Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

Labor loses some of its edge on the primary vote in Essential’s last poll for the year, but retains a commanding two-party lead, and is widely expected to win next year’s election.

Courtesy of The Guardian, the final Essential Research poll for the year moves a point in favour of the Coalition, who now trail 53-47. We are also told the Coalition primary vote is at 37%, down one on a fortnight ago, and Labor is on 36%, down three. Which minor parties have taken up the slack will remain a mystery until the full report is published later today.

As it does in its last poll every year, Essential asked respondents to nominate if it had been a good or bad year for various political principals and politics in general, finding 65% rating it a bad year for Australian politics, compared with 54% last year, and 57% a bad year for the federal government.

There is also Essential’s occasional question on leaders’ personal qualities, which provide a more nuanced picture than the usual approval ratings of a decline in Scott Morrison’s popularity. Other findings: only 21% expect the Coalition will win the election, compared with “over half” for Labor; and 27% want an early election, with 52% preferring a full term.

The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1026.

UPDATE: Full results here. Greens up one to 11%, Labor up one to 7%.

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.

1,921 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

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  2. Fox legal analyst says Trump is facing a Mueller ‘doomsday’ – and could have already been indicted in secret

    Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said that President Donald Trump days are numbered. Napolitano said that Trump could be facing a “doomsday” scenario soon in relation to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

    On Monday while interviewing with Fox News host Shep Smith, Napolitano explained that Trump could already be in a sealed indictment.

    “There is already a conspiracy and it involved the president, you said,” Smith said.

    After Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison, it was revealed that Trump was in the room when decisions where being made about the hush-money scandal to pay off adult-film star Stormy Daniels. Even though Trump has denied he that knew anything about the money.

    “The trial judge said verbally ‘the president of the United States paid for and orchestrated this crime,’ referring to the crime in which Michael Cohen was pleading guilty,”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/fox-legal-analyst-says-trump-is-facing-a-mueller-doomsday-and-could-already-be-indicted-in-secret/

  3. Furious James Comey slams Fox News reporter to her face for spreading Trump’s ‘nonsense’

    Emerging from Monday’s hearings with the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, a furious James Comey slammed President Donald Trump and the Republican party for impugning the FBI’s reputation with Americans. But when questioned by a Fox News reporter, he had particularly sharp words.

    “The FBI’s reputation has taken a big hit the last year,” asked the reporter. “Do you share any of the responsibility for that?

    “No,” Comey replied flatly. “The FBI’s reputation is taking a big hit because the president of the United States, with his acolytes, has lied about it constantly.” But then it got personal.

    “In the face of those lies, a whole lot of good people that watch your network believe that nonsense,” he said. “That’s a tragedy. That will be undone eventually.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/furious-james-comey-slams-fox-news-reporter-to-her-face-for-spreading-trumps-nonsense/

  4. Morning all
    Thanks BK!

    Where do the National party find these people.
    Barnaby was bad enough
    Now we have this Broad guy. What a piece of work

  5. C@tmomma @ #42 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 8:25 am

    Not being an affectionado of the Harry Potter series, I am unfamiliar with the character of Voldemort. I would have thought from a general impression that Vladimir Putin would better fit the mould. Am I on the right track?

    My wife loved the Harry Potter books.
    The books are fantasies and the phantasmagorical characters may play into the Mr. Broad saga. I expect that Mr. Broad will not reap riches from his story even if he is able to catch the train at platform 9 3/4 – destination Sugar Plum Fairy Land.

    King’s Cross Station is considered one of the main train stations to serve London, England. Students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry take the scarlet steam engine named the Hogwarts Express to Hogwarts from Platform 9¾ on 1 September at 11 AM sharp. To get to Platform 9 3/4, you run straight at the wall between 9 and 10. It also serves as a major intercity and commuter rail hub for Muggles going to North London or Yorkshire and the North East and Scotland.

    What new and wonderful drama will be coming our way today ❓ The excitement is reaching a crescendo. ☮

  6. Is it any wonder that people living in cities fail to sympathise with the struggles of rural Australia when they keep electing (and re-electing) National Party candidates who are so hypocritical and completely out of step with mainstream Australian values?

    This is a party corrupted by mining interests at the expense of the land, and governed by fake morality of do as we say not as we do.

    Peoples private lives do not interest me, but when this party has spend a huge amount of their political influence and capital demonising gay people and same sex relationships, I tend to find them completely abhorrent and disgusting

  7. PhoenixRed

    Louise Mensch reported over 18 months ago that Trump was under sealed indictment
    She copped a lot of flack.
    Now it is being said from unlikely people.
    Go figure.
    Mind you Mensch is still espousing Brexit.
    That does give me pause.

  10. Mr Broad should just go to Guangzhou which literally means “Broadville”. It’s two hours from Hong Kong and the articles he wants are much cheaper.

  11. Victoria:

    I thought Louise Mensch opposed Brexit? I remember seeing her on Real Time just after the vote and she seemed aghast at the result.

  12. Victoria says: Tuesday, December 18, 2018 at 8:46 am

    PhoenixRed

    Louise Mensch reported over 18 months ago that Trump was under sealed indictment
    She copped a lot of flack.
    Now it is being said from unlikely people.
    Go figure.
    Mind you Mensch is still espousing Brexit.
    That does give me pause.

    ********************************************************

    It is a rather strange conundrum – with her knowing the ‘possibility’ that the Trump Campaign and Brexit ‘may’ have been installed by Cambridge Analytica

    ( Louise Mensch‏Verified account @LouiseMensch

    Louise Mensch Retweeted Counterchekist

    I still support #Brexit and still hate Putin. Hating Putin and fascism is not the preserve of the left. )

  13. ALP PV down 4,
    ALP PV up 4,
    ALP PV down 3.

    Go home Essential. You’re drunk.

    They really do seem to be having a hard time getting a Labor sample. Newspoll is suss because it doesn’t have enough noisyness, but the instability in Essential’s Labor sampling lately seems a bit too extreme for normal variation in a good random sample to my mind. Especially when the Coalition sample isn’t displaying the same extreme swings poll to poll.

  14. simon holmes à court
    ‏@simonahac
    19m19 minutes ago

    .@AngusTaylorMP is lying.

    there is no paris target in the electricity sector.

    a bit like going on a diet, weighing your leg and saying you’ve met your weight loss goals in the leg sector.

  15. DanG, I just hope that sanity prevails in the electorate at large and Labor get over the federal line whenever. Then we can get back to a better place when it comes to the allocation of public money. No longer into the pockets of the spivs, shonks and agrarian socialists.

    The amount of money that has been pissed away by the Coalition government over their 5 years in power would be staggering if you could add it all up.

  16. Good morning fellow Bludgers.

    With this, the last poll of the year, I’m just pondering a couple of things:

    1. Has there been a single poll over the past 18 months that has the government closer than 48-52 2PP when preferences are distributed by the orthodox method of using preference flows from the last election?

    2. Upon the reflection, did the so called ‘Turnbull narrowing’ mid-year (culminating in a single 49-51 Newspoll before things turned to custard again) owe as much to the Newspoll One Nation fandango as to any real recovery of public support?

    One last thing. The LNP seem to be on a real Precipice: if they truly lose the ‘forgotten people’ and ‘Howard battlers’ simultaneously then my prediction of 123 labor seats after the election looks possible … 😉

  17. ‏@samanthamaiden
    4m4 minutes ago

    This shemozzle is a very good advertisement for paid sex work with actual professionals.
    Imagine what you could get for the cost of flights to Hong Kong and accommodation!”.

    In this case, the Morrison government literally couldn’t organise a root in a brothel

  18. I predict that the swings at the next election will be highly uneven. Very large swings in Victoria and suburbs of capitals and smaller (perhaps nonexistent or negative) swings in Queensland and rural areas. Final result is highly unpredictable.

  20. C@tmomma @ #65 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 5:58 am

    DanG, I just hope that sanity prevails in the electorate at large and Labor get over the federal line whenever. Then we can get back to a better place when it comes to the allocation of public money. No longer into the pockets of the spivs, shonks and agrarian socialists.

    The amount of money that has been pissed away by the Coalition government over their 5 years in power would be staggering if you could add it all up.

    Yep. There’s nothing I can add to that.

  22. PhoenixRed

    Mensch has stated that the Brexit vote was tarnished in much the same way as the US election.
    She just believes Brexit would work in the very long term for the UK.

  24. Business has been pushing for consumers to have more money to spend.
    They are happy with tax cuts and would also be happy if Newstart was increased.
    More money in system being spent is good for business.

  27. “I have resigned. Please respect my family,” Mr Broad told The Herald Sun.

    He’s lying. He hasn’t resigned until he’s quit Parliament entirely.

  28. Morning all.

    From the Crikey morning email :

    Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, The Oz ($) further reports that the Coalition would shave almost half a trillion dollars from existing “deficit” spending programs over the next ten years, including $80 billion from foreign aid and $88 billion from mining and carbon tax-related compensation schemes

    So they plan further cuts to foreign aid.

    Also the mention of cuts to ‘carbon tax related compensation schemes’ is interesting.

  29. Yep. It really is bizarro world

    This Week
    This Week
    @ThisWeekABC
    ·
    1h
    James Comey on Trump’s criticism of Michael Cohen: “This is the President of the United States calling a witness who is cooperating with his own Justice Department a ‘rat.’ Say that again to yourself at home and remind yourself where we have ended up” (link: https://abcn.ws/2J0gebC) abcn.ws/2J0gebC

  30. Two exceptionally well preserved fossils give a new picture of the pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that lived at the time of the dinosaurs.

    …The researchers found that the pterosaurs had four different kinds of covering, including fuzzy, fur over most of their body; and, on parts of the head and wings, three types of fibres similar to modern feathers.

    The fluff and feathers are likely to have been important in heat regulation and aerodynamics.

    “These structures on the pterosaur make it look a bit like a fruit bat, or something like that, a fuzzy hairy creature,” said Prof Benton, who worked on the discovery with colleagues in China.

    “They fly with great out-stretched bony wings that carry a substantial membrane, a bit like a bat.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46572782?ns_campaign=bbcnews&ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ocid=socialflow_twitter

  31. Angus Taylor and the Australian join the ranks of the outright liars on our chances of meeting our Paris commitments …

    https://outline.com/3U95qE

    Emissions reductions in Aust­ralia’s electricity market are on track to meet the Paris target eight years ahead of schedule, in 2022, and the government has seized on new data to attack Labor’s plan for stronger ­intervention to curb carbo­n pollution.

    The Australian can reveal that, by 2022, emissions from power generation in the National Electricity Market are projected to fall to 26 per cent below 2005 levels, and remain stable out to 2030.

    …

    “We do not need a mechanism to reduce emissions because we are going to get there without inter­vention seven or eight years ahead of time,” Mr Taylor told The Aust­ralian. “The debate is all wrong. We are going to smash the targe­t without intervention.

    For those who have not been paying attention to this issue (hard to believe, since this issue is going to affect everyone quite badly and quite soon, but there are some who don’t seem to get it yet) our Paris commitment is to reduce our total emissions by 26%, not just our emissions from power generation. And our total emissions are rising, not falling.

    Our chances of meeting our Paris commitments on current trends are zero. Unprecedented interventions will be required to even come close.

  33. Victoria @ #73 Tuesday, December 18th, 2018 – 6:10 am

    Business has been pushing for consumers to have more money to spend.
    They are happy with tax cuts and would also be happy if Newstart was increased.
    More money in system being spent is good for business.

    It’s what is known as a virtuous circle. People have more money to spend which creates demand for more workers, which because of a limit to the number of available workers increases wages, which means even more money to spend, and so on, and so on.

    The sheer stupidity of employers thinking that the best way to increase revenue and therefore profits is to cut wages, conditions, etc. They’re just cutting their own throats.

  34. ‘Audacious’: Ex-CIA officer warns Russians aren’t just electing politicians but want to change America itself

    On Monday, Phil Mudd shamed Russian intelligence, in light of a New York Times report that revealed they specifically targeted Africans Americans and other minority groups in the 2016 elections.

    During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Mudd said that the Russians were not just attacking the Africans American vote, but sought to influence America’s culture.

    I’m looking at this saying this is voter suppression,” he said.

    Mudd explained, “This is a way to both energize people who support the president and also discourage people who don’t potentially support this president. This is a very sophisticated, huge effort to say, ‘how do we stop people from voting in America?’”

    He then explained that “Russian’s thousands of miles away” are studying America day-by-day. Mudd called the Russian operation “audacious.”

    “They are not trying to change elections, they are trying to change America,” he said.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/audacious-phil-mudd-says-russians-are-not-trying-to-change-election-outcomes-but-are-trying-to-change-america/

  35. Nationals are so dumb they can’t even manage an affair- one got the girl pregnant and one didn’t get his leg over…

    And what a way to woo a HK gold digger…’ Jeez this place is a bit exxy ‘…

  36. That report of the Russian troll farm efforts is quite something. They used social media to co-opt ordinary Americans, essentially cultivating them as assets. And watching the video that has examples of some of the pages created, I am surprised people got swept up in it. Couldn’t they see it was all dodgy as?

    The Lead CNNVerified account@TheLeadCNN
    49m49 minutes ago

    CNN’s @MarquardtA breaks down what the Internet Research Agency, the troll group indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller, posted by the numbers:

    •10,000,000 tweets
    •116,000 Instagram posts
    •61,000 Facebook posts
    •1,000 videos

    http://cnn.it/2SVRy4T

  37. a r

    Too true. He has resigned as assistant minister, not from parliament.
    Anyhoo from reports I saw on channel 9 last night, it was merely suggested he sent lurid text messages to sugar baby.
    Nothing mentioned about meeting person for dinner in HK etc

  38. Nationals are so dumb they can’t even manage an affair- one got the girl pregnant and one didn’t get his leg over…

    Yes it was her who decided he was too much hassle to be bothered with! 😆

  39. Dan G

    I guess they thought people could stretch their credit to back of beyond.
    Hence why most retailers now provide after pay service

  43. Another take on the Broad non-affair.

    Bruce Haigh
    ‏@bruce_haigh
    1h1 hour ago

    #AUSPOL The Broad story doesn’t stack up. He texts her to tell about his promotion, she asks for $8000, why?, he flies from Australia to HK to see her, all point to a longer relationship. The dinner looks more like a breakup than a makeup.

  44. I still remember that story by the Russian ex-teacher who worked in the Internet Research Agency. He said it was like working in the salt mines! Day in, day out, churning out reams of propaganda to spread out across the internet. He knew it was wrong, but in the way of modern day slavery he also realised that this was the only way he could support his family. What an unutterably sad position to be in.

  45. A local tory neighbor who 5 and half years ago used to remind me every day how much debt the country had now can’t tell me what the current debt is but knows it’s a lot less than it was under L A B O O O O O R R R….grrrrrrr
    It wouldn’t hurt the ALP to get the word out. It’d give pause to quite a few swingers…..no one else is going to tell them….

  46. Can we please have at least one day off from “Trump is going to jail next week” and “Trump may have already been secretly indicted” and “Meuller has Trump exactly where he wants him” stories?

  48. Another blood boiler.

    The Maryland Province Jesuits, a Catholic religious order with clergy serving throughout the Washington area and across eight states, released a list Monday of priests in the order who have been “credibly accused” of abusing children since the 1950s.

    The men accused of abusing minors worked for decades in high schools, including Gonzaga College High School in the District; in colleges, including St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, Wake Forest University in North Carolina and several more; at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital; at churches in the District and Baltimore; and other institutions.

    One Jesuit priest, Neil P. McLaughlin, is believed to have abused children from the 1950s to the 1980s. Accusations came in from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, Massachusetts and New York. He was not removed from ministry until 2007.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/12/17/jesuits-name-priests-credibly-accused-sexually-abusing-children-including-dc-area/?utm_term=.6bb094ec9418

  49. Australia has compulsory voting. It’s a lot harder to effect the vote of nations that do.

    Though I wouldn’t put it past Putin to have been encouraging voter disillusionment in this country and non-enrolment. So I guess we can thank Tony and Mal for their plebiscite on SSM, which finally got a lot of Millennials to enrol to vote.

  50. C@t:

    Yes, I am *so* glad we have the electoral system we have. And our elections are overseen by an independent body – another plus.

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