Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor

Reasonably good personal ratings are the only consolation Scott Morrison can take from another diabolical poll result.

The Guardian reports the Coalition’s recovery in Essential Research a fortnight ago has proved shortlived – Labor has gained two points on two-party preferred to lead 54-46, returning to where they were the poll before last. Both major parties are up on the primary vote, Labor by four points to 39% and the Coalition by one to 38%. We will have to wait on the full report later today for the minor parties. The monthly personal ratings have Scott Morrison up one on approval to 42% and down three on disapproval to 34%, while Bill Shorten is down three to 35% and down one to 43%. Morrison leads 40-29 as preferred prime minister, barely changed on 41-29 last time.

Also featured are questions on Labor’s dividend imputation policies and negative gearing policies. The former had the support of 39% and the opposition of 30%. On restricting negative gearing to new homes, 24% said it would reduce house prices; 21% said it would increase them; and 27% believed it would make no difference. Thirty-seven per cent believed it would lead to higher rents, 14% to lower rents and 24% make no difference. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1032.

UPDATE: Full report here. Greens down one to 10%, One Nation down one to 6%.

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.

2,545 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor”

Comments Page 39 of 51
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  1. Patrick
    In SA, 48.5% of appeals against criminal convictions either result in acquittal or a 30% or greater reduction in jail sentence.

  2. “Getting it wrong without being held accountable is a hallmark of judges.”

    Funny, most jobs don’t have a fully public tribunal which examines your work in the finest detail to find any error or omission. The judiciary and lawyers more generally, for all their foibles, are literally the profession the most exposed to scrutiny in existence.

    When I go to my medical specialist, how do I go about having a detailed, public examination of him to make sure he has done his job properly, exactly? What about my accountant? My builder? My kid’s school teacher? All of these have very limited oversight and scrutiny which is typically bound up with confidentiality obligations and protected from the glare of public scrutiny.

    Not saying judges always get it right, they don’t. But I absolutely loathe the tabloid-style bashing of the courts. If you want to improve the justice system, give it some funding and resources and watch the outcomes improve. South Australia has backup generators that will never be used because of the Liberal Party’s lies about the big blackout – imagine if those funds had been used to build a modern court precinct instead. But of course, that doesn’t win votes, and it’s easier to just sit back and snipe at the ‘inefficient justice system’.

  3. guytaur @ #1786 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 1:50 pm

    No AR is still trying to claim TCN is somehow agreement.

    I don’t know what ‘TCN is somehow agreement’ is even supposed to mean, so I can’t possibly be claiming that. You must have misread something. 🙂

    A TCN is a ‘Technical Capability Notice’, which is a mechanism the legislation establishes for subverting privacy. They’re instructions the government can issue to, say, WhatsApp, ordering them to implement a way to spy on messages sent within the app.

    Getting an unwilling company to follow such an order will take a long time as they fight it through every avenue available to them.

    Getting even a willing company to follow such an order still takes time, as they still need to design, implement, test, and deploy whatever solution they decide to use for complying with the TCN.

    Its either encrypted and thus private or its not.

    No, they’re not synonymous.

    The content of this post is (was) encrypted as it was transported between my computer and the blog. However, as the blog’s first action upon decrypting was to publish a copy of the cleartext to this page, the information is not private. You can subvert privacy without defeating the actual encryption. All it takes is one misbehaving endpoint and while the encryption still works, the purpose of having the encryption is defeated.

  5. Patrick
    Who can you complain to and what action is taken against a judge who manifestly makes an incorrect decision?
    Do they get sacked, suspended, fined, send to re-education? Or do they just go back to court?

  6. Pegasus
    Proof positive that the greens don’t understand parliament; in one small post the greens disconnect from reality has been highlighted.

  8. Pegasus @ #1898 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 4:33 pm

    The Guardian:

    After hours of Labor, the Greens and crossbench voting together against the government on the medical transfer bill – finally a break.

    Labor is now voting with the government on a motion to end the refugee debate, because it’s clear the 4:30pm deadline to move it to the house has not been met.

    Richard Di Natale is outraged, telling Wong as she crosses to vote with the government: “You won’t help refugees but you’re voting with them to help ram through spying legislation

    Lol. We’ll see. 🙂

  10. Pegasus @ #1900 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 4:33 pm

    The Guardian:

    After hours of Labor, the Greens and crossbench voting together against the government on the medical transfer bill – finally a break.

    Labor is now voting with the government on a motion to end the refugee debate, because it’s clear the 4:30pm deadline to move it to the house has not been met.

    Richard Di Natale is outraged, telling Wong as she crosses to vote with the government: “You won’t help refugees but you’re voting with them to help ram through spying legislation

    No-one should be surprised at the incompetence of the duopoly.

    Do they really care about the kids suffering torture in their offshore internments ? Clearly not. Their priority is scoring political points.

    What a disgrace they are.

  11. AR

    We are talking about a bill designed for end to end decryption. Thus any one other than the intended recipient meant to read it means you have broken the encryption.

    As Apple said in that Axios article its mathematics.

    You can be clever about the way you post about the fact that the person intended to receive the message had someone else read the message but it does not get around that incontrovertible fact.

  12. “In SA, 48.5% of appeals against criminal convictions either result in acquittal or a 30% or greater reduction in jail sentence.”

    You must be referring to this:

    https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/courts-and-appeals-how-just-is-south-australias-justice/news-story/7c510774d4e42a26bb3684f39aec3f18

    The gap in your logic is that you aren’t noticing that the stats show that there were only 138 criminal appeals IN TOTAL out of the many thousands of criminal matters dealt with by the courts every year. So as per my earlier post, it’s like taking the 100 or so absolute toughest/riskiest medical procedures and then attacking the success rate.

    Here are some stats to put that number – 138 – into perspective for you:

    https://www.agd.sa.gov.au/justice-system/crime-and-justice-data/courts-data/criminal-matters-magistrates-court

    JUST the Magistrates Court is clearing 60,000 criminal matters per year. The District Court adds another 2500-3000:

    https://www.agd.sa.gov.au/justice-system/crime-and-justice-data/courts-data/criminal-matters-magistrates-court

    So on that basis, 0.2% of matters are being appealed, and 0.1% of them are being overturned.

  14. Lame duck is a term for the office holders (particularly defeated office holders) and chambers still holding their seats after the election for their replacements.

    Due to us adopting the British system of elections to the main chamber of Parliament requiring either dissolution or expiration, Australia has no lame duck lower houses and various simultaneous elections and fixed election date reforms have virtually eliminated lame duck Legislative Councils (if indeed there were any) at state level. As far as I know, only the Senate has a lame duck period in Australia.

  18. Would it be likely that ScoMo might head straight to Yarralumla to ask for an election on the grounds that the failure to pass the encryption bill was a direct threat to the security of the nation?

  20. haha
    Di Natale is outraged, I tell ya.
    Outraged.
    Di Natale has achieved nothing at all in his entire miserable political career.
    Nothing.
    He and his Party have sucked up taxpayer dollars by the tens of millions.
    And they have achieved nothing in 30 years.
    Nothing.

  22. Wong says that nobody watching proceedings could doubt that Labor, Greens, Centre Alliance, Derryn Hinch and Tim Storer were genuinely trying to pass the refugee bill.

    Wong blames the government for sending the house home, saying it is an “indictment” on their handling of national security.

  23. Diogenes:

    “Who can you complain to and what action is taken against a judge who manifestly makes an incorrect decision?
    Do they get sacked, suspended, fined, send to re-education? Or do they just go back to court?”

    Humans make errors. The legal system, unlike most areas of human endeavour, has an automatic, built in series of mechanisms to identify and correct those errors (appeals). So, to answer your question, if a judge gets it wrong then he or she gets appealed successfully.

    There are, as I assume you know, very powerful reasons why judicial appointments should not be subjected to bureaucratic or political whims in terms of termination of appointment, especially in superior courts. Its one of the key reasons we don’t have the horrifically politicised judiciary of the United States and the correspondingly appalling legal outcomes they experience.

  24. So the ALP are going to pass the encryption legislation without amendments in the Senate? Seriously?

    In my view they they need to amend it, as it will add to the low hanging fruit; if the don’t the strategy they are following will be interesting, as it is seriously risky legislation.

  28. I’m sure that the option of advising the GG on January 29 (the day after Australia Day long weekend) of proroguing Parliament for a March 2 or March 9 election is very much on the cards for Morrison. Thus would be a similar timetable to those for elections in 1990 (held several months early), 1993 and 1996.

  29. Looks like Senate is still considering encryption and Nauru bills despite HoR adjourning?

    “Karp on Amy’s blog: So – after all that – we’re continuing with the medical transfer bill before we move to encryption.”

  30. Rex Douglas says:
    Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 4:40 pm
    Pegasus @ #1900 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 4:33 pm

    The Guardian:

    After hours of Labor, the Greens and crossbench voting together against the government on the medical transfer bill – finally a break.

    Labor is now voting with the government on a motion to end the refugee debate, because it’s clear the 4:30pm deadline to move it to the house has not been met.

    Richard Di Natale is outraged, telling Wong as she crosses to vote with the government: “You won’t help refugees but you’re voting with them to help ram through spying legislation
    No-one should be surprised at the incompetence of the duopoly.

    Do they really care about the kids suffering torture in their offshore internments ? Clearly not. Their priority is scoring political points.

    What a disgrace they are.

    Another shameless lie from the Tory Trickster.

  31. lizzie @ #1923 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 4:45 pm

    Wong says that nobody watching proceedings could doubt that Labor, Greens, Centre Alliance, Derryn Hinch and Tim Storer were genuinely trying to pass the refugee bill.

    Wong blames the government for sending the house home, saying it is an “indictment” on their handling of national security.

    Who are they kidding. Lib-Lab both knew time was on their side to get the result we have. Nothing but a sick pantomime.

  32. Where are all those people who were telling us that we didn’t understand Labor’s subtle game, and that the only reason they rammed through the encryption bill was to force the government to deal with the migration amendments?

    The migration amendments are dead in the water, but apparently we’re still going to deal with encryption anyway.

    I guess we’ll now see whether Labor actually moves any serious amendments or not.

  34. And now an opinion from someone who isn’t a Green goon:

    As the bells ring on the FINAL division on the medical evacuation bill, Save the Children have sent out a statement:

    Save the Children has applauded the determined efforts of Labor, the Greens and crossbenchers, on the final day of Parliament, to ensure refugees get the urgent medical treatment they need.

    Parliamentarians in both houses and of all persuasions are urged to support legislation which will streamline the urgent medical transfer of critically ill children from Australia’s offshore processing facilities.

    Acting CEO of Save the Children Australia Mat Tinkler said claims the legislation would hinder Australia’s border security were baseless.

    “Independents, Labor and the Greens are to be commended for their efforts to ensure asylum seeker children receive the medical treatment they need,” Mr Tinkler said.

    “The community has demanded action, to get children off Nauru.

    “There is no basis to claims that this will unravel Australia’s border protection regime, and nothing justifies locking children up indefinitely. Nothing.

    “We urge our Parliament to sit for as long as it takes to protect the wellbeing of these vulnerable people.

    “The call to get Kids off Nauru will only grow louder if the Australian Government refuses to listen.”

    Save the Children urges the Australian Government to urgently progress the resettlement of all refugees in Australia or a third country that welcomes them.

  36. Amy’s blog: Christian Porter looks like a broken man. Like, Mathias Cormann after the leadership spill broken.
    He is blaming Labor for the encryption bill not making it back to the House to be legislated.

  39. briefly @ #1461 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 3:48 pm

    Rex Douglas says:
    Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 4:40 pm
    Pegasus @ #1900 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 4:33 pm

    The Guardian:

    After hours of Labor, the Greens and crossbench voting together against the government on the medical transfer bill – finally a break.

    Labor is now voting with the government on a motion to end the refugee debate, because it’s clear the 4:30pm deadline to move it to the house has not been met.

    Richard Di Natale is outraged, telling Wong as she crosses to vote with the government: “You won’t help refugees but you’re voting with them to help ram through spying legislation
    No-one should be surprised at the incompetence of the duopoly.

    Do they really care about the kids suffering torture in their offshore internments ? Clearly not. Their priority is scoring political points.

    What a disgrace they are.

    Another shameless lie from the Tory Trickster.

    Briefly
    Can you please indicate why you think it is a lie. I have NOT been following it closely but when you accuse people of lying i think the onus is on you to explain yourself not scream lie, lie without explaining why it is a lie.

  41. haha
    Di Natale is outraged, I tell ya.
    Outraged.
    Di Natale has achieved nothing at all in his entire miserable political career.
    Nothing.
    He and his Party have sucked up taxpayer dollars by the tens of millions.
    And they have achieved nothing in 30 years.
    Nothing.

    Not true. Their biggest achievement was to vote down (with the Lib/Nats/climate change denialists) the first attempt to address the problem, the CPRS.

  43. Could someone tell me please, when the encryption bill goes back to the HoR from the Senate, it will contain amendments. Do these have to be separately bpassed by the House?

  44. “Not true. Their biggest achievement was to vote down (with the Lib/Nats/climate change denialists) the first attempt to address the problem, the CPRS.”

    Ah yes. That would be the legislation that Labor refused to discuss with the Greens because the ALP had so cleverly done a deal with the totally trustworthy Liberals? Obviously all the Greens’ fault that the Liberals totally predictably betrayed Labor.

  47. Patrick Bateman @ #1937 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 4:51 pm

    “someone who isn’t a Green goon”

    Were’t you claiming that you weren’t a Labor hack earlier?

    Unlike others, who claim that I am. 🙂

    Simply, what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander. If they persist in calling me something I am not, a ‘Labor hack’, then I will persist in calling them ‘Greens goons’.

  48. I have not been commenting on the way the debate is going.

    When even experts like Greg Jericho are finding it hard to follow. Plus with the House rising only Labor passing unamended AA encryption will see it pass otherwise it’s after Christmas.

    From Porter’s comments I think there will be amendments.

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