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. Boerwar @ #5259 Wednesday, August 1st, 2018 – 8:43 pm

    The coral research might be worth a punt.
    Coral species vary widely in their ability to withstand heat. There are coral species in some parts of the world that easily withstand the recent bleaching/death regime on the Reef.
    We have a particular problem. Right now.
    Staghorn corals, quick growers, are major reef builders.
    They are also more susceptible than other corals to heat stress.
    If staghorns are bred up to withstand an extra degree or couple of degrees then one of the main elements of the Reef – its physical structure might stand a chance.
    It would not be the same Reef as before because all sorts of corals and fish and coelentrates and annelids, etc, etc, etc, will become extinct.
    The heat exchange pump idea might work to keep species in small patches of the Reef going as a genetic resource.
    Reef ‘management’ is following the same tragic trajectory as land biodiversity management: erratic effort, effort disproportional to the need, and badly-focused effort being overwhelmed by a swelling tide of extinction drivers.

    Last year there was a Science Show (that venerable ABC institution still unsullied by the GRASPers) on the work on heat resistant corals in both Hawaii and Townsville. The problem is scale – and funding.

  2. Vic:

    Manafort’s defence is heaping blame on Rick Gates for embezzling from him.

    Looking forward to Day 2 of proceedings 🙂


  3. Player One says:
    Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at 8:48 pm

    Boerwar @ #374 Wednesday, August 1st, 2018 – 8:43 pm
    ….
    The heat exchange pump idea might work to keep species in small patches of the Reef going as a genetic resource.

    Un. Fucking. Believable.

    On something we agree.

    Boerwar you have to realize you can be up at 30000 feet in a commercial airline for about an hour and do not see the beginning or end of the reef. We are destroying something truly amazing.

    For 1/2 billion dollars you could build a nice aquarium to remind us what was until we finish ourselves off. It is unfucking believable at so many levels. Our governance has been compromised to an extent that 1/2 billion can be handout without oversight, public service, parliament or otherwise …. to someone suggesting a few heat pumps might be handy.

  4. I know SkyFoxNews doesn’t have many viewers, but some of their leading lights are getting apoplectic about ReefGate. And the crossover to Murdoch tabloid smear machine is happening.

  5. rhw

    There are technical problems as well as of problems of scale and funding. Coral spawns only once a year. The spawning events involve lots of little bits swirling around in water. Directing breeding in that context in the same way as, for example, breeding wheat is hugely difficult.

    There is one Darwinian positive. If they manage to breed a staghorn that is otherwise more or less the same as today’s staghorns but is a survivor in hotter water, it should find plenty of empty substrate to re-colonize.

  7. I was wondering about the precision of that $443.8 million figure myself.

    Its the kind of figure you arrive at after complex calculations, knowing what the money will be spent on in detail. Yet, the organisation involved claims it never knew it was going to be offered the money. So there could have been no conversation about the details, right?

    Yeah, right.

    Actually I’m reminded how scammers when they fraudulently bill you, always seem to pick a number that’s designed to “fly under the radar”. Less than a hundred, and always has some random cents in it.

  9. frednk,

    The parallels are astonishing. And Labor should make use of it.
    First Turnbull gets word from mates that spending $10 million on rain making is a good idea.
    Then Turnbull gets word from mates that FTTN is a great idea. We all know how well that worked out.

    Same MO every time.

  10. The $443.8 million would’ve been a budget allocation. They’ve just decided to allocate it wholly and solely to one organisation without due process and transparency.

  13. Fess

    And they are holding all these funds in term deposit accounts. And in senate estimates they were asked which banks were holding these funds and they didn’t know and said they had to get back to them on that.
    @facepalm@

  14. So there was only 3 people at the meeting which agreed to give $444m of taxpayers money to the GBRF, Malcolm Turnbull, Josh Frytheplanet and John Schubert – Chair of the GBRF.

    John Schubert has an interesting CV..

  15. Sprocket

    Everyone should be up in arms.
    Since when does an obscure small organisation get given in one lump sum 444 million dollars without any due process

  16. F
    I have studied the relationships between coral and global warming for close to a quarter of a century; ditto the management of natural values. I have few illusions, I believe.
    I had lunch recently with a person who has sailed along most of the length of the Reef in the past six months including in particular the northern stretches of the Reef.
    I asked him whether he agreed with the scientists who had assessed most of the shallow water coral in the northern half of the Reef as being dead.
    Yes. Without hestitation. He used not to be of the global warming persuasion.

    The Reef we knew is already gone. The corals that took 150 years to reach the size they did before being killed by hot water in the latest coral death event will never be 150 years old again. Not possible in any sense of the word.

    In terms of your scale position, we hold onto bits and pieces of biodiversity in terrestrial national parks. We spray weeds and we shoot ferals. We manage fire regimes. All this does not stop the erosion of terrestrial natural values in what is known as the Anthropocene Extinction Event

    But the management input slows down the erosion of biodiversity values. (There is a reasonable argument what with global warming we are wasting our time, of course.)

    The Reef heat exchange is a version of the same management approach to a marine national park – trying to hang onto selected bits of biodiversity for as long as possible.

    IMO, we have reached the stage where we can do either of two things:
    1. Watch the Reef die and do nothing.
    2. Watch the Reef die and try to help Mr Darwin salvage something.

  18. boerwar…”The Giles Government subsequently became the most chaotic of all Australian governments ever.”

    and turned into high farce by the end. Remember when Gile’s party room voted him out of the leadership, and Giles simply said “hmmm you know what? I think I might stay”, and the party was like “errr… ok then”

  20. F

    ‘Boerwar you have to realize you can be up at 30000 feet in a commercial airline for about an hour and do not see the beginning or end of the reef. We are destroying something truly amazing.’

    Having spent quite a bit of time on and over the Reef, yes, and true.

    ‘For 1/2 billion dollars you could build a nice aquarium to remind us what was until we finish ourselves off. It is unfucking believable at so many levels. Our governance has been compromised to an extent that 1/2 billion can be handout without oversight, public service, parliament or otherwise …. to someone suggesting a few heat pumps might be handy.’

    1. My view is that Turnbull’s Foundation Freebie is a shonk.
    2. On current trajectories the Reef will be gone with a couple of decades. The first priorities must be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For the Reef as a whole to survive this is the only real option. This is not happening and, IMO, is unlikely to happen. In other words, it is reasonable to hold the view that the Reef as a whole is gone unless something truly dramatic changes.
    3. That being the case, it is worth having a hard look at any salvage options – not for the Reef – but for bits and pieces of Reef biodiversity. We are doing exactly the same with terrestrial systems. I would have thought goose/gander.

  21. ‘Big A Adrian says:
    Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at 9:33 pm

    boerwar…”The Giles Government subsequently became the most chaotic of all Australian governments ever.”

    and turned into high farce by the end. Remember when Gile’s party room voted him out of the leadership, and Giles simply said “hmmm you know what? I think I might stay”, and the party was like “errr… ok then”’

    Yes. I do recall that. The great pity was that all this was a major driver for bad outcomes for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory.

  23. Boerwar @ #416 Wednesday, August 1st, 2018 – 9:32 pm

    IMO, we have reached the stage where we can do either of two things:
    1. Watch the Reef die and do nothing.
    2. Watch the Reef die and try to help Mr Darwin salvage something.

    As frednk pointed out, there is little possibility of us salvaging much given the scale of damage that is already ‘locked in’.

    Also, you missed the most likely option …

    3. Watch the Reef die and hand $400+ million to a sham environmental company to provide the government some good PR while we do so.

  24. Player One

    Break in clouds. Mars in view.
    Not sure whether seeing any features or just chromatic aberration- probably just eyesight. Now I know why Percival Lowell used young farmhands to look in scopes because he figured they had best eyesight.

  25. Chief Scientist and his predecessor Ian Chubb yep

    BK will be disappointed given Chubb is a former colleague or mentor of his.

  26. sprocket
    The truly astounding thing about the half billion give away was that Turnbull and Frydenberg truly seem to have thought that there was not going to be serious political damage arising.

  27. Rocket Rocket @ #424 Wednesday, August 1st, 2018 – 9:46 pm

    Player One

    Break in clouds. Mars in view.
    Not sure whether seeing any features or just chromatic aberration- probably just eyesight. Now I know why Percival Lowell used young farmhands to look in scopes because he figured they had best eyesight.

    How annoying! We are having the most rain we have had for the last three months. And according to the BOM rain radar it is just over us. Not even getting as far as the nearest town, which is about 30 km away.

    I’m not sure whether to cry or celebrate! 🙁

  28. frednk

    ‘Our governance has been compromised to an extent that 1/2 billion can be handout without oversight, public service, parliament or otherwise …. to someone suggesting a few heat pumps might be handy.’

    The governance is a shonk. This does not automatically mean that all the project outcomes will fail.

  29. Speaking of half a billion…

    https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/state-hoards-500-million-for-recycling-as-waste-management-crisis-escalates-20180725-p4ztgk.html

    “More than half a billion dollars paid by Victorians into the state government’s landfill levy is sitting unspent in government coffers despite an ongoing waste management crisis.
    :::::::
    Auditor-General Andrew Greaves’ report found there was a “significant lack of evaluation” of funded activities and public reporting on “outcomes”.
    :::::
    Environment Victoria spokesman Nicholas Aberle said it beggared belief the state government was sitting on so much money that was earmarked to improve waste management and tackle climate change.”

    “Victoria is facing a waste crisis and while we’ve taken some encouraging first steps to improve recycling, there’s still so much more to be done and we’ve got the money to do it,” he said.

  30. Speaking of rain, the basement of our new house on the NSW Mid North Coast got flooded when a couple of East Coast lows came through about 6 weeks ago. This was “100mm in one hour” stuff.

    So I got the local landscaping guy (yes, his father built our driveway 30 years ago) to assess and advise.

    Now we have a new drainage channel built between the excavation and the slab. It’s waterproofed and graded, ready for torrential rain…

    … just in time for the Big Drought.

  32. Two significant concerns have not been raised in relation to the half a billion.

    The first is that much of the half billion will be siphoned off to farmers to offset the consequences of their terrible land management practices. In other words, we will have yet another barely disguised farming subsidy.

    The second concenr is how much of the half billion will be siphoned off to contractor groups to kill COTS. The reason the latter is a concern is that there are some serious scientific questions about the efficacy of COTS killing programs.

  35. Ven,
    Really couldn’t say why the ABC who hasn’t jumped on the current reef stuff, is the ABC really that afraid of Malcolm Turnbull, and even newscorp is covering it!!

  40. I had a bit of a commercial connection with the Leyland Bros phoney “Uluru” bush amusement park and service station, back in the early 1990s. This is the Pacific Highway site that burnt to the ground last night.

    I met the two Leyland brothers, and I have to say they were far quicker off the mark than their televisual personalities made them out to be. But alas, not quick enough, as their ultimate bankruptcy evidenced.

    I can distinctly remember that this site – latterly just a service station with a campsite attached – was recently put up for sale.

    Such a shame that it has burnt to the ground before a suitable buyer could be found.

  41. Player One

    Sympathies but obviously good for others! Jupiter very clear – even clearer to the younger ones with better eyesight. 5 moons so I presume the 4 Galilean ones and one further out

  44. #WeatheronPB: Sydney has its warmest July average maximum on record, although average minima were below average under clear skies. It was ridiculously sunny, about 85% of the theoretical maximum. Apart from very light showers in places the other night, it hasn’t rained in nearly a month.

  45. Player One

    Talking climate change, years ago I was studying an area of maths which involves the Red Spot on Jupiter. Which has been shrinking for some time, and it is now thought it may disappear completely in the next few decades.

    https://www.space.com/39764-jupiter-great-red-spot-could-disappear.html

    The concept of this always reminds me of the end of “2010”. (Spoiler Alert) when the colours fade from Jupiter as it involutes and implodes.

  46. Steve777 @ #443 Wednesday, August 1st, 2018 – 10:20 pm

    #WeatheronPB: Sydney has its warmest July maximum on record, although minima were below average under clear skies. It was ridiculously sunny, about 85% of the theoretical maximum. Apart from very light showers in places the other night, it hasn’t rained in nearly a month.

    There’s no rain forecast for the next week either. 🙁

  47. Apart from very light showers in places the other night, it hasn’t rained in nearly a month.

    CLEARLY, STEVE777, YOU DO NOT GIVE A TINKER’S CUSS ABOUT THE EXPENSIVE NEW DRAINAGE DITCH I HAVE HAD DUG IN ANTICIPATION OF RAIN.

  49. Rocket Rocket @ #445 Wednesday, August 1st, 2018 – 10:22 pm

    The concept of this always reminds me of the end of “2010”. (Spoiler Alert) when the colours fade from Jupiter as it involutes and implodes.

    The Jupitans will no doubt come up with similar stories over coming years as they watching the Earth’s blue/green colours fade to red and brown … 🙁

  50. Well, the family C@t and her kittens are visiting the Mid North Coast hamlet of Hallidays Point next week to see my mum and dad/the kids’ nanna and pop, so I hope it doesn’t flood again! 😮

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