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”

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  1. “Possum Comitatus @Pollytics 12 minutes ago

    Looks like everyone all got a bit too smart by half today. Glad I missed it
    2 replies 1 retweet 5 likes

    Paul Montgomery @m0nty
    Replying to @Pollytics

    Yeah, it looks like all those chipping Labor over the #aabill might have gone off half-cocked. Labor playing a long game and scoring points at will on a government that was always too incompetent to pass anything AFAICT. Bit like Pujara’s batting today.
    ”

    But it is Pujara who is playing the long game unlike other Indian players & he is not incompetant.

  2. Jimmy D

    It may have escaped your notice but there was good climate policy passed. Its not the Greens fault that Labor lost the election and thus Abbott had the chance to wreck the legislation.

    To say otherwise is myth making blaming the Greens for the actions of a) The LNP b) Labor.

    Thats reality legislation was passed. Labor lost the election.

  3. ‘Patrick Bateman says:
    Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 5:12 pm

    You know Di Natale can’t actually hear you, right Boer?

    Maybe go back to droning on about cotton farms or how the extreme Greens are going to ban meat for a while.’

    I see that you are another Greens who has not actually read what the Greens policy statements say.

    The cotton stuff is real alright. The Greens aim to remove all GMOs from the environment. Well, that is what the Greens say in their policy statement. So it must be true. All cotton grown in Australia is GMO cotton. I assume that the Greens will launch a Greens Jihad against people who wear the unclean GMO cotton clothes. Who knows?

    The Greens are also going to get rid of all farming that involves interfering with the natural behaviour of animals. Think about that one. Joke, right?

    I would not give a flying f**k whether Di Natale can hear me or not.

  5. Patrick Bateman @ #1997 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 5:14 pm

    Incidentally – aren’t we in territory where the GG should be asking Morrison to test his numbers in the House?

    Yes, I’ve just been discussing this with a few people, but we don’t know enough to say definitively one way or the other.

    If the government is dysfunctional – as it clearly is, being unable to pass its own legislation in an area of national security (according to its own rhetoric) – can the GG step in?

  6. JimmyD

    “Furthermore the CPRS would have been far better than what we’ve had for the last five years, which is nothing.”

    I agree with this. My issue is not that, it’s the venom directed at the Greens. Like any legislation, the sensible and mature thing for the ALP to do would have been to negotiate with all concerned. Instead, they stupidly trusted the Liberals and immediately got burnt by them. The blame is squarely with Labor in my view. They should have realised they needed the Greens to support it from day one.

    Incidentally, I’m not actually ‘a’ Green, although I tend to vote for them in the senate because of the influence of the SDA/right on Labor in recent times. I’m probably more Labor left on most issues. My fantasy version of Australian government would be a solidly left-focused Labor government with a strong environmental focus. I’m very pleased to hear the stuff that Shorten has been quietly saying on this topic for a while now. I just wish that Labor people would let go of the Greens hate and focus on the real enemy – the party who (unlike both Labor and the Greens) hates the environment, hates the young, hates anyone who isn’t straight, hates minorities, hates the non-religious, hates the poor.

  10. @Boerwar

    You are aware the policy about farming referees only to farming practices that are inhumane and unnatural. It does nothing about practices that are just unnatural.

  11. Jimmy D

    Yes because you know thats the reality. Even if you do ignore my points about what if about the politics of the time of the CPRS.

  12. “If the government is dysfunctional – as it clearly is, being unable to pass its own legislation in an area of national security (according to its own rhetoric) – can the GG step in?”

    It seems to me that if the constitutional mechanism represented by the office of the GG has any modern purpose, surely it is to put to the polls a ‘government’ that is too scared to let parliament operate because it effectively controls neither house.

  13. ”
    Steve777 says:
    Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 5:08 pm
    From what I can tell from the Guardian Live Blog, “Parliament” (which I understand to be both the House and the Senate) is adjourned until February, with the Asylum Seeker and Encryption Legislation held over until then.
    ”
    Steve
    Here is my theory why they are held. CoalMo may be afraid that if Encryption is passed & Asylum Seeker Medical Treatment bill will be voted in both houses & he does not want to face defeat. He said he will do anything to stop that

  15. WTF is wrong with Richard Di Natale?? Labor fought tooth and nail with the Greens, CA, Hinch & Storer to get the medical transfer bill passed through the Senate, against the juvenile obstruction of the Coalition, Bernardi & ON. And it was the Coalition Government that broke longstanding standard practice to shut the HoR down at 4:30 sharp, just to avoid the embarrassment of it being vividly exposed they have lost control of the House and should call an election straight away. And Di Natale screams “SAME-SAME”!?!?!?!

    Dick, if you want real lefties like me to take you seriously, sheath your animosity towards the actual left-leaning alternative to this rotten Coalition Government for ten seconds and remember who the real enemy of the 99% is: that rotten Coalition Government.

  16. What @Rex said is wrong:

    Adam Bandt
    ‏Verified account @AdamBandt
    2m2 minutes ago

    What a day.

    The crossbench forced Parl to debate the issues people care about, Labor worked with us but Lib gov ran and hid in as many ways as they could find, all because they were scared about how the people’s representatives would vote.

    Time to turf this mob out.

    #greens

  18. Boer

    I’d be happy enough to see an end to cotton farming full stop. And I don’t think the vast majority of the electorate share your weird obsession with this niche issue.

    More generally, I think we should have a cap and trade scheme for water that allows for real environmental flows and is managed nationally. If people in Queensland can still make money farming a water intensive crop under this arrangement, good for them. If not, they don’t have a viable business. The days of externalising your costs by destroying the environment are over one way or another.

    I don’t share the Greens inherent opposition to GMOs, although nor do I assume that humans are so clever that we can be assured that there’s no risk (to the environment, not to our health) of some of what we are now able to achieve. Logically, if you artificially make one organism dramatically more efficient or hardy, you risk upsetting existing ecosystems. And Australia certainly has a proud tradition of stuffing things up by tinkering with the local flora and fauna.

  20. Patrick Bateman
    I agree with this. My issue is not that, it’s the venom directed at the Greens.

    I agree that the venom goes overboard at times, but you only have to look at the behaviour of people like Rex, nath, and Di Natale to realise that the Greens give as good as they get.

    Both parties are guilty of partisan shit-throwing.

  22. C@t

    To deny any of this is simply to be a partisan.
    _________________________________

    What ignorance!!! The Greens aren’t partisan. Everyone who disagrees with them is. 🙂

  24. In the unedifying debate between Dio and Patrick Bateman the following points should be acknowledged:

    1. Not every wrong decision by a judge is the subject of an appeal. Just sayin.

    2. That about 50% of appeals are successful says nothing about the quality of judicial judgment. Deep pocketed clients and the desperate will appeal despite the poor prospects, increasing the % of losing appeals. The strength or courage of legal advice to appeal will increase the number of successful appeals.

    Judges and doctors are both human. Like all humans they fail from time to time. And not all “failures” are evidence of professional inadequacy (death of a desperately ill patient, judgment successfully appealed against on a point of law that is, later, overturned in a higher Court).

  25. Rex has slunk off with his tail between his legs, but only to return, when the heat is off his hysteria of today, to repeat his mantra of Shorten and Labor bashing.


  26. poroti says:
    Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 5:25 pm

    FMD. Are our journos not fit for purpose or what?!!!

    REPORTER: If there is a terrorist attack over summer, will Bill Shorten have blood on his hands?

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2018/dec/06/government-morrison-nauru-energy-encryption-politics-live-shorten-labor-liberal

    Read it all. The reporter was setting him up. The next thrust was; ok if so important why didn’t you extend parliament.

  27. If the GG asked Morrison to test his numbers in the house he would no doubt refer his excellency to the well publicised comments of McGowan, Katter and Phelps that they would not bring down the government.
    A vote on the Nauru business could have been embarrassing but that is all.
    The point is moot anyway. The parliament won’t be back until February and I have a feeling we might not see this lot in Canberra again before an election.

  28. Windhover – agree with all of that.

    I’d add that anyone who has actually conducted a trial of any complexity would understand how profoundly complicated and difficult a process it is, and that some degree of error by all concerned is probably inevitable.

  29. I’ve just updated BludgerTrack, not that you’d notice.

    I can only hear this in the manner one might say “I’ve just had my hair cut, …” 🙂

    To which of course the correct response is: it looks lovely.

  31. The Senate is still sitting so the Guardian has incorrectly reported that “The Parliament” has adjourned. It’s just the House at this stage.

  32. OK. So no Parliament now till Feb. If the Government face the same issues when it resumes, can they pull the same stunt or just try to avoid voting on any Bill at all to avoid defeat.? I guess if the polls continue to go south , they will try anything to hang on. Would they call an earlier election?

  33. Rossmcg – my hazy recollection is that it’s not just basic supply, though, it’s where the government can’t pass important parts of its policy platform. Maybe I’m wrong about that.

  36. Kerryn Phelps talking to Sky:

    “I am sad that we didn’t get this through today, because I think we would have had the numbers…but we will be back in February, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

  37. Here’s a question: Does the Parliament need the Government’s say-so to convene? For example, could 76 MHRs get together, declare the House of Representatives convened, and start considering motions which would have binding force?

    Just asking…for a friend.

  38. frednk @ #2026 Thursday, December 6th, 2018 – 5:32 pm


    poroti says:
    Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 5:25 pm

    FMD. Are our journos not fit for purpose or what?!!!

    REPORTER: If there is a terrorist attack over summer, will Bill Shorten have blood on his hands?

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2018/dec/06/government-morrison-nauru-energy-encryption-politics-live-shorten-labor-liberal

    Read it all. The reporter was setting him up. The next thrust was; ok if so important why didn’t you extend parliament.

    Sure – but which quote do you think will make it to the 6 o’clock news?

    This is known as “having your cake and eating it too!”

  40. Matt – I’ve wondered the same thing. It’s a strange way to operate that ‘the government’ gets to decide when parliament sits etc, despite the fact that they are only ‘the government’ by reason of being able to command a majority in parliament.

    It should really be that parliament sits no matter what, and if a party doesn’t show up or have a majority they have no right to govern.

  43. ‘Catprog says:
    Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 5:20 pm

    @Boerwar

    You are aware the policy about farming referees only to farming practices that are inhumane and unnatural. It does nothing about practices that are just unnatural.’

    Millions of mice and rats die as a direct result of human activities involved in all our grain crops. I assume that burying animals alive, slicing them with disc ploughs, or running them through harvesting machines would be inhumane.
    So, no grain crops?
    One of the things about the Greens that I despise is that they are ever ready to be outraged about what others do. They are ever ready to do virtue signalling.
    But they are totally unready to face the consequences of their own policies.

  48. The Guardian:

    A spokesman for Greens digital rights spokesman Jordon Steele-John told Guardian Australia the minor party will oppose all but one of Labor’s encryption bill amendments.

    The Greens are considering Labor’s amendment for an intelligence and security committee review by April. But all the others – including one which tinkers with the definitionof “systemic weakness” – will not get Greens support.

    This, I think, answers a query we had here at Guardian HQ: would Labor really risk passing amendments in the Senate that mean the bill won’t pass by Christmas because it has to go back to the house?

    If minor parties and crossbenchers vote down the amendments, the bill can still pass the Senate unamended with Labor support, and be done by Christmas. Will any of them succeed? We shall see.

  49. BREAKING: Earthquake of magnitude 6 strikes northeast of Australia’s Norfolk Island – USGS

    Fake news (i.e. RT, Sputnik International etc.)
    “about 681km northeast of Norfolk Island” i.e. Loyalty Islands (New Caledonia.)

  50. Patrick Bateman ‘You know Di Natale can’t actually hear you, right Boer?’

    Boerwar answered that question sincinctly up thread.

    However, Boerwar does expose the Greens as a group of nutters without any workable policies (at least he has read them unlike many of the Greens supporters).

    He also exposes how far the Greens have gone from their origins of looking after the environment. Any person who cherishes the environment would be very thankful that Boerwar takes the time and effort to do so.

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