23. Zoomster

    Sharing a house with friends is a viable option, especially if the student gets a living away from home allowance. Of course, if you study in the same city where you reside, it is not such a good move. Better off staying at the family residence.

    Also, families in most situations don’t share housing with other families. And if a landlord approved of such a situation, it would need to be a large residence where the rental cost is high anyway.

    Housing costs whether via renting or mortgage, is a huge impost If unemployed for any length of time.

  25. Steve777

    It certainly was. I often think about everything that has occurred under this coalition govt. if even a minuscule of that occurred under JGillard, it would have been on for young and old

  26. Andrew_Earlwood @ #63 Wednesday, December 20th, 2017 – 6:37 am

    I assume that – all things being equal (and in politics they never are) – that 53/47 2PP now will likely translate into 51/49 in an actual election. Therefore we can forget about seats like Bennelong and half a dozen WA seats that are allegedly in play.

    On a 51/49 National 2PP breakdown the election will be decided in seats like Forde, Flynn, Pitrie and Capricornia in Qld; Robertson, Banks, Reid and Gilmore in NSW, Chisholm and Dunkley in Victoria and probably only Hasluck and one other in WA. All of these are likely to prove difficult to shift from the LNP column to Labor. I also think that Batman and Melbourne Ports are gone for all money. Therefore Labor will need to pick up 8 out of the 12 I’ve listed above to form a majority Governemnt. In its favour is the ferocious grass roots campaign network it can deploy. Against Labor is the personal popularity of the local LNPs (at least that is a factor in most cases, but with the likes of Sudmalis … not so much).

    Obviously, if Truffles’ tin ear for politics continues to reek havoc Labor may likely keep its 53/47 lead and it’ll be all over red rover. But against that is a generally strengthening of the economy and an increased sense of optimism in the community – which the above Essential Poll has tapped into. That may be enough to save Truffles despite his own best efforts to sabotage his own Government. …

    I’ve been on the ground campaigning in Pearce (which has a southern and western border with Hasluck) and Porter is in trouble here. Pre-selections are complete and our campaign to take Pearce starts early in the new year.

    The demographics of Pearce have Porter in trouble. While geographically large, the seat has two geographically separate major and rapidly growing metropolitan population centres, and a very spread out rural population. Weight of population between metropolitan and rural, combined with rapid outer metropolitan growth will cost Porter the seat. The big unknown is the impact of the land mine laid by Brian Trumbles postal vote farce, which added just over 1,000 voters to the roll.

    I live in the more southern metropolitan population centre and we ran a massive field campaign during the state election, and will be giving Porter a repeat dose in the run-up to the next Federal election. Based on the last election, we need to shift 3,156 votes.

  29. Richard Di Natale‏Verified account @RichardDiNatale
    23m23 minutes ago
    What a thoughtful Secret Santa gift from a member of the team.
    :large

  30. In an utterly cooked development, Centrelink is demanding a Tasmanian woman repay welfare payments after it decided to retroactively recognise her 2016 wedding after marriage equality was legalised in the country.

    Centrelink has sent requests and invoices to the unnamed woman demanding she repay $6,600, after she declared that she got married in 2016. Centrelink decided to recognise the marriage and declare she was ineligible to receive family payments even though the wedding occurred overseas and was not legal in Australia at the time.

    https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/centrelink-demanding-woman-repay-welfare-after-ssm/

  32. grimace:

    There was news the other day of a factional battle for Labor’s candidate in Hasluck. Apparently Michelle Roberts wants to parachute some old former state MP into the seat, whereas the other side want a younger woman as the candidate, but she hasn’t long lived in WA (or something).

    Do you have any inside goss?

  33. …I realise it sounds like I’m arguing that welfare payments are high enough. I’m not. But I am making the point that not all welfare recipients are struggling. Generalising like that is not helpful – if people know something is untrue from their own experience, they stop listening.

    Gillard’s government made a lot of changes to student welfare which delivered real benefits, particularly for rural/regional students (and although some of these have been eroded, comparatively my sons are better off than I was when I was at Uni — I didn’t get rent assistance, for example).

    It’s been a few years since I was on welfare payments (technically I was on unemployment benefits this year, but I think I received a grand total of $50 over three months…) so I can’t comment on that.

  36. guytaur

    So she was living as a de facto. Part of removing discrimination against gay couples meant that Centrelink payments recognised gay de facto relationships, paying those couples the partnered rate (which is less than individual rates). So Centrelink asking her to cough up has nothing to do with the legalisation of her marriage, but their realisation that she was part of a couple, not a single.

  39. TPG is the latest provider have to compensate over poor Fraudband Speeds.

    Why the fuck does the industry have to fork out something for a government policy ?

    And why Labor has not made this more of an issue?

  40. Confessions @ #230 Wednesday, December 20th, 2017 – 10:29 am

    grimace:

    There was news the other day of a factional battle for Labor’s candidate in Hasluck. Apparently Michelle Roberts wants to parachute some old former state MP into the seat, whereas the other side want a younger woman as the candidate, but she hasn’t long lived in WA (or something).

    Do you have any inside goss?

    No inside goss as I’m a nobody, Lauren Palmer is the candidate for Hasluck after edging out Bill Leadbetter, who was the unsuccessful candidate in the 2016 election.

  41. There is no such thing as 53-47 will translate to 51-49 in an election. ALP primary vote is up 2-3 points while LNP down 5-7. Greens vote steady or down half a point. There are 20+ marginal seats for LNP. Also distribution of boundaries will most likely be beneficial to ALP with new seats in Victoria and ACT.

    Macro economy might be good but I am not sure how much that counts for this day and age.

  45. Zoomster

    Yes. Good outcomes were made for rural regional students etc.
    But from everything I have gleaned about Newstart payments, I think it is next to impossible to survive well on these payments for any length of time.

  48. guytaur says:
    Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at 1:51 pm
    SMH has article up now about Cash if you want to avoid Newscorpse.

    Pity there are no comments allowed. I guess it is a litigious subject.

  49. choiceaustralia: Do you have this pressure cooker at home?

    CHOICE has found six people were left with serious injuries from a faulty pressure cooker sold from #ALDI: goo.gl/vJV595 pic.twitter.com/otbpfgIj83

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