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”

Comments Page 5 of 42
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  1. ar,

    You seem all hot and bothered about someone projecting light on to the outside s of a building.

    There’s no obligation for anyone to sign any petitions. It is a Government decision.

    You only want duelling petitions because you and your ilk liked Deliverance type music.

    If this is your best attempt at raising the consciousness of the exploited massses, then excuse my yawns.

  3. GG

    Michael has it right you have it wrong. Enjoy being in the same camp as Alan Jones the NSW LNP and Labor and Mark Latham. 🙂

    I for one will be voting Greens in the NSW State election in hopes of minority Labor government and to avoid validating the gambling industry, Alan Jones and the old way of politics

  4. Being a simple man, I am having trouble!

    The Alexander Committee concluded that the remedy to urban growth was “fast rail” so people could live in (say) Albury and commute to either the Melbourne or Sydney CBD for employment

    Problem fixed

    And the Guy Opposition follows the Alexander Committee finding

    Link Regional and rural domains to the Capital City CBD’s

    Now we have the Borrison “government” saying immigrants must live in regional and rural domains

    To catch a “fast train” to the Capital City for employment

    Hmmm

    No doubt the infrastructure of these regional and rural domains can sustain immigrant population growth and accommodate same within their community structures

    And the rail station can accomodate all those catching the train to the Capital City for their daily work commute where they will be employed from 9 to 5 to avail of the rail service – Monday to Friday

    Will there be concessional fares?

  5. guytaur,

    The ” purity” discussion is interesting.

    Politics is about the possible and the achieveable. Science is about the facts. The concept of purity is not part of science but it is part of politics.

    Is it better to achieve 70% of the optimum outcome or 0% ?

    The greens constantly progress the ” our way or nothing ” approach to politics. That is where the purity concept fails in politics and the greens are a prime upfront example of how little can be achieved in politics by being pure. This applies to climate, AS and any other number of other issues.

    Labor is prepared to achieve the possible. Not everything that a perfect world could deliver but as much as possible as the real world can deliver. It may not be pure but it is real and pragmatic.

    The greens will never amount to anything more than a Micky mouse minor party until they step down from the summit of ” Mt Purity ” and actually engage in achieving what is achievable.

    Cheers and a great day to you.

  6. C@tmomma @ #182 Tuesday, October 9th, 2018 – 12:19 pm

    Itza,
    I’m home, super son isn’t. And this morning I have been trying to intercede, on his behalf, between dueling clinicians in a turf war! They both want my son to have his next op at their hospital!
    *sigh*

    That sounds pretty complicated. I trust they are fully informing you both of the variables, and all the best.

  7. Observer

    There is a big fail in the new Visa System. How is it enforced? A Papers Please when you change postcodes? Thats before you get to your equally valid points.

  9. Doyley

    Advocating that its an emergency situation and policy should be approached as we do war and that politicians should make way to the experts with the facts rather than play political games tells you how stupid the whole “purity” nonsense is.

    I never heard Labor party supporters being called “pure” for supporting Medibank and then Medicare.

    Thats my view on the so called purity of the Greens. The Greens starting point is facts. A point Labor should also be starting with. We know the fact deniers are never going to accept reality so don’t bother.

    Instead point out how irrelevant and luddite they really are and shame the “moderates”, that is the LNP members that still pay attention to the facts to act.

    The IPCC report is clear. Its not politics as usual the so called pure position is the factual reality politicians have to accept. Faith cannot trump facts in policy and should be campaigned on.

    Coal is dead now. Or the planet is. That is the choice the IPCC has told us. This is not pure vs practical.
    This is evidence based policy vs fantasy based policy

  10. “corporate capture of what’s really meant for all of us”

    Power to you brother. But ‘all of us’ is a complicated term. Once the SOH opened up the sails for broadcast they opened up a can of worms. One persons negative message is anothers positive message. I despise the racing industry. And i rail against the gambling industry. And i detest Alan Jones. But all three are legal and there are otherwise decent people that like the first two.

    Public spaces should be devoid of all types of broadcast slogans and advertising. Our eyes and ears are already overloaded with that sh!t.

  12. Any number of health professionals have explained the parlous effects of long-term detention, the hopelessness that leads to despair and self-harm. The immediate need not only for the palliative treatment MSF was able to provide but the far more effective, long-term, therapy available in Australia.

    But Morrison and his crew are unmoved. On the rare occasions when a patient’s condition is so dire that a medical evacuation is authorised, it may or may not be in time to make a significant difference. But whether it is or not, the “client” – as Morrison likes to call him or her – is sent straight back to Nauru to start the whole cycle of humiliation and degradation again.

    Waqa’s edict has done one useful thing: it has made it clear that our Government’s campaign of persecution and brutality is deliberate. Morrison has all the clout he needs to protest, to insist on providing at least marginally humane conditions, but has chosen not to.

    https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/mungo-maccallum-mental-health-on-nauru-not-our-problem-says-pm,11974#.W7v7i7VcVw1.twitter

  14. I’m still fussing over the Essential Report numbers on their question on government influence over the ABC. The “Don’t know” row in the table has these numbers:
    Labor: 26%
    Lib/Nat: 28%
    Greens: 25%
    other: 27%
    Total: 31%

    When I calculate the number of Labor voters using 1025 respondents 37% of whom vote Labor, and do this for Lib/Nat, Greens, and other I get:
    Labor: 379.25
    Lib/Nat: 389.5
    Greens: 102.5
    other: 164
    Total respondents: 1035.25

    I am not concerned about rounding. But if you take 26% of 379.25 you get 98.6 Labor voters who don’t know. Repeating for the rest gets you:
    Labor: 98.6
    Lib/Nat: 109.06
    Greens: 25.625
    other: 44.28
    Total respondents who don’t know: 277.57 or 27%

    Essential Report shows 31%.

    Did I miss something?

  15. Yes. Now is the time for Labor and the Greens to keep calling out the abject ignorance and stubbornness of this pathetic government.

  18. BK

    Labor should go as far as possible to restoring the Gillard government climate policies. A good compromise worked out by all sides of politics only rejected by the deniers.

    We have that good policy. It was legislated and Labor knows it works. Just like with Medicare this should be the approach.

    Just as with NBN you can have your own ideology you can’t have your own facts.
    Fibre is just superior to copper.
    The Gillard government polices were the correct ones and Labor’s should have an economy wide 45% target through a price on carbon.

    Make the LNP fight against the reality. It keeps biting them and reality will win

    Edit: Brendan O Connor has made a good start

  22. Sad enough in 2009 but gawd it be nearly 2019.

    Our lost history of climate change
    11 NOV 2009

    Exactly twenty years ago, in 1989, federal cabinet first considered reducing greenhouse emissions by 20 per cent by 2005, and during the 1990 election campaign, they agreed, with some provisos, to a similar plan. At the same time, the Liberal Party was developing parallel policies, although Chris Puplick, the Liberal shadow environment minister at the time, argues that the Liberal Party was ahead of Labor on climate change, and on many other environment issues, at the 1990 election.

    http://apo.org.au/node/19638

  23. not sure if anyone’s commented on this, the last vic reachtel poll said that women voters had stronger numbers for coalition, greens, animal justice, shooters, farmers and fishers, and lower numbers for undecided, labor and Hinch.

    A lot of curveballs there. females usually have higher undecided, and lower liberal. I’m also shocked that the gun nuts have twice the support from females as males.

  24. Environment Minister rejects top scientists’ advice on phasing out coal, after UN’s warning

    11 days out from Wentworth by-election.

  26. Michael @ #197 Tuesday, October 9th, 2018 – 12:32 pm

    poroti says:
    Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 12:15 pm
    Michael

    Latham also missing the point it is about The Parrot’s behavior, the success of such behavior and a spineless Premier.
    ————————————-

    That is a good point, but I think you underestimate the degree of public anger at yet another instance of a bloated, rapacious commercial interest highjacking a space that is meant to both belong to all of us, and to enhance our lives and not degrade them (ie, by abetting gambling and all its ills). The movement that has been unleashed by this naked power grab of Racing NSW and the shadowy interests behind them is rallying more strongly around the cry “Hands Off Our Opera House!”, than around any cry involving bullying and capitulation. In this, it is springing naturally off, and further adding to, the cry of “Hands off our ABC!” I think the Right in this country are in for a rude shock when they see how offensive the notion of corporate capture of public national institutions is to most Australians.

    None of this is to imply that Alan Jones’s on-air bullying of Louise Herron, or Premier Berejiklian’s incomprehensibly craven capitulation to it, is anything other than completely unacceptable. This process highlights both misogynistic bullying (on Jones’s part) and political cronyism (on Berejiklian’s). Thus, it links in with two other deep concerns people have with our wider social and political culture.

    But please don’t dismiss the “corporate capture of what’s really meant for all of us” aspect to this.

    A little bit over the top given the promotion is about shining a light on a building for about ten minutes. I believe the SOH was funded by a lottery ticket promotion which is a form of gambling . Anyone complaining about a gaudy, tasteless production has probably never been to the opera.

    The stuff about Jones is fair enough. But, anyone from outside Sydney is incredulous that you Syndeysiders allow his malignant broadcaster to be a thing of significance. Turning him off will be like hitting yourself continually in the head with a hammer. You’ll feel much better when you stop.

  27. It’s not about Australia, it’s global. SM has stated in has presser about the IPCC report.

    What the PM said this morning about it is “all true” according to Fran Kelly.

    Can I add her to the criminally negligent class action please?

  28. Like I said yesterday BB, racing is the 4th biggest employer in this country when you include ancillary industries. You have less job losses if you stopped coal industry tomorrow, for instance, than if you stopped racing.

    And while people (outsiders) like to denigrate it (usually with anecdotal or hearsay understanding) it is a dynamic, ultra-well regulated industry.

    Racehorses are some of the most pampered creatures on the planet. Horse welfare is paramount, despite the odd ‘bad story’.

    As an insider I find the ignorance of many who comment on it remarkable.

    As to gambling – that is a completely side issue and gambling on racing is no longer the biggest money-spinner. What is more – the tax paid by the TAB etc. pays for a lot of our essential services. Without it, you’d all be paying a lot more income tax.

  29. Simon² Katich® says:
    Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 12:57 pm
    “corporate capture of what’s really meant for all of us”
    Power to you brother. But ‘all of us’ is a complicated term. Once the SOH opened up the sails for broadcast they opened up a can of worms. One persons negative message is anothers positive message. I despise the racing industry. And i rail against the gambling industry. And i detest Alan Jones. But all three are legal and there are otherwise decent people that like the first two.

    Public spaces should be devoid of all types of broadcast slogans and advertising. Our eyes and ears are already overloaded with that sh!t.
    —————————————

    I think we are seeing that there is widespread, and now increasingly vocal, opposition to the notion that anything at all projected across what is usually a free public space can simply be interchangeably viewed as “one person’s positive message, another person’s negative message”. Rather, there is a distinction being drawn between messages that aim to drive private profit, and those that don’t. An instance of the latter would be something like bathing the Opera House in blue light for autism awareness. This may prompt people to donate money, time or expertise to projects enhancing the lives of those with autism, as well as those around them. But it does not aim to generate profits for anyone. Contrast this with the clear intent of this promotion of a horse race. This is the distinction the Alan Jones’s and Nark Latham’s of this world aren’t getting.

  31. Sad to note the passing of Emeritus Professor Douglas Henderson AO, the leading figure in Australia for over 20 years on medical matters concerning asbestos diseases.

  35. I wonder what Scotty & misses Scomo talk about in the dead of night, you know those moments when you lie there both awake thinking. I wonder if Mrs Scomo ever says “Scotty, don’t you think we should consider what 97% of the worlds science community is saying, you know, for the girls?”

  36. How would you feel, as a tourist from a distant land, to find your one photo opportunity to take a snap of the Opera House marred by Jones’ graffiti?

  37. Oh look, yet another ex pollie turned industry shill.

    “The bureaucrats caved’: Why NSW created exemptions for gambling ad laws

    …former Liberal premier of NSW, Barry O’Farrell, who is now the Racing Australia chief executive, says that gambling is the “raison d’etre” of racing ……”.
    https://outline.com/YGvKVr

  38. I see that there has been another shark bite in Qld.
    Those Queensland sharks!
    It turns out that a fisherman was hauling the shark into his boat when the shark bit him.
    No doubt we will have a huge rage outcry at fishing boats and enough guilty boats will be slaughtered to assuage the indiscriminate blood lust of the shark rage mob.

  39. jenauthor, Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 1:24 pm
    ————————————-

    I take it I am exempt from your criticism, since I have expressed no criticism of the horse racing industry? My problem is not with “a horse race” being promoted on public space, but with “a private profit interest” being so promoted.

    “What is more – the tax paid by the TAB etc. pays for a lot of our essential services. Without it, you’d all be paying a lot more income tax.”

    Good. And wealth based taxes too, if I had my way. Our governments are far too dependent on gambling revenue for them to be trusted to regulate gambling properly, so as to curb its actual prevalence in our society.

  41. Rather, there is a distinction being drawn between messages that aim to drive private profit, and those that don’t.

    Well put. I hold that it is still complicated – the arguments from Jones etc have been that the horse race (and gambling in general) brings in large sums of money to the public coffers used for hospitals etc. And to be honest, I sometimes dont like being bombarded by charities requesting donations (I give after researching the options, I would rather they didnt spend huge sums on public imagery and spruikers).

    So, for me, I dont like my public spaces being used for any sort of messaging. Be it a park, a lake, a beach, a forest…. or a prominent architectural icon.

  42. Michael @ #199 Tuesday, October 9th, 2018 – 12:32 pm

    poroti says:
    Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 12:15 pm
    Michael

    Latham also missing the point it is about The Parrot’s behavior, the success of such behavior and a spineless Premier.
    ————————————-

    That is a good point, but I think you underestimate the degree of public anger at yet another instance of a bloated, rapacious commercial interest highjacking a space that is meant to both belong to all of us, and to enhance our lives and not degrade them (ie, by abetting gambling and all its ills). The movement that has been unleashed by this naked power grab of Racing NSW and the shadowy interests behind them is rallying more strongly around the cry “Hands Off Our Opera House!”, than around any cry involving bullying and capitulation. In this, it is springing naturally off, and further adding to, the cry of “Hands off our ABC!” I think the Right in this country are in for a rude shock when they see how offensive the notion of corporate capture of public national institutions is to most Australians.

    None of this is to imply that Alan Jones’s on-air bullying of Louise Herron, or Premier Berejiklian’s incomprehensibly craven capitulation to it, is anything other than completely unacceptable. This process highlights both misogynistic bullying (on Jones’s part) and political cronyism (on Berejiklian’s). Thus, it links in with two other deep concerns people have with our wider social and political culture.

    But please don’t dismiss the “corporate capture of what’s really meant for all of us” aspect to this.

    Yes, as I said above, the whole thing neatly encapsulates so much that is wrong with the way that we are governed.

  44. Guardian Australia
    ‏Verified account @GuardianAus
    50s51 seconds ago

    Gambling ad beamed on to Sydney Opera House sparks national outrage – video

  45. ‘Fulvio Sammut says:
    Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 1:32 pm

    How would you feel, as a tourist from a distant land, to find your one photo opportunity to take a snap of the Opera House marred by Jones’ graffiti?’

    1. There are only around 10,000 plus Opera House images available on the web.
    2. Most of these are far better professional shots than any amateur can come up with on a phone.
    3. Images taken by amateurs are looked at less than once thereafter on average.

    We might just get a few instances of thwarted tourist snapper rage, but meh.

  46. Fulvio Sammut says:
    Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 1:32 pm
    How would you feel, as a tourist from a distant land, to find your one photo opportunity to take a snap of the Opera House marred by Jones’ graffiti?
    —————————————

    Excellent point. I was thinking this myself. And the PR PM Scott Morrison used to actually be head of our tourism board!!!

  48. Morrison is sitting on the Coalition’s trifecta:

    No energy policy
    No emissions policy
    Global Warming

    The problem for rational people is this: by the time the average Australian voter wakes up to this bottle of snake oil and votes as if this matters as a number one order issue, it may be too late.

  49. Boerwar says:
    Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 1:36 pm
    ‘Fulvio Sammut says:
    Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 1:32 pm

    How would you feel, as a tourist from a distant land, to find your one photo opportunity to take a snap of the Opera House marred by Jones’ graffiti?’

    1. There are only around 10,000 plus Opera House images available on the web.
    2. Most of these are far better professional shots than any amateur can come up with on a phone.
    3. Images taken by amateurs are looked at less than once thereafter on average.

    We might just get a few instances of thwarted tourist snapper rage, but meh.
    ————————————-

    Glad you’re not running tourism campaigns for our country! What wouldyou come up with? “Don’t bother with the plane ticket, just use Google Images.”

  50. The common thread for Federal Labor to pursue on Climate Change The Opera House and Banking.

    LNP looking after their mates in the big end of town.

    Stuff facts. Stuff Environmental Laws including World Heritage Sites. Stuff health impacts and Financial losses for the common person. We have a National Government operating like the Joh Bjelke Peterson Government.

    Thats not opposing the racing industry or any other. Its to recognise government for mates is bad for Australia and we need to vote them out.

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