Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor

Essential finds Malcolm Turnbull increasing his lead as preferred Liberal leader, Anthony Albanese drawing level with Bill Shorten for Labor, and little change in voting intention.

The latest fortnightly result from Essential Research has Labor maintaining its 51-49 lead, with the Coalition up one on the primary vote to 41%, Labor steady on 36%, the Greens steady on 10% and One Nation steady on 6%. Also featured are questions on best Liberal and Labor leader: the former finds Malcolm Turnbull on 28%, up four since April, with Julie Bishop down one to 16% and Tony Abbott down one to 10%; the latter has Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese tied on 19%, which is one point down since August 2017 in Shorten’s case and six points up in Albanese’s, while Tanya Plibersek is down one to 12%.

The poll also has Essential’s occasional question on attributes of the main parties, which are chiefly interesting in having the Liberals up eight points since November 2017 for having “a good team of leaders”, to 45%, and down eight on the obverse question of being “divided”, to 56%. The biggest movements for Labor are a seven point decrease for being “extreme”, to 34%; a five point decrease for being too close to corporate interests, to 37%; and a five point increase for being divided, to 56%.

The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1022; full results can be found 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.

2,484 comments on “Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor”

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  1. I watched Insiders a couple of hours ago and PVO said something about a new poll in WA that was very favourable to the Liberals. Don’t know if it was state or federal.

    Can anyone tell me anything about that?

  2. Nicholas

    ‘..you know, that office with a staff turnover far higher than any other backbench MP’s office ‘

    No, I don’t know this. I know she had high staff turnover. I don’t know that it’s higher than any other backbench MPs, and I’d like to know your source. This is scarcely information which is freely available.

    ‘..the many complainants in this matter…’ ‘… a large number of allegations from the many people who saw them up close…’

    Again, I haven’t read of ‘many complainants’. I know of one, who appears to also have complained about how others were treated. It is possible there are more, but I don’t KNOW this.

    It’s possible you know something I don’t know and have read information I haven’t. I would be very grateful to you if you could provide the sources you have which demonstrate that there are ‘many complainants’ and that her staff turnover is the highest of any backbenchers’.

    Alternatively, if you can’t, I suggest you be far more careful with your use of language.

  3. Diog

    Twenty ex employees is evidence of high staff turnover, yes. It’s not evidence of a large number of complainants, however, but of a large number of witnesses who can confirm/deny the accusations made.

  4. ..I will add that, of course, I have no idea if Husar is innocent or guilty of the charges, if she should step down as an MP or not. I’ll wait until I see something more reliable than hearsay and guesswork coming from secondhand sources.

  5. I did think it was pretty obvious.
    I even wrote “Heavy Handed Sarcasm” at the end of the post where I called for Roosendaal to be re-seated in the Mother of Australian parliaments

  6. Thanks C@t. According to Bludgertrack that represents a 3.7% swing to Labor since the last election and a gain of two seats. Not as good for the Liberals as PVO seems to think.

    He made some comment about it perhaps being in response to the favourable GST announcement from Turnbull recently, but in fact it shows no change at all in the 2pp since then. Obviously he doesn’t read Poll Bludger or he would know that.

  7. Z
    Let’s say she bullied a few people but there was nothing really bad.
    In business, she’d be counselled and given a warning rather than sacked. Being dumped as an MP is career ending so the crime would have to be bad for that punishment.

  8. Steve777 @ #2409 Sunday, August 5th, 2018 – 8:43 pm

    Mr Denmore quoted by Zoidlord: “An anonymous claim about an obscure opposition MP not wearing undies is judged more newsworthy than cabinet ministers tipping $440m of our money unaudited into a trust run by their mates to put a fig leaf over the climate denialism destroying our biggest natural wonder.”

    It’s clearly also working here on PB, with posters like Nicholas pushing this barrow as hard as they can.

    Makes you wonder about them, doesn’t it?

  9. Well, isn’t this interesting re the crowd yelling abuse at the Trump rally:

    My cousin is a model in Florida. She was paid $100 to attend your rally last night, along with at least 50 others she knows about.She was encouraged to find cameras and yell whatever was most common— Angry Thor the Catalyst (@Thor89318781) August 1, 2018

  10. Diogenes @ #2464 Sunday, August 5th, 2018 – 7:46 pm

    Z
    Let’s say she bullied a few people but there was nothing really bad.
    In business, she’d be counselled and given a warning rather than sacked. Being dumped as an MP is career ending so the crime would have to be bad for that punishment.

    Without the leaks that’s logically how it would play out if a problem was found.

    However, I think Andrew is pretty close to the mark as to Husar’s position now and I think it’s pretty hard to see her maintaining endorsement for the next election.

    I just hope that the Party has an investigation into the leaks and deals harshly with the person or people involved.

    I would hate to see one of them benefit from their actions in this case.

  11. Diog

    Although nominally the MP chooses their staff, it’s not uncommon for HO or local heavyweights to put forward contenders. Sometimes HO organisers have romantic ideas about putting political rivals up as a sort of test for all concerned….’show that you can put it all behind you and work together for the party’ (and yes, that’s a direct quote!)

  12. Dan Gulberry says Sunday, August 5, 2018 at 10:55 pm

    Well, isn’t this interesting re the crowd yelling abuse at the Trump rally:

    I think I read that those heckling Jim Acosta at the Trump rally actually asked for selfies and were quite nice once the news cameras stopped filming.

  13. Emma Husar is a minor matter in the big scheme of things. There are far more important matters to be concerned about. Some of the allegations are clearly crap, invented to cause maximum damage. Others, regarding staff matters, were being investigated although it is likely, as BB says, that such an investigation is now hopelessly compromised.

    Meanwhile, the Government is trying to lock climate Inaction in place for 12 years through a so-called ‘National Energy Guarantee’, handing out hundreds of millions of public money to mates without scrutiny or any sort of due diligence, is planning to gut the ABC and worst of all is planning to slash health, education and social security to cut mates’ taxes by tens of billions. And who will, given the opportunity, remove opportunities for workers obtain redress in the face of the sort of bullying alleged against Ms Husar.

  14. Dan Gulberry @ #2465 Sunday, August 5th, 2018 – 8:55 pm

    Well, isn’t this interesting re the crowd yelling abuse at the Trump rally:

    My cousin is a model in Florida. She was paid $100 to attend your rally last night, along with at least 50 others she knows about.She was encouraged to find cameras and yell whatever was most common— Angry Thor the Catalyst (@Thor89318781) August 1, 2018

    I’m going to file this one under “implausible” until some sort of objective evidence comes out – someone who knows someone is not very strong. It’s nearly on a par with claims of busloads of illegal voters coming from other states.

  15. The problems over Ms Husar being damaged for this marginal seat in the upcoming election, should she be cleared, could be solved by preselecting her for a safe ALP seat. It would only br fair.

  16. grimace @ #2475 Monday, August 6th, 2018 – 12:01 am

    It’s nearly on a par with claims of busloads of illegal voters coming from other states.

    No, claiming you only lost because of illegal votes is actually smarter than the other thing. It lets you dismiss any loss as tainted, and encourage the rabble that does support you to take to the streets and demand that you be declared the winner anyways.

    Claiming that the other side is inflating its crowd sizes only gets the ability to embarrass your opponent about something frivolous.

  17. Catching up, catching up, catching up

    TBF to @workmanalice

    She did warn, when she refused to report parliamentary Dorothy Dixers, and Labor (here) cheered mightily, that she had no fear, nor favour, to any side of politics. And she’d report whatever she came across. I agree it has completely marred the investigation, but what reporter wouldn’t have reported it?

    AS FOR FARMERS needing Govt assistance, in times of drought and flooding rains.

    These are the folk that feed us: that’s why they get priority; that’s why they get assistance. It would be a pretty poor govt that didn’t care about feeding its population. And it’s why the manufacturers of plastic widgets don’t get the same support.

    The bit that annoys the heck out of me about farmers, in my experience, is that they pay no tax, ever. They have so many ways to write off – just about everything, yet they’re the first to complain about being taxed out of existence. What? Show me a farmer who pays tax, and I’ll show you a farmer who has a bad accountant.

    Still, we need to be fed, and we want our fresh milk, meat and veg/fruit. So what’s not to like about helping them to be sustainable in lean years. Farming is a hard slog, year in year out, ploughing, sowing, reaping, husbandry, culling, breeding, etc.

    And, ultimately, get the fruit of their labour to your market.

  18. Well, let’s see…………..$550 savings in electricity yet to be delivered from Abbott’s days in office. Another $550 on the table to be delivered sometime in the never-never future. And these shonks are never called on their failure to deliver.

  19. Despite Shorten lacking Weberian charismatic authority relative to Trumble’s slick, I thinks the punters will go with banality rather than with chutzpah. I mean to say, who’d go to an election backing the corporate tax cuts to? Trumble has to be nuts.

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