Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor

No change on voting intention from Essential Research, as respondents reject the government’s stance on company tax cuts.

No change this week on Essential Research’s two-party preferred result, which shows Labor maintaining a two-party lead of 54-46, although as usual we’ll have to wait until later today for primary votes. The pollster’s monthly leadership ratings find Malcolm Turnbull with 39% approval (up one) and 42% disapproval (down three), while Bill Shorten is on 33% approval (also up one) and 46% disapproval (also down three), and Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is 42-47, down from 42-25 last time. As related by The Guardian, the poll finds 72% supporting company tax cuts being made conditional on pay rises; more disagreeing than agreeing that company tax cuts would lead to higher wages without prompting; most disagreeing that penalty rate cuts would encourage companies to hire more workers. A series of questions on the proposed Adani coal mine found 48% saying it should be assessed on its economic and environmental merits, 22% saying coal mining in the Galilee basin should be banned, and 13% saying all mines should go ahead subject to environmental approvals.

UPDATE: Full report 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.

2,719 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. How bloody ironic that the exact thing that media ignored for months because it “wasn’t a public interest story” is the one thing in the evolving scandal that the PM has decided to try and put a stop to.

  2. @Rex Douglas

    This Govt is utterly dysfunctional.

    I think perhaps the next newspoll might trigger a change of PM and a ‘reset’ of Govt.

    You really think that all the current LNP rabble in Canberra needs is a new leader to become a functional government?

    Pray tell who you have in mind: The Corminator, Peter Dutton, Julie Bishop, Craig Laundy (pokies lover), Abbott, Scott Morrison, former refugee torturer and first Australian Federal Treasurer to believe in the prosperity gospel?

    And if you do not have an answer for this, you are so busted as an LNP type being a concern troll on a blog where the rest of us are trying to have sensible conversations about complex and nuanced matters.

  3. “Wayne says:
    Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 7:16 pm
    Who thinks that Barnaby Joyce should now resign from the nats leadership”

    Keep him there as long as possible. He and Malcolm are creating so much entertainment for the voters.

  4. @Wayne

    Michael korger says ALP will not be able to win the next election and I agree with what he says

    I admire your persistence, but you really need to use a spellchecker, or Google people’s names before posting, i you want anyone to take any notice of your posts. Unless o course you are looking for One Nation voters who have accidentally strayed to the website?

  5. D & M, I increasingly suspect that Rupe has given up on Malcolm and wants him gone. That’s because Rupert only respects winners and he can see that Malcolm stuffed up the last election and has lost about 27 newspolls in a row. It doesn’t matter that Malcolm is still the best option for the Libs. Rupe is a plunger. He takes big risks. He’s not interested in helping the Libs save the furniture. He wamts a new horse to ride. No wonder Malcolm is looking so drawn.

  6. Douglas and Milko @ #929 Thursday, February 15th, 2018 – 7:17 pm

    @Rex Douglas

    This Govt is utterly dysfunctional.

    I think perhaps the next newspoll might trigger a change of PM and a ‘reset’ of Govt.

    You really think that all the current LNP rabble in Canberra needs is a new leader to become a functional government?

    Pray tell who you have in mind: The Corminator, Peter Dutton, Julie Bishop, Craig Laundy (pokies lover), Abbott, Scott Morrison, former refugee torturer and first Australian Federal Treasurer to believe in the prosperity gospel?

    And if you do not have an answer for this, you are so busted as an LNP type being a concern troll on a blog where the rest of us are trying to have sensible conversations about complex and nuanced matters.

    wha ?

  7. Who thinks that Barnaby Joyce should now resign from the nats leadership

    Everyone who doesn’t want Bill Shorten to become PM.

    I want the fucker to stay forever.

  8. Emma Husar gets it:

    Emma Husar MP
    ‏@emmahusarmp
    10h10 hours ago
    When marriages break down @Barnaby_Joyce ppl move to shelters, with family or into a rental which they pay for. You earn $400k PA and lecture the rest of us on housing affordability while getting free rent. #integrity

  9. BK
    Lock him with a gang of rapists, tell them he secretly likes that sort of stuff and to go for it, and instruct Hart to sing ‘Nearer my God to Thee!’

  10. C@tmomma

    The AR-15 can be used for hunting, but the most popular calibre probably wouldn’t be legal in some states in the USA for hunting large animals. However, that’s not because of the rifle, but rather the calibre which might be considered too small for hunting large game. Note also that military rifles, and their derivatives, tend to be less accurate than civilian hunting rifles.

    I wouldn’t call an AR-15 the cousin of the M-16, I think brother would be more accurate.

    The part about cavitation applies to the round, not the rifle. That round, probably in this case the 5.56x45mm (or .223) as it is the most common and also used in the M-16, is also available for hunting rifles. I believe there are also AR-15 derivatives (AR-10?) chambered for 7.62x51mm. These are a much bigger round and what Australia used in Vietnam. Personally I wouldn’t like to be shot by either.

    The issue in America isn’t just the proliferation of these weapons. It’s also the fact that some seriously troubled individuals can even buy a firearm. I think a lot more people in the US are killed by handguns each year, although I guess that tends to be more your traditional criminal violence rather than mass shootings.

    Regardless, American needs serious reform in its gun laws, it’s politics and its society.

    Note, “running amok” appears to be the term used for these incidents by Malays and Indonesians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amok.

    Running amok, sometimes referred to as simply amok or gone amok, also spelled amuk, from the Malay and Indonesian languages, is “an episode of sudden mass assault against people or objects usually by a single individual following a period of brooding that has traditionally been regarded as occurring especially in Malay culture but is now increasingly viewed as psychopathological behavior”

  11. @Don and all

    PeeBee says:
    Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 6:44 pm
    Don, Guyra…… Rings a bell….. Something about a dam and a meteorite. Was that a hoax or did they find something?

    _____________________

    You’ve got a good memory! Not much news ever comes out of Guyra, except for jokes at the locals’ expense.

    #UFOsonPB

    http://www.unexplainedaustralia.com/25-ufo-s-aliens/86-the-guyra-dam-mystery

    ___________________________________________
    On the 8th of December 1999 a Unidentified flying object slammed into a dam in the small town of Guyra NSW. It is believed that the object hit the dam between Monday 6 December and midday, Wednesday 8 December. The object flattened the reeds in an area approximately 15 metres long by six metres wide which was discovered by a local council employee.

    Theories ran wild about what the object could have been from a UFO, space junk, a meteorite, a NASA probe back from Mars, frozen sewage or simply a hoax. The water supply was cut off to stop possible contamination as the dam is the towns only drinking water source.

    According to researchers the object had a 45 degree angle of entry, no-one in the town heard a sonic boom or explosion, the surface had burn marks, reeds were flattened but not broken, mud was splashed around the area and the object may have even skipped on the water before entering the dam.

    On Thursday, December 9, 1999, divers entered the lake behind the Guyra dam “to test for toxins or radioactive material.”

    On Friday 10 December, 1999

    Police divers finished their work in Guyra Dam. The divers recovered sediment and fragments believed to be from the object. The sediments were tested by geologists on-site and the geologists have advised police they believe sediment was from a small meteorite the size of a golf ball.

    The meteorite apparently penetrated the mud at the bottom of the dam and is now embedded about four metres into soft granite and is unable to be moved.

    You all have a good memory. I was on duty at a scientific facility in the general area when calls started coming in. There was the “green flash” accompanying the observed shooting star / fireball, so I quickly diagnosed it as a meteorite, one large enough to hit the Earth, albeit as a cricket ball sized object. The “green flash” occurs because the heat associated with the meteorite ionises oxygen molecules in the atmosphere, and when the electrons recombine, they give of light (photons) with a green colour.

    The local ABC got on to it quickly, and rang us. At the time they thought that from various observer’s reports, it probably made Earthfall near Armidale. I then kind of forgot about it, and so it is really interesting to hear that it was actually a golf-ball sized object, that landed in a dam near Guyra, with enough kinetic energy to penetrate soft granite to a depth of 4 m.

  12. I suppose better late than never:

    “Taken with Joyce’s non-selection for higher duties, Turnbull’s words amounted to a Clayton’s dismissal by a Prime Minister with limited options – the resignation you demand when you cannot literally demand a resignation due to the Coalition architecture.”

    http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/not-fit-to-lead-turnbull-has-punished-joyce-the-best-way-he-can-20180215-p4z0ge.html

    By the way, how can the Right possibly attack Labor’s factions when the Government and its “leader” are hogtied by a top-secret coalition agreement. No matter how big a bunch of drongos the Nationals are, the Prime Minister can’t sack or replace them.

  13. Would be nice to see Scullion show as much passion about his portfolio and Turnbulls response to the Uluru report as he showed for his disgraced mate in NE.

  14. “The whole thing is a cooling off period!”
    They need to make cold showers in the ministers offices mandatory before and after work.
    And perhaps bring back the chastity belt.

  15. Mark Kenny, still hoping:

    All in all, this is one awful mess for a government which, despite glimpsing better days in 2018, has suffered another horror week – and that’s saying something given its troubles over dual citizenship last year, which were also aided by Joyce’s slap-dashery.

    Geez, Kenny da ya think anyone remembers those better days? Time to give it away Mark if you think a couple of days without obvious fuckups are “better days”.

  16. Latika’s take on Facebook:

    Malcolm Turnbull conflates private, consensual behaviour with the potential abuse of professional privileges. And his moralising on marriage breakups will be heard by many in the community as aimed at them, rather than Barnaby Joyce.

  17. Someone must be threatening to release a copy of the coalition agreement if any harm comes to Barnaby.

    It must be so damning for Turnbull that he is desperate to stop it seeing the light of day. That’s the only thing that can explain how terrified he looks.

  18. QUESTION: Senator Cash, is your office being investigated by the AFP over the media tip off of the AWU raid.

    MINISTER CASH: No.

    QUESTION: If your office isn’t being investigated why did you claim public interest immunity in Senate committee hearings?

    MINISTER CASH: Because as an AFP investigation the AFP itself claimed public interest immunity.

    QUESTION: But if your office isn’t being investigated wouldn’t releasing those internal communications demonstrate that you had, and your office had, no role in coordinating the media tip offs about the raids?

    MINISTER CASH: Again, I have complied at all times with the law and the procedures of the Senate. We are here though to talk about jobs growth. Would you like to ask a question on jobs growth? Would anyone like to ask a question about jobs growth?

  19. Are the coalition ministers such a mob of stupid and unruly sex monsters that they need Turnbull exercising strict discipline to keep them in line?

    Yes?

  20. @ajm

    Someone must be threatening to release a copy of the coalition agreement if any harm comes to Barnaby.

    It must be so damning for Turnbull that he is desperate to stop it seeing the light of day. That’s the only thing that can explain how terrified he looks.

    I think you are 100% correct on this. The terms of the agreement would really turn off the small L Liberal voters who still think that Turnbull is the guy in the Leather Jacket who appeared so regularly on Q& A. You can only follow your chosen candidate so far before you have to accept that they look like Tony Abbott, quack like Tony Abbott, and walk like Tony Abbott, and so must be a duck!

    A bit like the Allies championing Stalin after Hitler invaded in 1941, in operation Barbarossa. Uncle Joe was suddenly someone who needed to be supported (although in fairness to Churchill, he knew exactly who Stalin was).

    It was embarrassing for all to see the hidden clauses in the agreement between Hitler and Stalin signed in 1939, captured after the fall of the third reich. Stalin took a very imperialist land grab for Poland, the Baltic states and Finland in the agreement.

    Hopefully the agreement that Turnbull signed is not quite that daring!

  21. If Malcolm’s new rules apply even to married couples (‘I don’t care whether they are married or single’ I think he said), does that mean a number of members will have to shuffle off their better half to another ministry?

  22. Ajm

    It may just be he has realised that his $1.7M investment has just tanked completely with absolutely NO HOPE of an upturn/windfall

  23. As you say amazing, the press gallery never disappoints
    despite glimpsing better days in 2018, has suffered another horror week – and that’s saying something give
    That would be while the tennis was on.
    Another fiction by the press gallery.

    Now we have the secretive religious inquiry.

  24. Well, after listening to PvO and Sharri Markson on 7.30 it appears we are back to ‘Brilliant Malcolm’ territory. The Bonk Ban was a masterful move apparently.

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