Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

After a spike to Labor a fortnight ago, it’s back to business as usual in the latest Essential Research poll, which also finds Donald Trump slightly less unpopular with Australians than he was a year ago.

Labor’s two-point gain in last fortnight’s Essential Research poll has proved to be an aberration, with the latest result snapping back to 52-48. This is matched by the primary votes, on which the Coalition is up two to 38% and Labor down two to 35% (we will have to wait for the full report later today to see how the minor parties have gone). According to The Guardian’s report, the poll also finds 50% favouring Labor’s tax policy over the Coalition, with the result for the latter not stated, except of course that it’s lower; 79% supporting the first stage of the government’s tax cuts, targeting lower and middle income earners, but only 37% for stage three, whereby the tax scales will be flattened to the advantage of higher income earners; support and opposition for company tax cuts tied at 39% apiece; support for higher finding for the ABC, though we will have to wait for hard data on which areas of the broadcaster’s activities were most favoured.

Other questions relate to international matters, with 35% responding that the North Korea summit would make the world safer, 8% less safe, and 41% no difference. On foreign leaders, Justin Trudeau (up nine on last year) and Jacinda Ardern (on debut) both scored 54% approval, and if I’m reading this correctly, Theresa May scored 42% (up nine) and Donald Trump 22% (up six) – I believe other leaders will have been canvassed as well, but further results will have to wait.

UPDATE: Full results from Essential here – the Greens are up one to 11%, and One Nation down one to 7%. Further international leadership approval ratings include a 43% for Angela Merkel, unchanged on last year, 42% for Emmanuel Macron, up one, 19% for Vladimir Putin, up three, and, if you could credit it, 9% for Kim Jong-Un. Fortuitously, this comes as the Lowy Institute publishes results of a survey of 1200 respondents on Australian attitudes to the world, which similarly finds high levels of confidence for Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron, and low ones for Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un.

Also out today is further results from the Newspoll in The Australian, finding Malcolm Turnbull favoured by 47% as best leader to handle the asylum seeker issue (down five from December) and Bill Shorten on 30% (up two). It also finds 26% expecting Labor will “improve the policy”, 37% that it will “open the floodgates”, and 24% that it will make no difference.

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.

3,271 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor”

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  1. I wonder if ESJ is Chrissy Pine, saw him today do a whole press conference on Labor Leadership, what does Pine do as a minister anyway…. who knows, who cares, he was an absolute shocker as an education minister.
    Anyway like ESJ, Pine has no policy or vision to speak of, rather just obsessed about talking about the other side…. says alot about them really.

  2. Cute how many posters are crying out, “Don’t say nasty things about bemused!” who were, apparently, quite happy to let bemused say nasty things about others.

    As someone who used to be well and truly on the receiving end from Bemused, I feel qualified to comment on this.

    The Golden Rule, in my book at least, is don’t run squealing to teacher. If you get insulted, the worst thing you can do is beg William to do something about your attacker, or pat him on the back when he does.

    The big no-no is to stand out the front of the class afterwards and tell everyone how blameless you are and how glad you are to see that other kid expelled.

    It’s unseemly and quite a bit hypocritical.

  3. A well-considered and tightly argued article by Chip Le Grand in ‘The Weekend Australian’.

    The statistical gist is that men are far more likely to be the victims of murder than women.

    Stranger murders and stranger rape/murders of women are very, very rare and the perps are very likely to be just plain evil rather than somehow representative of all men. It follows up with an analysis of domestic violence which is consistent, IMO, with what most posters believe to be true.

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/resident-evil-women-much-safer-on-streets-than-in-the-home/news-story/5f0f81845ae7478ce6874c35d7dc091a

  4. Apparently the little girl on the front cover of Time Magazine wasn’t stolen, according to the girl’s father.

    You’d think the US media would be careful not to give Trump more grist for the mill with his fake news cries, but there it is.

  5. @Marcos

    “Hey Andrew, any big events planned for your 50th trip around the sun?”

    Indeed I do. Starting with my Decennial Toga Party. A tradition going back to my 30th.

  6. Claire Lehman writes a very interesting article on the same general topic. Some surprising stats are that lesbian women are more likely to be in abusive relationships that heterosexual women or gay men. (This is the context of the claim that domestic violence is either a cultural problem among men or there is something specific about men (toxic masculinity) that is the real problem with domestic violence.

    econdly, despite the high levels of equality in the Scandinavian countries, Swedish women are more likely to suffer domestic violence than women elsewhere. (This is in the context of the claim that more equality between the genders will lead to less domestic violence.)

    She also notes that there are a certain number of children who do cruel things as children and who will very likely to do cruel things as adult, including rape and murder. (This is in the context of the debate about stranger rape/murders and the role of all men, as opposed to the individual perps.

    A final statistic is that a very small proportion of the population commits around two thirds of all crimes. (This is in the context of the debate about collective as opposed to individual guilt/accountability.

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/eurydice-dixon-rape-culture-facts-just-dont-fit/news-story/fdb16c36d04d48889fb4e181fb98e913

  7. Yes Boerwar, and that’s why all men and women getting on board to change the culture of toxic masculinity will benefit not only women, but other men as well.

  8. I used to like Alboand his “Fighting Tories” personna.

    But when Rudd returned in 2013, and it transpired Albo had been plotting and scheming with him all along I had second thoughts.

    If the rumours about his current leadership aspirations are true (by no means a certainty) then I think even less if him.

    One, he is breaking his rule of not challenging the elected leader.

    Two, he is being a very sore loser.

    Three, he will kill any chance Labor has of winning the coming election.

    Which is why the right-wing media is pushing the story, obviously.

    The aim is always to either make the “challenge” scenario real, or to make it so indistinguishable from reality as to need testing, to render the party as a political Hall Of Mirrors.

    Lead item on ABC Radio News at lunchtime was not the speech, not even the “challenge”, but rumours of talking about challenges. Does anyone believe for a second that the ABC would actually give a damn about what Albo said? Thought not.

  9. confessions

    It was never about one girl. (And, if even it was, in this case she was crying because her mother was being frisked, I believe).

    It was about thousands of children being arbitrarily separated from their parents, about these children being put in a concentration cage with other distressed children, about these children then being put on transports (trains, anyone?) to places all over the United States. On top of that no-one was tracking the parents or the children.

    It was about Trump first declaring that his hands were tied by the Democrats so he could do nothing. It was about Trump then saying he was sad. Such empathy. And it was then about Trump signing an Executive Order doing what he said he could not do. And now it is about Melania sending some weird f*** you message to whom and about what no-one knows.

  10. “Why are the customers spending less money at my shop?” cry the shopkeepers. Well, the answer is fairly obvious, except to them.

    Leederville traders say tough times are seeing small shops fall victim to their own success…

    Clothing retailer Nick Sheppard has decided to close his Leederville business after 24 years, and the bookshop on the strip is also planning to close in July.

    He said rents and overheads were high, but the biggest problem was customers simply weren’t shopping like they used to.

    “The only real answer for small business owners is for customers to come in and spend money. Overheads are not a problem if you can meet them.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-23/leederville-traders-says-tough-times-forcing-retailers-out/9895502

  11. When Rudd returned in 2013, and it transpired Albo had been plotting and scheming with him all along I had second thoughts.

    There are a number of other plotters whom I still have reservations about. I think they were all ambitious and were promised advancement.

  12. ‘Confessions says:
    Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 1:17 pm

    Yes Boerwar, and that’s why all men and women getting on board to change the culture of toxic masculinity will benefit not only women, but other men as well.’

    I doubt that there is a culture of toxic masculinity, IMO. It cannot explain why being in a lesbian relationship is more dangerous for a woman than being in a heterosexual relationship. How are we to explain that? How are we to explain the murders that women commit?

    I have a conceptual difficulty with the notion that we are collection of separate cultures and that each culture only has individuals in it who are all the same because they belong to one gender or another.

    The more I think about it, the less sense it makes to me.

    Further, the more I think about JD’s analysis based on the notion that all men benefit from the ‘patriarchy’ the less I am inclined to believe it. There are simply far too many men who derive no benefit at all from anything and far too many women who derive plenty of benefit.

    In other words, if the answer in this space is simple, it is probably at the very least partly inaccurate and misleading.

  13. Samantha Maiden‏Verified account @samanthamaiden · 43s43 seconds ago

    Scott Morrison is a stand out example of this. No structure, no stategy, no underpinning philosophy. What does the government even believe in? Newspapers too are guilty. Incoherent positions. Blathering about debt + deficit & then supporting welfare for rich. Consistency counts.

  14. lizzie @ #2138 Saturday, June 23rd, 2018 – 1:26 pm

    When Rudd returned in 2013, and it transpired Albo had been plotting and scheming with him all along I had second thoughts.

    There are a number of other plotters whom I still have reservations about. I think they were all ambitious and were promised advancement.

    Internally it’s a broken party. This will eventually become clear externally.

  15. Denise Shrivell‏ @deniseshrivell · 5m5 minutes ago

    Is this going to be the show tomorrow #insiders ? The perpetuation of false leadership speculation when truth is LNP is prosecuting legislation against public interest & is in disarray. We need you to be better than this!

  16. Bushfire Bill says:
    Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 1:00 pm
    Darn, you’re gloating.

    William chopped Bemused specifically for personal reasons, not because of your or anyone else’s hurt feelings or sense of outrage.

    If Bemused was going to be sacked for insulting others he would have disappeared 10 years ago.

    I think that is what GG is trying to say in an indirect sort of way.

    I’m certainly not gloating BB. But I do find your comments interesting and I have read them all this morning. You are right in saying that William banned Bemused because Bemused pissed him off personally. William himself has said that. Exactly what that means in terms of how much of a restriction he wants to put on the type of language people choose to use here I cannot know for sure.

    What I do know is that most of the people here who wanted to see Bemused banned have said they could no longer tolerate his abusiveness language to them. So it would be very hypocritical of any of them to now start doing the very same thing they wouldn’t tolerate from him. Hence my response to Briefly about one of his earlier posts today.

  17. Little Rocket Man and the Dotard might be hurling insults at each other again soon:

    Donald Trump has declared that North Korea still poses an “extraordinary threat” to the United States, just days after saying that the country’s nuclear program no longer constituted a danger.

    In an executive order on Friday, the president extended for one year the so-called “national emergency” with respect to the nuclear-armed nation, re-authorizing economic restrictions against it.

    While expected, the declaration comes just nine days after Trump tweeted: “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” following his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore.

    The order appears to undermine the president’s claim.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/22/trump-north-korea-extraordinary-threat-nuclear-program

  18. Rex Douglas @ #2971 Saturday, June 23rd, 2018 – 1:31 pm

    lizzie @ #2138 Saturday, June 23rd, 2018 – 1:26 pm

    When Rudd returned in 2013, and it transpired Albo had been plotting and scheming with him all along I had second thoughts.

    There are a number of other plotters whom I still have reservations about. I think they were all ambitious and were promised advancement.

    Internally it’s a broken party. This will eventually become clear externally.

    To make such a comment, you’d have to be a party member, otherwise you’re just bullshitting.

  19. BW

    You make good points about generalisation.

    However as Lesbians are a minority you can’t ignore the stats. It may be that some Lesbians take on the masculine culture. Thus the labels “butch” and lipstick Lesbians.

    Its a very complex area.

    Its why before the Victorian Police Statement I agreed we should not pigeon hole all men in the same category. Thats just as bad as doing it to woman.

    In fact this is why I use the concept of the straight jacket of gender roles.

    I brought up Toxic Masculinity not to label all men as such but to point out the very definition excludes most men. To use Toxic Masculinity to label all men is to ignore the actual definition that specifically cites not all men have toxic masculinity.

    Another way of looking at it. Not all Rugby Players get caught out by the media doing “high jinks” like some alleged and guilty perpetrators.

    That exact same standard has to apply to woman as well.

    When you look at the complaints of the woman to the Victorian Police Statement they have a point.
    This is why Daniel Andrews Bill Shorten and yes even Malcolm Turnbull made their speeches in parliament.

    The point is that singling one gender out as victims was the problem.
    No matter how much some men want to deny it a rapist can rape men as well as woman. Especially serial ones that kill afterwards.

    Just look at that domestic on Sydney’s South where the guy killed a strange man just to steal the car after dong the domestic violence kill thing.

    This is why I have said too many people are focussed on the rape and not the killing. The danger to the community was the killing aspect first the rape second. Once someone has killed they find it easier to do so again or at least that is my understanding.

  20. Darn @ #2973 Saturday, June 23rd, 2018 – 1:35 pm

    Bushfire Bill says:
    Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 1:00 pm
    Darn, you’re gloating.

    William chopped Bemused specifically for personal reasons, not because of your or anyone else’s hurt feelings or sense of outrage.

    If Bemused was going to be sacked for insulting others he would have disappeared 10 years ago.

    I think that is what GG is trying to say in an indirect sort of way.

    I’m certainly not gloating BB. But I do find your comments interesting and I have read them all this morning. You are right in saying that William banned Bemused because Bemused pissed him off personally. William himself has said that. Exactly what that means in terms of how much of a restriction he wants to put on the type of language people choose to use here I cannot know for sure.

    What I do know is that most of the people here who wanted to see Bemused banned have said they could no longer tolerate his abusiveness language to them. So it would be very hypocritical of any of them to now start doing the very same thing they wouldn’t tolerate from him. Hence my response to Briefly about one of his earlier posts today.

    It’s the continuous and unrelenting abuse that was the issue. The occasional sledge or general smuttiness has always been a time honoured feature of the blog. In fact, as you disapprovingly pointed out in one of your missives yesterday, WB used a colourful colloquialism in his DCB epistle to the now banned poster.

    I doubt that WB is overly fussed about interplay between posters. However, history shows that if you abuse him and take his hospitality for granted you’ll be out your ear.

  21. Wasn’t Maiden tossed out by Sky News because of some disagreement with the other staff?

    Perhaps she has see the light without the shackles of being a Murdoch employee?

    Samantha Maiden‏Verified account @samanthamaiden · 43s43 seconds ago

    Scott Morrison is a stand out example of this. No structure, no stategy, no underpinning philosophy. What does the government even believe in? Newspapers too are guilty. Incoherent positions. Blathering about debt + deficit & then supporting welfare for rich. Consistency counts.

    (posted by lizzie)

  22. I may be a Pollyanna but I believe Albo really really wants Labor in govt.

    His pet topic, infrastructure, is really really suffering under the yoke of the conservatives.

    The r-w media will ALWAYS see anything he says through the lens of leadership because they believe they were the ones that brought down first Rudd, then Gillard. And they believe that their constant niggling about leadership will always be a vulnerable point for Labor.

    Notice how they might talk about Lib leadership but ALWAYS qualify it with ‘but it ain’t gonna happen because Mal is just about to find his mojo’.

    They think he has found his mojo with the tax rebate … trouble is … the next bit of news will usurp that idea within a day or two … and ANY supposed traction they thought they had will be lost.

  23. Andrew E

    I’m actually having a 2 week break after Cairns Ironman. Variable speed workouts are nothing new for me.

    For me the calculus will be determined by 3 variables:

    Weight (92kg presently, way too much for someone 176cm tall)
    Age -49 going on 50 (eek)
    Injury management (related to the above 2 variables, no doubt). At the moment I am managing 3 seperate niggles in different parts of my body. Two are swimming related, one is running related.

    Skinny, younger me (23yo and under 80kg) was good for a 5km in around 18 minutes. An older slightly more trim version of me (say 84-5kg) should still be good for something around 21 minutes.

    I start running again tomorrow so I have 10 weeks to be down below 90kg and below 25minutes for my local park run before spring time on my way to getting under 85kg before I turn the big 5-0 in January.

    Doing an iron man event is very impressive…you are obviously not someone I should be offering running advice too 🙂

    I am working with the same 3 variables:
    Weight: 71kg (down from 84kg in the last 18 months 🙂 )
    Age: 58
    Injury Management (no probs yet but the furthest I have run lately is 7km)

    The height of my running career was 12 km in 54 minutes about 10 years ago.

    Good luck with the niggles and weight loss!

    the variable speed you suggest (effectly running at ~40 seconds per kilometre faster than your target pace for 1.5km is too much. If you can run that fast for 1.5km you should be aiming for around 22:30 for 5km. In my experience I recommend doing Long intervals (anywhere from 500M to 2km efforts depending on your base and strength) at between 10-15 seconds faster than target pace. Shorter intervals (100-400M) can be run at about the pace difference you suggest.

    I can do the 1.5km in 6.5 minutes OK but am struggling to get much better than 25 minutes for 5km. I will have a crack at the regime you suggest.

  24. jenauthor @ #2153 Saturday, June 23rd, 2018 – 1:52 pm

    I may be a Pollyanna but I believe Albo really really wants Labor in govt.

    His pet topic, infrastructure, is really really suffering under the yoke of the conservatives.

    The r-w media will ALWAYS see anything he says through the lens of leadership because they believe they were the ones that brought down first Rudd, then Gillard. ABAND they believe that their constant niggling about leadership will always be a vulnerable point for Labor.

    Notice how they might talk about Lib leadership but ALWAYS qualify it with ‘but it ain’t gonna happen because Mal is just about to find his mojo’.

    They think he has found his mojo with the tax rebate … trouble is … the next bit of news will usurp that idea within a day or two … and ANY supposed traction they thought they had will be lost.

    The problem for Labor is that matters of social conscience create a far greater divide internally compared with the Libs/Nats who aren’t as troubled with what they’d describe as trivial matters.
    Asylum seeker policy is one such example which will cruel Labors’ pretence of solidarity.

  25. There has been no diminution in my capacity to loll on the couch for simply ages. There are no relevant variables to manage.

  26. BW

    Think of toxic masculinity in this way. Malcolm Turnbull turned it into a slogan

    Not all men committee violence towards woman. It starts with disrespect of Women.

  27. Boerwar:

    No it was never about ‘one girl’. But the facts remain that if we want our society to be less violent it invariably comes down to men to change behaviour seeing as men overwhelmingly perpetrate violent acts in our society.

  28. I think jumping on Albo is way too premature and very unfair.

    Right at this moment Shorten is the leader with a comfortable if not safe lead in the polls. We have by election Saturday in 5 weeks and if he does well all will be apples. Shorten will stay on as LOTO with every expectation of winning in 2019 against Dutton. Albo has done NOTHING to jeopardize that outcome.

    If he does poorly then Turnbull will probably spring a September election. Labor will NOT change leaders at that point. So come September Shorten may be either PM or defeated LOTO.

    If Shorten loses a September election then it makes sense for Labor to choose another leader. Like the Beazley era, I give most people just two chances and two losses means Shorten should politely depart the scene. Now Albo (and others ) have every right to position themselves to win a post election ballot. It is not wrong or improper. Sure the media will carry on like pork chops but that is their problem, not that of otherwise rational people.


  29. Boerwar says:
    Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 1:38 pm

    Apparently this reset is different from all the other resets because this is the Mother of All Resets.

    What the mother of all resets turns another 52 to labor, what come next?

  30. cconfessions

    ‘But the facts remain that if we want our society to be less violent it invariably comes down to men to change behaviour seeing as men overwhelmingly perpetrate violent acts in our society.’

    Not me. I am completely non-violent. I avoid stepping on insects. If there is a bird on the footpath, I will walk around it so that it does not have to waste its energy flying away. If I dig up a worm I make sure that it gets covered so it does not burn in the sun

    The violent men have to change, yes. The violent women have to change, yes.

  31. ESJ “The problem for Labor is that matters of social conscience create a far greater divide internally compared with the Libs/Nats who aren’t as troubled with what they’d describe as trivial matters.”

    That’s an interesting insight. The Coalition parties, especially the Liberals, have a very much “whatever it takes” attitude to sieving and keeping power.

  32. There is, however, a difference between explaining why you think the blog is better because someone is no longer posting here and being abusive.

  33. Because she’s recently shown to have a conscience – she knows where lots of bodies are buried – and she has the opportunity to make a substantial mark on history.

    She married Donald Trump. My expectations are low.

  34. daretotread. @ #2162 Saturday, June 23rd, 2018 – 2:13 pm

    I think jumping on Albo is way too premature and very unfair.

    Right at this moment Shorten is the leader with a comfortable if not safe lead in the polls. We have by election Saturday in 5 weeks and if he does well all will be apples. Shorten will stay on as LOTO with every expectation of winning in 2019 against Dutton. Albo has done NOTHING to jeopardize that outcome.

    If he does poorly then Turnbull will probably spring a September election. Labor will NOT change leaders at that point. So come September Shorten may be either PM or defeated LOTO.

    If Shorten loses a September election then it makes sense for Labor to choose another leader. Like the Beazley era, I give most people just two chances and two losses means Shorten should politely depart the scene. Now Albo (and others ) have every right to position themselves to win a post election ballot. It is not wrong or improper. Sure the media will carry on like pork chops but that is their problem, not that of otherwise rational people.

    It’s as simple as Labor doesn’t have the mettle to release the anchor that is holding them back. Shorten will remain leader even at the potential cost of electoral defeat.

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