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. bc,

    What strikes me about the ” moralising ” from Turnbull today is that the coalition has lost all of its ability to prosecute labor for being hypocritical over its attacks on Joyce and his personal life.

    Turnbull, in one foul swoop, has shone the light on Joyce and his personal life, dragged the personal out into the open and passed judgement that Joyce is as guilty as sin. Latika does have a point.

    As well, Turnbull has infuriated the Nationals who thought they had the issue under control only for Turnbull to open it all up again in a attempt to cover his own arse.

    To me it is a lighter version of the Rudd apology over the insulation deaths.

    Cheers.

  2. A ‘big’ week in Parliament.

    Turnbull having trashed his own reputation since becoming PM has now trashed his own incompetent government.

    Joyce, meanwhile, has trashed the National Party and probably heralded it’s path to oblivion.

    Well done, all players.

  3. jenauthor

    For $1.7 million he fulfilled “his destiny” , is in the history books and gets his ugly mug hung along the wall with all the other PMs . Bargain ! Shame about the $100 billion + he will cost the nation via NBN, MDB etc etc.

  4. For Turnbull, he would have been better investing the $1.7m in Bitcoin.

    In winter people in Braidwood go to Goulburn to get away from the cold.

  7. The Guardians booster in chief at it :

    Katharine Murphy
    ‏Verified account @murpharoo
    16m16 minutes ago

    very hard to police, self evidently. But Turnbull has done something quite profound here. Will publish some commentary in a bit.

  10. I don’t think either one of them said it was a reset, nor called it “masterstroke” – merely that they thought he did the right thing (they’re still wrong). But given Markson is from the Daily TP, she’s going to be a lot more strident.

    But if this wasn’t a shot across the S.S. Barnaby from Turnbull, I don’t know what is.

  15. The Barnaby imbroglio ended up revealing possible inappropriate travel and entitlements claims worthy of further investigation, and Turnbull’s response to that is to ban the sex!

    Why are Liberals so obsessed with getting into people’s bedrooms?

  18. When the Joyce affair was revealed there were any number of people who said it was private, didn’t matter, was none of our business, should never have been reported etc

    Now a week later we have the bonking ban and Joyce has been thrown under the bus by Turnbull, though the bus is still parked while the Nats find the keys.

    What that tells me is that the Tories have found out, whether through polling, or focus groups, or feedback to MPs offices, or by monitoring social media … even PB, that more people think Joyce’s behaviour is unacceptable than don’t care and they can’t tough it out.

    Happy to have been in the first group from day one.

  19. My issue isn’t that he had someone on the side… not my problem or right to know. BUT the moment you’ve got rank hypocrisy and dealings that may not be technically illegal, but verge on the unethical, getting into the fray… then, it mattered.

  20. To the extent that Malcolm is still or ever has been a ‘moderate’ or ‘liberal’, the Coalition agreement seems to have completely neutered him. Apart from minor differences in style and emphasis, Turnbull’s Government is pretty much indistinguishable from one that would have been led by Tony Abbott, a less smart John Howard, Alexander Downer or Kevin Andrews. Continued dogwhistling, inaction on climate change and energy policy, the curt dismissal of the Uluru Statement, oppressive anti terror and anti espionage legislation, the attacks on the vulnerable while giving the Banks and others among the rich and powerful a free pass, fawning on the military, including a far right extremist like Molan, joined at the hip with that clown Trump…

  21. “Why are Liberals so obsessed with getting into people’s bedrooms?”

    Conservatives believe the Government should regulate the bedroom,not the economy.

  23. On NBN stuff, I am working odd hours at the moment, and took my dogs for a walk around lunchtime. I discovered upon leaving my house in inner city Sydney that there were people who had arrived in unmarked vans, who had the Telstra pits in the street open.

    One such pit is right near my front door, and I asked the nice man what he was doing. He looked quite sheepish, and said that he was doing a trial with different connections in the pits. I than asked him directly if he was working in a Telstra pit, and he agreed that he was. He was installing something from a reel that looked like Optus or Telstra cable from around the year 2000. However, rather than the black sheath, it was a very insipid faded yellow colour. I then asked him whether what we was connecting was similar to Optus or Telstra cable for cable TV (again a la 2000). He looked even more embarrassed, and mumbled something.

    I than noticed that he had two reels, both wound with this insipid yellow sheath, but one which looked like cable TV stuff, cc 2000, and one that looked like ethernet cable. I think it is likely that we are being used as Guinea Pigs, and that some neighbours got the really fast stuff (not us unfortunately), and others the old cable technology. I am immediately going to start upload and download tests several times a day and see what changes.

    I also asked the technician if we were likely to be offered broadband. He said, again sheepishly, probably, within a few months. He and his compadres were there and gone within 20 mins, with no sign the Telstra pits had been touched other than some loose dirt around them.

    The reason this is particularly interesting is that my street has neither Telstra or Optus cable. If you want cable TV, you use satellite – weird in the centre of Sydney. The new apartments near us have all been connected to FTTP. We are also not on any NBN list to get said NBN at any time in the future – it is just slated as “after 2019”.

    Also, a lot of the housing in my street is Dept of Housing, and so I wonder if they are assuming that we will not be tech savvy enough to notice if they play games with us.

    Another piece of info – the only thing they did was put the insipid yellow cable in the pit outside my front door – no larger works. Presumably they are looking to see if you change that last, long-degraded few metres of copper (our local exchange was built in around 1900) with either cable or proper fibre, it will make the NBN speeds look faster.

    OH told me I was horrible putting the installation guy on the spot, no matter how politely I did it, as he has obviously been told not to discuss the installation. My quip was that if you work for the evil empire ……

    Also if you do not take any interest in local affairs, you are likely to find you planet destroyed by a Vogon constructor fleet!

    Has anyone else had any similar experiences?
    Also, if it rains, out phone and internet do not work for several days. While I do not even bother ringing to complain, out local businesses suffer badly – no eftpos, no phone.

  24. Happy to have been in the first group from day one.

    You can only say that because the issue unfolded the way it did. If no dubious conduct had been uncovered as a result of the media campaign, or perhaps if one of the parties other than Barnaby had attempted self harm as a result of the media campaign, you’d no doubt be thinking very differently about reporting.

    But in terms of the reporting of the affair and the outcome we have, do you honestly think that a ban on sexual relations between ministers and staff is going to:

    1. Stop sexual relations between ministers and their staff?
    2. Stop MPs abusing travel and entitlements claims to taxpayers?
    3. Improve the quality of reporting by our press gallery?

    I’m still of the view that intimate relationships of MPs are private matters unless they are illegal or not consensual or involve criminal or (as a result of this imbroglio) unethical activity, but even I wouldn’t say Turnbull’s sex ban will achieve any of the 3 issues above!

  25. If Barnaby is on leave then is it JBishop who is acting PM next week? Or is it Morrison as Treasurer, or is he trumped by Dutton in his mega portfolio?

  27. Gecko Thursday, February 15th, 2018 – 5:44 pm Comment #2387

    But what if the staff member is really hot?

    If you’re a minister you get your dept to give her an APS job and proceed as usual.

  29. Conversation
    ABC Melbourne
    ABC Melbourne
    @abcmelbourne
    .@HumanHeadline tells @Raf_Epstein “The Daily Telegraph has a big Barnaby file … and the Senate estimates are coming up. It will be a bloodbath”
    5:52 PM · Feb 15, 2018

  35. Cormann is technically #4 in the line of succession.

    PM – overseas
    DPM – up shit creek
    D-Lib leader – overseas
    Leader of the Gov in the Senate.

  39. Poor old X. He’s suddenly realised that real parties have to have real policies rather than just negotiate amendments in the upper house. I bet that’s come as a huge shock.

  40. D&M, you were right to find out what was going on.

    What I can say is the NBN is not connecting anyone with the old 2,000 cc cable to the NBN. Apparently, a problem has occurred with the Foxtel feed interfering with the signal (for those who had Foxtel). They are putting this problem in the too hard basket to be dealt with later.

    I have cable internet, but do not have Foxtel, but it doesn’t matter, I recieved a letter from NBN co telling me I can’t get NBN for some time.

    I am very happy with this as the NBN will only provide me with a fifth of the speed I get now, for the money I now pay. They can delay forever as far as I concerned.

  42. Don

    Granite that has started decomposing gets soft.

    When I was a kid we always had decomposed granite as the top surface for tennis courts. Worked a treat.

    Yep. Commonly used also for road base on ‘made’ dirt roads, country house driveways, etc.

  43. Just caught on the day’s, er, developments. I’m sure there are examples of leaders who have utterly missed the point even more than Malcolm Turnbull just did, but I’m at a loss as to who they might be.

    Just what on earth is he thinking?

  44. Zoom

    Apparently Bridget is heading o/s to PeongChang to watch some female skiers. In any case, acting as PM would be somewhat above her competence level. Maybe when she drops her boosting of the gun lobby ?

  45. zoomster I guess for the same reason last year’s proposal for the elevation of Nigel Scullion from nobody to the top job was laughed out of town

  47. Julie Bishop will actually be in Australia for some of the time when Turnbull is away but it will only be for about a day so it was bit pointless to have her act for a day, then move onto Corman.
    Chris Evan served as acting PM for a day in 2008 when Rudd and Gillard both managed to get out the country when the Dalai Lama was in town (so neither upset the CCP).

  48. D&M

    Sounds to me that either they are pulling HFC through the Telstra ducts (bit of that happening near me in Brisbane, but we are getting aerial HFC) or perhaps you are going to be a site for fibre to the kerb..

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