Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

No change in voting intention from the latest Essential poll, which also finds respondents evenly split on the future of the Nauru detention centre.

The Guardian reports the latest fortnightly Essential Research poll has Labor’s two-party lead unchanged at 53-47. The poll also includes the monthly leadership ratings, which show Scott Morrison leading Bill Shorten 42-27 as preferred prime minister, out from 39-27 a month ago. We will have to wait for the full report later today to see primary votes and approval ratings. The poll also finds 40% in favour of transferring families and children on Nauru to Australia, with 39% opposed; 37% supporting the closure of the Nauru detention centre and transferring those remaining to Australia, with 42% opposed; and 35% in support of keeping them there indefinitely, with 43% opposed. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1025.

UPDATE: Full report here. Both major parties are up a point on the primary vote, the Coalition to 38% and Labor to 37%, with the Greens reverting to 10% after a spike to 12% a fortnight ago, and One Nation up two to 7% after dropping three in the last poll. Scott Morrison is up six on approval to 43% and down three on disapproval to 28%, while Bill Shorten is respectively down three to 33% and down two to 45%.

The Guardian report focused on asylum seeker questions, but the other focus for the supplementary questions this week is the media. Thirty-six per cent offered that the government had too much influence on the ABC, 16% not enough, 17% about right and 31% don’t know, with Labor and Greens voters greatly more likely to offer the first response. Forty per cent felt ABC reporting was independent and unbiased and 34% the opposite – Labor and Greens supporters weighed more heavily towards the former, with Coalition supporters evenly split.

Also featured is an occasional “trust in media” question, along with a new question identifying specific news outlets. Despite all the fuss of late, results to both follow the usual patterns: public beats commercial, broadsheet beats tabloid, news beats tabloid, and there’s nothing lower than an “internet blog”. The Australian has a slight edge over the Fairfax papers, which I would hypothesise has something to do with the latter’s move to tabloid.

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.

2,060 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

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  2. phylactella
    My assumption would be that melting hundreds of cubic meters of ice per year would trigger tremors due to isostatic rebound.

  5. ar
    Your equivalence point is good, IMO.
    As is your point about discriminating between forcing staff to do what the proprietor forces himself to do.
    Your other point, that you would manage the business by varying your price according to your customer is not, IMO, principled. Rather it is an expedient dodge around the issue.

  6. Confessions: Rand Paul is basically opposed to any sort of interfering in the affairs of other states.

    He’s purest of the pure libertarian stock. Hence his first name.

  8. Mr Shelton’s cake shop questionnaire would, no doubt, require a tick against the following statements:

    1. I am a practicing christian.
    2. I did not spill my seed in the past 24 hours/week/month/year.
    3. I promise to honour god, Mr Trump, Mr Morrison, and my father and my mother.

  10. I’ll happily plead a decent level of economic ignorance, but someone may be able to assist with this: Tax cuts for business are being sold as a boon for employment/wages – ie ScoMo’s claim that decreased taxes = increased profits = increased employment/wages. OK, but my understanding is that business tax is only paid on actual business profit, not turnover. Any employment costs (and reinvestment into the business) will therefore effectively be pre-tax, right? (leaving aside payroll tax which might be a better target if you’re chasing employment growth).

    By my simple reckoning, a reduction in business tax rates will therefore apply to money taken OUT of the business by way of owner profits. This could therefore be seen as having the perverse incentive of encouraging less reinvestment and employment in order to artificially boost profit in order to take advantage of lower tax rates.

    Now, I’m not suggesting a reduction in tax therefore lessens overall employment/wages, but I’m failing to see how a tax reduction will incentivise pre-tax investment/employment expenditure more than taxable profit-taking. This seems to be consistent with the US situation where massive business tax cuts are largely being funnelled into share buy-backs and dividends rather than wage increases.

    I just haven’t really seen this argued by anyone (including opponents to tax cuts) so I assume I’m missing something really obvious.

  14. Is it true?

    I thought last night that the ABC News said that only in NSW and the ACT could schools expel, discriminate or otherwise persecute gay students.

    That it was expressly forbidden only in Tasmania and Qld.

  15. This was at a very small country school – showing that it’s possible to cater for all types of students, regardless of school size, as long as there’s the will and the flexibility to do so.

    Thanks Zoomster. It is fascinating. We just went through a change in principle at our PS. There is a lot of talk about teacher selection, training, status, autonomy and pay with the Finish education policy expert now based at UNSW and I wonder how much of the flexibility and energy required is dependent on the quality of the teacher vs the school principle and just how accountable principles are within the Education departments.

  18. swamprat

    Its true. We have no Federal Human Rights act.

    Thus each act has to have human rights inserted into it.

    We have not had the High Court rule that our International Treaty on Human Rights trumps local law except for overruling Tasmania in the Tooney case decriminalising homosexuality.

    If we had such a ruling from the High Court we could not have our AS policy as run by the LNP.

    Ditto Death in Custody for Indigineuous people

  19. It is odd that Tasmania is the most protective of equality for gays in education where the ABC even gay teachers are protected from discrimination.

  21. swamprat @ #1672 Thursday, October 11th, 2018 – 8:03 am

    It is odd that Tasmania is the most protective of equality for gays in education where the ABC even gay teachers are protected from discrimination.

    Probably a consequence of being one the last to act so their laws reflect the Societies standards more fully than earlier laws which have not been updated. 🙂

  23. Boerwar
    although the total mass of ice is moving elsewhere as water – the pressure change at ground level is microscopic. Isostatic rebound “usually” is slow and even, and has been quantified in Scandinavia from the post-glacial retreat, and also at the (now) dry Lake Bonneville in the western USA after the water disappeared.

  24. Good morning all,

    No surprise that the greens are jumping up and down seeking relevance re changes to the sex discrimination act.

    It would seem that current federal and state legislation has been so draconian in its application that up until now no one including teachers, students and or parents appear to have taken serious issue with it.

    To introduce amendments to the federal act has the possibility of causing any amount of untended consequences if it overrides elements of the state and territory legislation currently in place and open up a divisive and hurtful debate.

    I do not think we need new legislation or any significant change to the current. The current legislation appears to be working in the real world.

    I am more than happy to be corrected by the more well informed and those experienced in this area.

    Have there been any reported cases of discrimination towards teachers and or students on the part of schools arising out of the current legislation and if so has the current system been adequate to deal with any such abuse ?

    Is discrimination against teachers and or students in relation to sexuality endemic in Australia ?

    I really am interested.

    Cheers.

  25. Confessins

    Rand Paul has called on the USA to stop arms sales to Saudi until the journalist is found and i am pretty sure he opposed sales on the basis of Yemen also.

    Rand and his father before him are unapologetic isolationists – they want the the USA out of every foreign land and to concentrate on defence only. I am not sure about Rand but I know that his father donated his entire congress salary to charity. Ron paul was a doctor and i think continued to practice.

    The Pauls are pure Libertarians ie they believe in small government. I do not agree with them on economic measures but can at least admire them (Ron – I know less of Rand) for being consistent in their principles and general pacifist principles. There are suggestions Ron was a bit of a racist, which is not good, but I have not followed up on it.

  30. Anthony Galloway
    ‏
    BREAKING: AFP officers are understood to be raiding the Department of Home Affairs building in Canberra over damaging leaks in the au pair saga last month. More soon @theheraldsun #auspol

  31. How Mitch Marsh transformed his cricket fortunes

    ABC Headline July 2018. Since then….
    5 test matches (all away games)…averaging 19 with the bat and 4 wickets at 52. Career, batting average 26, bowling 43.

    All those years of Waddo getting blasted for poor performances (especially by sandgropers)… he averaged 35 and 33.

  32. guytaur,

    Thanks for that link.

    I really am interested in this issue as it seems to have been a sleeper with the current federal legislation in place for some time.

    Should the commonwealth be able to override individual states and territories on this and if so what consequences could there be ?

    Cheers.

  33. Could be big news: Australian Federal Police have reportedly raided Home Affairs’ Canberra offices.

    An AFP spokesperson declined to comment, but said a statement would be issued later today.

    There are reports the raid is in relation to the leaking of material related to the au pair saga drama last month, that caused considerable issues for Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

    More to come

  34. Doyley

    I think States have to do the legislation. That means the ACT WA NSW etc amending their laws to reflect Tasmania. Federal Laws to apply to Federal areas like social security as Labor has done.

    Thus the Greens amendment and that of Hinch is valid as it refers to Commonwealth funding.

    Edit: I am no expert but I think School Chaplains funding strings would apply

  35. Don’t expel students for being gay – only if they have sex, says Lyle Shelton

    I assume this means that any “suspect” students will be under 24 hour surveillance.
    The man’s a complete fool.

  36. guytaur,

    If it is left up to the states and the states do not change their legislation would a amendment to commonwealth legislation re funding, for example, be useless ?

    Cheers.

  37. phylactella :

    The Sydney Anglican Diocese would be one of the greatest havens for bigots that I know of!

    It is bigot central. Homophobic, sexist and anti-Catholic*.

    *Except where the Catholics are also being sexist and homophobic – then they are best buddies.

  38. Good to see the AFP living up to their reputation as being vigorous, active pursuers of leakers and pretty much no one else.

    Good to see them identifying the real issues – those corrosive problems of corruption in high office or abuse of power or white collar crime – and completely ignoring them to focus on leaks, because leaks against the executive are the real hidden scourge of our society.

  39. Not entirely sure that resurrecting the au pair scandal in the media cycle is an altogether positive contribution to the government’s attempt to retain Wentworth

  41. DaretoTread @ #1674 Thursday, October 11th, 2018 – 11:15 am

    The Pauls are pure Libertarians ie they believe in small government.

    They’re faux-libertarians in that they don’t actually advocate positions that maximize and protect individual civil liberties. They don’t, for instance, advocate for marriage equality. Their preference is to throw that question back down to the states so that there can be a patchwork where in some places the gays are free to marry and in other places they aren’t. Same for abortion and other issues.

    And sure, you can argue that that’s “small government”, or even “democratic” in some perverse way. But it’s not actually libertarian. Libertarians oppose the erosion of civil liberties, whether that happens at the federal, state, or local level.

  44. I opened up my iPad to see a number of notifications from Quakewatch of quakes in PNG- near Rabaul. The biggest was 7.0 this morning, before 8 am EST, followed by several smaller aftershocks. This locality is clearly related to a collisional plate margin, along an island arc.
    I often am asked at U3A if closely timed quakes in different areas are related. I usually say – they may be, but there is no known coupling mechanism connecting over 1000’s of km.
    I consider it more likely that such events are truly random – which means that odd clusters often show up. To see clustering in random events, watch the gambling screens at any hotel, and see how often some of the numbers cluster together. Evenly distributed events are NOT random!

  45. Correct Bob’s Uncle

    It is the old story that for every action there is a reaction

    And you could write a book!

    But your summation fits with a couple of contributions I have made to this site this morning – and which have not deflected contributors to this site from the deflection issues of religion and God saving the Queen (so read into that what you may!!) plus immigration as a dog whistle to race

    And the question is why no outrage at $4 Billion of employee superannuation contributions not being remitted to employees ANNUALLY

    I lunched yesterday with some friends who are ex Money Market and Treasury and Risk analysts and players

    This government is gone

    It is a joke – as is its Leader

    There was a defence of dividend imputation by one where 30% of his income is sourced from this source – but he was closed down on equality and not by me. I only listened

    To the loss of Capital he responded that the focus was income – income to live on

    This progressed to the conversation being that wealth and the growth of wealth is THE factor in income and sustainable income

    And that wealth is a factor of proprietor contribution, asset performance over time, diversification, compounding with some assistance from inflation over the journey and liquidating debt (which is the big contributor because it frees up income)

    If you are beholden to others including because of tax concessions there is always the prospect of an unfavourable result and in terms of destruction of wealth for those reliant on the current dividend imputation scheme, that is the outcome

    Also mentioned was the Dividend Yield given the savage falls in the Share prices of (particularly) our banks and Telstra

    Does the Dividend Yield continue to rise?

    Because value is being destroyed?

    So how sustainable is the dividend?

    I think someone left lunch yesterday asking a lot of questions as to strategy

    No one put the old banker’s line that your best loss is your first loss

    You never throw good money after bad

    Pretty simple hey, Bob’s Uncle?

  49. Mike Carlton
    ‏@MikeCarlton01
    16h

    FFS. Ruddock and I went to the same Anglican private school. He was 2 years ahead of me. There were gay kids there, as he well knows. The sky did not fall in.

    Ah, but this was before he became a Minister and achieved his life’s ambition, apparently.

  50. On an ABC program last night they showed the AFL CEO’s face as Shorten poked fun over his and his wife’s baby sitting arrangements and the baby sitter gifting a polo pony

    Priceless

    How the other 5% live, hey?

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