Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

Another poll records a drift back to the Coalition after the post-leadership spill blowout, along with strong support for quotas to boost female parliamentary representation in the Liberal Party.

The Guardian reports the latest Essential Research poll has Labor leading 53-47 on two-party preferred, down from 54-46 a fortnight ago. We are told the Coalition is up a point on the primary vote to 37%, and Labor down one to 36% – we will have to await the full report later today for the minor party primary votes. UPDATE: Genuinely unusual results on this score, with One Nation slumping three points to 5% and the Greens up two to 12%. Full report here.

The poll also finds 61% support for female representation quotas for the Liberal Party (68% among Coalition voters), with 21% opposed; 37% supporting proposed government legislation to safeguard religious freedoms, with 26% opposed; and 82% supporting a federal anti-corruption body, with only 5% opposed. Also featured are Essential’s recurring questions on trust in institutions, which as usual find high levels of trust in police forces, the High Court, the ABC and the Reserve Bank, but lower levels for trade unions, religious organisations, federal parliament, business groups and, especially, political parties.

Other polls of late that I have so far neglected to mention:

• A poll of the regional New South Wales seat of Hume finds Liberal member Angus Taylor leading 57-43, which represents a 3.2% swing to Labor. Both parties are well down on the primary vote compared with the 2016 election, with the Liberals on 41.8% (down 12.0%) and Labor on 26.9% (down 4.9%). This reflects both a 10.4% showing for One Nation and a 6.6% increase for “others” to 14.3%, with the Greens steady on 6.6%. The poll was conducted by ReachTEL for the Australia Institute from a sample of 690.

• Also from the Australia Institute comes a survey of 1449 respondents regarding recent royal commissions. This finds the one into the banking and finance industry to have the highest level of public awareness, followed in order by those into child sex abuse, trade unions and the Murray-Darling Basin. As the organisation no doubt hoped, the survey found the banking and finance industry inquiry was overwhelmingly perceived to have been more productive than the one into trade unions.

• A poll of Victorian state voting intention, conducted by ReachTEL a fortnight ago for the Bus Association of Victoria from a sample of 1008, found Labor leading 53-47 on two-party preferred, and 42% to 40% on the primary vote.

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.

3,474 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

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  1. lizzie says:
    Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 8:34 am

    I apologise for my contribution to the nath-inspired conversation. Not because I’m wrong, but because I shouldn’t encourage him in his trolling.
    ________________
    I was asked by Gippslander about my views on Shorten and I gave them.

  2. I was of the understanding that the serial contributor on all matters (who is that educated?) was only contributing because he was hospitalised and bored

    So obviously still a patient

    So when is the serial contributors release date?

    In regard a couple of the contributions relating to issues I have first hand experience in and at least some expertise in, I have called the contributor out as contributing abject and dangerous nonsense

    Meanwhile I put a response to an article on Westpac on the previous thread, and will not repeat it here but would recommend a read

    The summary is that the god bothering, look at me and this is my nick name dysfunctional pm should be returning the call Maxstead made to Turnbull conceding a RC ( but setting the Terms of Reference) and reading the riot act to Maxstead

    I repeat, Westpac APPROVED all of the loans it has on its book and their reported stance now is a continuation of their abject failings since deregulation

  3. Thanks Sohar for the Quentin Dempster article. I think this is a good question:

    Just who externally would want to take up the challenge of managing the ABC at a time of funding deprivation with the ABC board’s now-exposed hair trigger contract power, remains problematic.

    Probably some conservative hack who will hollow out the ABC even further. And interesting that Guthrie faced down calls to sack Alberici and Probyn over recent reports.

  5. At least people know who Shorten is!

    They may know his name but unfortunately for many out in voterland there is a perception he is a chameleon and is insincere in what he stands for.

    https://newmatilda.com/2018/09/23/earth-point-australian-labor-party/

    They both start with the letter ‘L’ and they both end with ‘party’. But they’re the only ones celebrating, writes Liam McLoughlin.

    Scott Morrison’s vision is a boot stamping on a human face forever, Pauline Hanson wants to bleach the Senate carpets and wear cricket whites to Question Time, Richard Di Natale thinks Mad Max is not a policy prescription, but what in God’s name does Bill Shorten stand for?

    For too long there hasn’t been much of a choice for Labor voters. They could vote for the party whose leader promised to stop the boats, advocated boat turnbacks, killed the momentum of #LetThemStay, hobnobbed at exclusive, expensive fundraisers for business leaders, accepted political donations from fossil fuel companies, supported new coal mines and backed rafts of legislation transforming Australia into a police state, or they could vote for the Liberals.

    In the last fortnight alone the great party of Australian workers not only backflipped on their opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) but also voted down a motion for stronger lobbying laws.
    :::
    Maybe Labor’s foundation of bedding down with business, bipartisan cruelty to refugees, copycat violations of civil liberties, and excruciating contortions on Adani, might not be the inspiring social vision Australians crave. Maybe voters wonder why they should vote for the cheap knock offs when they can have the branded refugee torturers. Maybe there’s a reason 68% of Australians think Labor will do anything to win votes, beyond their leader’s embarrassing attempts at dabbing.

  6. The fact is that Kill Bill is very much alive and moving into its decisive phase. I have been working with elements of the Greens, Abbott staffers, using the resources of the Menzies centre and my powers of being a master of psychological manipulation as an agent provocateur to ensure this eventuality. The High Council consists of myself, Pegasus and Wayne, (who I am yet to meet). Now that we have the approval of Rupert and Gina the release of monies will be forthcoming and there is no stopping this show.

  7. Men deciding that men should not be held to account for sexual abuse:

    Last week, columnist Dennis Prager made the disgusting suggestion that Brett Kavanaugh belongs on the Supreme Court, even if Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school is true. Evangelist Franklin Graham called her charge “not relevant.”

    Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a longtime Senate Judiciary Committee member, also implied Ford’s allegation was irrelevant, saying that even if what she says is true, “I think it would be hard for senators to not consider who the judge is today. That’s the issue: Is this judge a really good man? And he is. And by any measure, he is.”

    At the Values Voter Summit on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the man who, more than anyone, will determine whether Kavanaugh is confirmed to the high court, said, “In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court,” adding, of Ford’s anticipated hearing, “We’re going to plow right through it and do our job.”

    Then, Friday night at a campaign rally in Springfield, Mo., President Trump called Kavanaugh a “fantastic man” and said “he was born — you talk about central casting — he was born, they were saying it 10 years ago about him, he was born for the U.S. Supreme Court. He was born for it. And it’s going to happen,” adding, “We have to fight for him, not worry about the other side, and, by the way, women are for that more than anybody would understand.”

    It’s as if they feel Kavanaugh is owed a lifetime seat on the highest court in our nation, allegations be damned.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/24/kavanaugh-isnt-entitled-supreme-court-seat-just-like-men-arent-entitled-sex/?utm_term=.d38dfa6c5fa2

  9. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/25/nauru-blocking-refugee-evacuations-a-problem-of-australias-creation-judge

    Nauru’s attempts to block court-ordered medical evacuations of refugees is a problem of the Australian government’s creation, a federal court judge has said in a damning ruling.

    Justice Debra Mortimer made the comments early last week while ordering the urgent transfer of a young woman who was ill after trying to take her own life, after she was allegedly raped on the same day she was denied US resettlement.

    While lawyers argued, the judgment revealed, the woman told her team she was sitting in her own vomit and asking for help.

  12. Pegasus, proving, yet again, that The Greens and their support crew on social media will highlight any vile and vituperative pile of bs against Bill Shorten in their continuing quest with the Coalition to wedge Labor.

  14. What charming places Kavanaugh’s old schools are!

    Let’s start with Kavanaugh’s high school, Georgetown Prep, also the alma mater of Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first Supreme Court pick. There’s now a wealth of reporting painting the private school as a bastion of heedless male entitlement. Kavanaugh’s high school friend Mark Judge — who Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh’s first accuser, says was in the room when Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her — has written extensively of his drunken teenage debauchery. According to The New Yorker, Judge confided in an ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth Rasor, about an incident where he and other boys took turns having sex with a drunken woman. (Judge denies this.)

    From Georgetown Prep, Kavanaugh went to Yale. There he joined the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon, or DKE, which was, according to The Yale Daily News, “notorious for disrespecting women.” (Long after Kavanaugh graduated, the fraternity, once headed by George W. Bush, was banned from campus after video emerged of pledges chanting, “No Means Yes! Yes Means Anal!”) Kavanaugh was also a member of an all-male secret society called Truth and Courage, which had an obscene nickname affirming its dedication to womanizing.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/opinion/columnists/kavanaugh-georgetown-supreme-court.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

  15. “They may know his name but unfortunately for many out in voterland there is a perception he is a chameleon and is insincere in what he stands for.”

    A perception carefully peddled by the Tories, crypto Tories, crypto fascists and … of course … The Greens.

    It’s not a perception amongst those in voterland who turn up to his Town Hall meetings and get to experience him unplugged.

    It’s also a perception that largely dissappated for about 5 weeks during the last Federal Election campaign when, despite their best efforts, the CPG could not get away with simply regurgitating PMO talking points and parsing the parts of what Bill was saying that fitted into their predetermined narrative (looking at you Leigh4Sales). …

  17. Andrew_Earlwood
    It’s not a perception amongst those in voterland who turn up to his Town Hall meetings and get to experience him unplugged.
    __________________
    I Wonder why he cant get his personal numbers above 0 then?

  18. Intrigued that the ABC, which apparently has a stable of highly trained investigative journalists, has to get journos in from other organisations to explain what’s going on…

  21. Pegasus
    says:
    Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 8:57 am
    nath,
    You do make me laugh. Some people here take themselves much too seriously.
    _________________________
    Thanks Peg. 🙂

  22. nath

    I disagree with you on Mr Shorten as far as changing leaders is concerned. Yes the media has tried to promote that image and yes so some voters including some Labor supporters have bought it. They are still going to vote Labor though. Read the Independent Australia article to see why.

    The 2pp of Essential proves Labor is winning with Mr Shorten as leader and thats what counts.

    We know all the division is on the LNP side and all the inauthentic feel of politicians with it.
    The kill bill theme of the MSM all politicians are like this is what is driving the primary vote of the LNP down. So keep it up.

  23. Andrew_Earlwood @ #65 Tuesday, September 25th, 2018 – 8:56 am

    “They may know his name but unfortunately for many out in voterland there is a perception he is a chameleon and is insincere in what he stands for.”

    A perception carefully peddled by the Tories, crypto Tories, crypto fascists and … of course … The Greens.

    It’s not a perception amongst those in voterland who turn up to his Town Hall meetings and get to experience him unplugged.

    It’s also a perception that largely dissappated for about 5 weeks during the last Federal Election campaign when, despite their best efforts, the CPG could not get away with simply regurgitating PMO talking points and parsing the parts of what Bill was saying that fitted into their predetermined narrative (looking at you Leigh4Sales). …

    And which Pegasus toiled night and day during the election campaign to reinforce in people’s minds here.

  24. https://www.theage.com.au/national/if-only-we-cared-about-refugees-as-much-as-strawberries-20180921-p50550.html

    If only the asylum seekers and their children on Nauru and Manus were strawberries. Perhaps they would have more of a chance of grabbing the attention of the Prime Minister. Perhaps they wouldn’t try to kill themselves, as a dozen have, or harm themselves, or descend into a morass of depression.
    ::::
    Pity then those in limbo on Manus and Nauru. You have your clear message. Fate has delivered you as a refugee on a fatal shore. You should have been a strawberry or an au pair. Clearly, you deserve your lot in life.

  27. Sprocket_ @ #10 Tuesday, September 25th, 2018 – 6:48 am

    Will Kerryn Phelps shameless stunt-a-thon succeed? Probably. Her latest…

    The #ABC is one of our most precious public institutions. We need our publicly funded independent broadcaster to ensure media diversity, free of political or commercial interference. An independent and properly funded ABC is the voice of Australia. We must fight for its future

    ” rel=”nofollow”>

    Reminds me of Nick Xenophon.

  28. nath

    Sorry I forgot to post that progressives are used to the Mainstream media pushing all leaders are bad. Been happening from before I was politically aware.

  30. Go Labor!

    I see The Greens in NSW have been too gutless to do this sort of stuff to the Tories:

    It started with a polite, seemingly heartfelt card from NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who had learned of Labor MP Jenny Aitchison’s “serious health issue” and wanted her to know her “thoughts are with you and your family”.

    But Ms Aitchison, frustrated by her experiences in the public health system and that of her constituents, used it as an opportunity to publicly issue a stinging rebuke of the Berejiklian government’s performance and priorities…

    In her reply, she said she had ruled out radiation and chemotherapy and that taking “preventer drugs” wasn’t an option.

    “I couldn’t find a surgeon in the Hunter who could do my surgery and had to wait six months for a private specialist in Sydney,” the Member for Maitland wrote.

    “After surgery I had complications where I spent 52 hours in St Vincent’s Public Hospital emergency department without being fed for 18 hours. The staff were amazing and overworked but there were no beds in either private or public wards.”

    She said she wanted to share the details because she wanted Ms Berejiklian to know, first hand, “what it’s like to be woman in regional NSW struggling with cancer”.

    “I want you to fix our health system. Fund more screening for all women and education campaigns, and stop wasting billions of dollars on stadiums!”

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/fix-our-health-system-a-labor-mp-s-stinging-response-to-the-premier-s-polite-card-20180924-p505os.html

  31. guytaur
    says:
    Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at 9:00 am
    nath
    I disagree with you on Mr Shorten as far as changing leaders is concerned. Yes the media has tried to promote that image and yes so some voters including some Labor supporters have bought it. They are still going to vote Labor though. Read the Independent Australia article to see why.
    The 2pp of Essential proves Labor is winning with Mr Shorten as leader and thats what counts.
    _____________________
    I think it’s likely there will be a change of government too. Obviously I would prefer if Albo, Plibersek, Dreyfus or even Julian Hill were leader. Of course they are not going to change, even if it gets to 50-50. Hopefully it will be a good government even with Stabby McStabbyhands as PM.

  32. AE

    I had the pleasure of seeing Shorten performing on the hustings during the 2016 federal campaign at the Ringwood Town Hall.

    It was obvious the majority of people attending were Labor partisans.

    There were four questions from the floor on asylum seekers. Shorten got shorter in his responses and more dismissive. Shorten publicly humiliated the fourth questioner, an elderly gentleman.

  33. Holy crap is that a fair dinkum photo of Phelps as a Banana in pajamas? Is she deliberately trying to give voters the impression she’s a flake?

  34. lizzie @ #38 Tuesday, September 25th, 2018 – 8:10 am

    Richard Au Tuffin ‏ @RichardTuffin

    Dave Sharma confirming on #rndrive that he’s not in favour of restoring funding to the ABC.

    I wonder how the electors in #wentworthvotes feel about that.

    Interesting that. It tends to confirm my recollection (to which I’ve previously linked) that Sharma was Morrison’s first, foremost, and undoubtedly final pick. The small matter of publicly backing the woman who bombed in round 1 was prime Morrison duplicity.

    Sharma’s platform is all about small business. No mention of energy or climate that I have seen, or received. The refugee migration issue is swept away with platitudes about what a great country Australia is, and how you can go from immigrant son to Ambassador in one generation. Then back to how many small businesses there are in Wentworth.

    His ‘Israel is in my blood’ history and repartee will resonate well, and trounce a lot of Phelps’s hot air about whatever she’s reacting against today.

  35. What never ceases to amaze me is the Angel from Heaven stuff from some who totally ignore the fact that Shorten has held Labor together and has welded the talent into a formidable team with a very strong chance to win government.
    Having come close once, seen off two political opponents and totally shattered the political saw that Opposition leaders elected after political defeat rarely/never lead the party to the next election – let alone a second – these individuals go on and on about ‘let’s talk about Labor leadership’ – yet again.
    There is no Bob Hawke waiting in the wings, there is no Gough ready to ride into town and no aspiring Rudd to knock off a tired LNP leader. We have Shorten – for all his perceived strengths/weakness and a now very long sting of opinion polls over a long time, which spells opposition for the LNP.
    Despite protestations to the contrary, the ‘let’s talk Labor leadership,’ lot, I suspect, are just mindlessly axe-grinding.

  37. Pegasus @ #82 Tuesday, September 25th, 2018 – 9:08 am

    AE

    I had the pleasure of seeing Shorten performing on the hustings during the 2016 federal campaign at the Ringwood Town Hall.

    It was obvious the majority of people attending were Labor partisans.

    There were four questions from the floor on asylum seekers. Shorten got shorter in his responses and more dismissive. Shorten publicly humiliated the fourth questioner, an elderly gentleman.

    Blinkered perspective, much? Hmm, I wonder how many of the questioners were Greens who went along with Pegasus to the Town Hall? Possibly even the ‘elderly gentleman’ perhaps? Nice, supportive descriptor of him there, Pegasus. I bet you don’t have those sort of indulgent phrases for elders that support Labor though, do you? They are now that epithet du jour, ‘Labor partisans’, with a snaky sibilance around the ‘s’ sounds, huh? 🙂

  39. Confessions @ #83 Tuesday, September 25th, 2018 – 9:11 am

    Holy crap is that a fair dinkum photo of Phelps as a Banana in pajamas?

    I say yes. You can see a seam in the background, in the bottom right of the image. So it’s a probably real cutout and not a photoshopped overlay. And the shadow being cast by her head looks real, as well.

    Is she deliberately trying to give voters the impression she’s a flake?

    I think she’s trying to say she supports the ABC. I think it’ll actually work, especially if she backs it up with words to that effect.

  40. Nath

    No matter what else you think of Mr Shorten he gets it with vulnerable people.

    To say that Mr Shorten was showboating on Beaconsfield is to show at the very least you have bought the right wing spin.

    You need more varied news sources.

  42. It’s easy for the Greens to be emotional about the treatment of AS, and many of us agree the whole situation is tragic. BUT Labor has been successfully wedged by Dutton and his crew so that they can do nothing until they are in power (and even then the screeches of Danger! Hoards arriving! will be very loud no matter what they do).

  43. This.

    Interesting that. It tends to confirm my recollection (to which I’ve previously linked) is that Sharma was Morrison’s first, foremost, and undoubtedly final pick. The small matter of publicly backing the woman who bombed in round 1 was prime Morrison duplicity.

    We should call it out every time we see it. Morrison’s Modus Operandi.

  44. guytaur
    To say that Mr Shorten was showboating on Beaconsfield is to show at the very least you have bought the right wing spin.
    ___________________________________
    Perish the thought that politicians would use things like this to their advantage. I wasn’t as harsh as some though:

    The two miners were still buried a kilometre under Beaconsfield when the first poison darts hit Bill Shorten. ”Ghoulish fame whore?” queried a blogsite, skewering the then Australian Workers Union national secretary fronting cameras at the Tasmanian minesite tragedy.
    ”As far as I know he has no expertise in mining or mine rescues, and no active role in the rescue effort,” said the cyber critic. ”Yet he manages to hog just about every media report on the rescue effort.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-charm-offensive-20090925-g6a2.html

  45. lizzie @ #92 Tuesday, September 25th, 2018 – 9:25 am

    It’s easy for the Greens to be emotional about the treatment of AS, and many of us agree the whole situation is tragic. BUT Labor has been successfully wedged by Dutton and his crew so that they can do nothing until they are in power (and even then the screeches of Danger! Hoards arriving! will be very loud no matter what they do).

    I’m glad that it was you that said this, lizzie. As I know how keenly you feel for the plight of the asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru and want to see them off there as soon as humanly possible. As do I. And as do Labor, as they have said, repeatedly, if anyone cared to acknowledge that. But no, all we get instead is self-interested bleating from the likes of Pegasus and Rex here, and their analogous congeners in parliament for The Greens.

    At the end of the day it’s simply self-serving tosh.

  47. lizzie

    Labor is wedged on AS only as long as the race baiting White Australia dog whistling works in winning marginal seats and is seen to be doing so by Labor.

    All the polls are showing thats not the case. Labor can and does win elections without pandering to that particular cohort of voter. Mr Shorten is proving that day after day.
    The thing for Labor is to realise that. Labor won by being strong on human rights against Howard. Workers rights in particular.

    Same now. Labor is winning by being strong on human rights from Marriage Equality all the way to income inequality and how poverty is increasing the attack on human rights of life expectancy through health outcomes and the attack on education and the right of the voter to be informed.

    Labor is always strongest when it holds to its core values of standing up for the vulnerable and voiceless in partnership with the unions. Its why the LNP will always win by going to the right and why Labor should never try.

  48. A previous “Arsehole of the Week” nomination collects some jail time.

    Thanks for the report BK, but 14 days (plus a $2500 fine) hardly seems adequate for needlessly slaughtering over 400 of a protected species (wedge tail eagles). Surely we need to start taking these things more seriously than that.

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