Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

Labor maintains its existing lead in the latest Essential poll, despite improving perceptions on the outlook for the economy.

With Newspoll holding its fire ahead of tonight’s budget, the one new federal poll for the week is the regular fortnightly result from Essential Research – which, The Guardian reports, has maintained its recent form in recording Labor’s lead unchanged at 53-47. Primary votes to follow with the publication of the full report later today. The poll also features Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, which have Malcolm Turnbull on 40% approval (up one) and 42% disapproval (steady), Bill Shorten on 37% approval (up two) and 41% disapproval (down two), and Turnbull leading 40-26 as preferred prime minister, little changed from 41-26 last time.

As related in The Guardian’s report, other questions relate to what respondents would like in the budget, of which the most interesting findings would seem to be an 11% increase for “assistance for the unemployed” compared with last year, along with 8% increases for age pensions, affordable housing and assistance for the needy. The most favoured categories overall are health care, age pensions, education and affordable housing; the least favoured are foreign aid, business assistance and the military. Eighteen per cent expect the budget to be good for them personally (up eight on last year) compared with 24% for bad (down six), and 39% now rate the economy good (up six since November) compared with 24% for bad.

Note also the post below this one on the looming Western Australian state by-election in Darling Range.

UPDATE: Full results from Essential Research here. Both major parties are up a point on the primary vote, the Coalition to 38% and Labor to 37%, with the Greens down one to 10% and One Nation down two to 6%.

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.

1,901 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. P1 reckons that we will all be extinct within decades unless the world does what she wants!

    And that Holland is depleting its ground water!

    True!

    Also that we should generate more CO2 by burning more gas to fix, uh… too much CO2.

  2. don @ #1607 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 6:54 pm

    For the record, they have lots of groundwater, I have bicycled through there on the way from Amsterdam to Copenhagen, and I am here to tell you that the groundwater is rarely very far from the surface – it is often above it!

    They need a drainage system to get rid of the excess.

    I’m sorry, but you are simply a fool. Google is your friend on this. Ask someone how to use it.

  3. Michael Pacci reporting that Pauline Hanson does not agree with the flat tax rate the Liberals want. Same with Hinch and Storer. It looks like the government is not going to get it through the Senate.

  4. I just watched Bill on 7.30. I loved the endng, he slapped Sales in the face with a wet fish, and signed off with his 10 million Australians better off message.

    Bill has the wind in his sails and is racing for home.

  5. Player One @ #1744 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 8:48 pm

    Boerwar @ #1516 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 5:14 pm

    This literally does not compute for people like P1. They assume from (erroneous) first principles that all this must be impossible therefore it IS impossible. It is not happening because it cannot happen.

    They nag like harpies about any and all bad side effects and caterwaul about the future, while missing the big picture: this stuff is working big time right now, and it is the harbinger for humanity, not some failing leftover from the past.

    Magic Happens, eh Boerwar. No need to worry.

    This is classic “stage 3” denial.

    Gratuitous advice warning.

    BW’s aim is to bog you down in the quagmire of detail.

    Fly higher, comrade!

    You are good enough to do that..

    Fly higher, comrade!

  6. The full text of Shorten’s S44 response was aired including that he referred to ALP processes hence his confidence

    The ALP had a process signed off by the best available legal advice

    Shorten also referred to opinion of several experts which I gather would replicate the opinion of the expert interviewed on the ABC TV breakfast program this morning

    This media response is the same as the references to Keating and his “banana republic” comment in that the factors which were addressed in the lead up to that description of where Australia may trend economically were ignored and only “Banana Republic” was reported, which was a total misrepresentation of what was said

    Because of ……. what we need to do is …. otherwise we run the risk of becoming a banana republic

    Because of processes and legal advice I am confident

    So why no focus on “and the High Court will so find” by our Solicitor prime minister, Mr HIH?

    MSM – and the ABC, unfortunately

    The other question is if the Conservatives DNA is to reduce tax, what is the ultimate outcome?

    That no one pays tax?

    And we replicate Greece with hand outs but no revenue because no one pays tax?

  7. If you want to see what Cormann really thinks of this circus check out Charlie Pickering’s show last night for some vision of Matthias in the background as SloMo is in full on snake oil mode.

    Very funny.

  8. Sales, being a government propagandist of the lowest order, knew that her only chance to get at Shorten was through the citizenship crap, even though it was totally irrelevant to the point of the interview.

  9. Bill Shorten tweets

    1. Bigger, better, fairer tax cuts for 10 million working Aussies.

    2. Cutting waiting lists at public hospitals.

    3. 20 new MRIs and 500,000 free scans.

    4. Scrapping up front fees for 100,000 TAFE places.

    5. 200,000 more uni places for young Aussies.

    My #budgetreply

  10. Darn, interesting comment re Hanson and Storer on the tax cut:

    Michael Pacci reporting that Pauline Hanson does not agree with the flat tax rate the Liberals want. Same with Hinch and Storer. It looks like the government is not going to get it through the Senate.

    From Coorey in the AFR:
    As the government inches closer to securing Senate crossbench support for the entirety of its package, Mr Shorten did not rule out eventually supporting stages two and three, even though he argued they were not progressive enough.

    http://www.afr.com/news/politics/federal-budget-2018-labor-almost-doubles-tax-cut-for-battlers-20180509-h0zvf6

    Also the Guardian live blog has an update on Shorten on 730 with a transcript of several questions and answers.
    Shorten was well prepared.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2018/may/10/federal-budget-tax-turnbull-defends-tax-plan-as-shorten-prepares-response-byelection-politics-live

  11. So I wonder if the reply put a very big spanner in Turnbull’s cunning plan for an early election? The next poll or three will be interesting…

    Tom.

  12. Has anyone heard from @simonahac. Maybe he is picking himself off the floor, after hearing someone committing to #ZeroEmissions #Renewables #budgetreply

  13. Good evening all,

    Good solid campaign launch from Bill Shorten.

    BTW, Sally McManus has a new title for Turnbull,

    ” Ten Buck ” Turnbull.

    Cheers.

  14. So I wonder if the reply put a very big spanner in Turnbull’s cunning plan for an early election?

    There are 5 by-elections on the immediate horizon. Surely that has to be a catalyst in calling an election?

  15. don

    p1’s usual pattern is to get some of the basics wrong, ignore all evidence to the contrary, shift the goal posts when caught in being wrong, instruct you to re-read her inconsistent posts, insist you read her selected experts, and then to tell you go and do some research.

    When all this inevitably fails the snarkometer gets ratcheted up. Snarks are generally cast in schoolmarm tututting manner.

    You are about to be sent to the naughty corner.

  16. Matthew CanavanVerified account@mattjcan

    Shorten’s tax cuts are about as believable as his guarantee that no Labor MPs had citizenship issues

    Peter van OnselenVerified account@vanOnselenP
    4m4 minutes ago
    Or as believable as the PMs proclamation that the High Court would rule in Barnaby Joyce’s favour….none of you lot are exactly oozing credibility


  17. Lovey says:
    Thursday, May 10, 2018 at 6:28 pm
    Ven

    I did, I think he is quite right, too. But I also thought, are we really that bad?

    Waleed article is about the MPs/ Senators who are caught in Dual Citizenship imbroglio belong to Anglo-Saxon-Celtic background & why it so.
    Huge majority of Australians are not bad. It is just that some of them are misled by people like Abbott, Hanson, Christensen, Dutton

  18. Turnbull has three options.

    1. retire now and claim he’s been a total boon to Autralia.
    2. Go for an election in August/September fighting the good fight.
    3. Get done over in December killing season.

  19. “So I wonder if the reply put a very big spanner in Turnbull’s cunning plan for an early election? ”

    Don’t know. I reckon that the Gov will want to go with the by elections and test the waters re: ALP sympathising piranha density. Good news for the Gov in terms of a swing and they will hit the polls soonest. Bad news and they will drag things out and hope something….anything….happens along to rescue them.

  20. Boerwar @ #1642 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 7:49 pm

    One of my cousins is a water engineer in Holland. On my last visit we had a couple of lengthy discussions about global warming and water management in the Netherlands. The amount of effort required to stop P1’s ‘depleted’ ground water from drowning the country is stupendous.

    You clearly don’t understand the difference between groundwater, surface water, and sea-water. It is pointless arguing with you if you don’t understand such basics.

    You could use google to learn a few things about your beloved homeland. I’ll give you a hint – try googling “netherland peat subsidence”

  21. PvO unshackled from Sky News is just brilliant. Taking the stick to the numpty wing of the Liberals.

    A slightly more intellectual equivalent of the Republican’s David Frum.

  22. Psyclaw at 6.05:

    [Writing after Canavan’s case she said “The exception is where a foreign country does not allow its citizenship to be renounced”. She was referring there to when reasonable steps would suffice. This was the law then.

    However the law has been restated, and has been further refined and in fact extended by Gallagher’s case. Now, the-reasonable-steps-taken provision not only applies when foreign countries flat out do not allow renunciation, it also applies to foreign countries who may well allow renunciation, but the required processes are “insurmountable”.

    So after Canavan, “reasonable steps taken” would apply to country X whose laws say that citizenship can never be renounced. But since Gallagher yesterday, “reasonable steps taken” also applies to country Y which whilst allowing renunciation of citizenship requires the dual citizen to reside in that country for the 10 years leading up to renunciation (am insurmountable requirement).]

    Your claim that Gallagher’s case extends the law is rubbish. What the HC said in Gallagher about irremediable circumstances (such as the example you give of needing to live there for 10 years before renunciation) simply repeated what was said (by Dawson, I think) in Sykes and affirmed in Canavan.

    In any event, since such an exception could not possibly have applied in Gallagher, anything even the HC said about it were it novel would strictly be orbiter dictum and non-binding.

    The fact is the Constitutional imperative was worked out in previous cases and there is not so much as a dot of novelty in the decision in Gallagher.

    Which leads me to this:

    [Windhover

    “The HC would have needed to completely rewrite Re Canavan and Sykes to avoid her disqualification. A quantum change to the interpretation of s.44 completely, not a limited extension.”

    You have really belled the cat now Windhover. That is a totally nonsense statement out of la la land (not the movie!) and I certainly do not have the time or inclination to correct such a vastly incorrect view.]

    It is very disappointing when one as legally talented as you cannot trouble yourself with what should be a very easy refutation of my “total nonsense”.
    If it were total nonsense.

    At least. Disappointment is about as charitable an emotion as I can muster. Far be it for me to suggest more disagreeable possibilities.

    Suffice it to say I am not troubled to change my opinion because of the vehemence with which you seek to disparage my opinion (still less concern myself with your ad hominem gratuities).

  23. i
    They won’t need by-elections to test the water. They will just have to listen to all the gurgling and flooding noises.

  24. don @ #1755 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 8:55 pm

    P1 has to be male.

    No woman could ever be as stupid as that.

    I concluded long ago that P1 was not human.
    Some kind of bot. Perhaps an experiment in Artificial Intelligence that went off the rails and produced Artificial Stupidity… with added snark.

    I got howled down for referring to P1 as it so have played along with ‘her’. 😀

  25. Been out and about and away from PB but checked in after Bill demonstrated yet again my basic premise – Brian Trumble is an idiot.

    Seriously? You and ScoMo’s cunning plan is to double down again on corporate tax cuts, offer a measly $10 to punters to be paid for by ongoing cuts to the things they like and THEN dream up some Flat Tax idiocy to be handed to the big end of town two elections from now? What kind of fucking mental deficient comes up with shite like this to safe them from nothing but losing polls since the last election? Oh I know an idiot like Brian Trumble.

    Of course Shorten and Bowen have blown it to bits. It’s what they do to this government’s budgets every year. s44 is a pain in the arse, but does anyone seriously belief Shorten is anything other than pumped to be out campaigning in Labor seats ending every sentence with ‘we can afford this because we’re not giving away $80 billion to multinationals, big business and the big banks”?

    For all the criticisms you can make of Shorten you can’t claim he doesn’t love to be out on the stump. He’s going to be pressing the flesh and I won’t even be surprised to see him out in Mayo to try and make sure Trumble gets no love there either.

    We’re in the end game now. The few smart sacrifices Labor made on things like Negative Gearing etc are paying their dividends now.

    Also see Windhover about. Congrats. You basically cold have written the Gallagher judgement last year.

  26. Boerwar @ #1753 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 8:55 pm

    P1 reckons that we will all be extinct within decades unless the world does what she wants!

    We both know this is not true. This is your classic strawman because you can’t refute the actual arguments.

    And that Holland is depleting its ground water!

    True!

    Yes, that one is true. Look it up, FFS.

    Also that we should generate more CO2 by burning more gas to fix, uh… too much CO2.

    Yes, I have proposed using gas in place of coal, as many advanced economies have done as a means of reducing their total Co2 emissions. You would apparently rather continue to burn coal.

  27. Lee Sales using Shortens previous confidence in the citizenship process in Labor as a test of his character of being honest or not was extremely weak and silly avenue to go down, but I suppose this is what the Liberals are using right now… which is hilarious given their history in the whole saga.

  28. bemused @ #1790 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 9:17 pm

    don @ #1755 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 8:55 pm

    P1 has to be male.

    No woman could ever be as stupid as that.

    I concluded long ago that P1 was not human.
    Some kind of bot. Perhaps an experiment in Artificial Intelligence that went off the rails and produced Artificial Stupidity… with added snark.

    I got howled down for referring to P1 as it so have played along with ‘her’. 😀

    Thus proving you are a total fuckwit!

    All those women that you stalk have blocked you here on PB.

    You are talking to yourself.

  29. Boerwar @ #1770 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 9:08 pm

    don

    p1’s usual pattern is to get some of the basics wrong, ignore all evidence to the contrary, shift the goal posts when caught in being wrong, instruct you to re-read her inconsistent posts, insist you read her selected experts, and then to tell you go and do some research.

    When all this inevitably fails the snarkometer gets ratcheted up. Snarks are generally cast in schoolmarm tututting manner.

    You are about to be sent to the naughty corner.

    You and don both really have it bad, don’t you? I suppose I should be flattered, but in reality it’s kind of creepy.

  30. Greensborough Growler @ #1798 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 9:24 pm

    bemused @ #1790 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 9:17 pm

    don @ #1755 Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 8:55 pm

    P1 has to be male.

    No woman could ever be as stupid as that.

    I concluded long ago that P1 was not human.
    Some kind of bot. Perhaps an experiment in Artificial Intelligence that went off the rails and produced Artificial Stupidity… with added snark.

    I got howled down for referring to P1 as it so have played along with ‘her’. 😀

    Thus proving you are a total fuckwit!

    All those women that you stalk have blocked you here on PB.

    You are talking to yourself.

    So you are stupid enough to believe P1 is a woman? Nope.
    So that leaves one other person who has blocked me. She of very shallow intellect.

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