Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

More evidence of a narrowing trend federally from Essential Research, albeit based on small shifts in the primary vote.

The Guardian reports the first result from Essential Research in three weeks has Labor’s two-party lead at 52-48, down from 53-47 last time. The changes on the primary vote are slight, with the Coalition up a point to 38% and Labor steady on 36% (CORRECTION: the Coalition is steady, and Labor down two). The Guardian report notes that Essential has changed the provider of the online panel from which its respondents are drawn from YourSource to Qualtrics, without changing the underlying methodology. Perhaps relatedly, the sample size is identified as 1652, where in the past it has been a little over 1000. The Guardian provides no further findings from attitudinal questions – we’ll see if the release of the main report later today provides anything on that front, along with the minor party primary votes.

UPDATE: Full report here. No change for the minor parties, with the Greens on 10% and One Nation on 7%. The poll was conducted between January 23 and January 31 – I’m not sure if this was a contingency for the long weekend, but in the past Essential’s field work dates have been Thursday to Sunday. Other findings:

• When presented with a number of explanations for a lack of gender parity in politics, the most favoured responses relate to the failures of political parties, and the least favoured relates to “experience and skills”. Gender quotas for parties have 46% support and 40% opposition, with age interestingly more determinative of attitudes here than gender.

• There are a number of questions on Australia Day, the most useful of which is a finding that 52% support a separate national day to recognise indigenous Australians, including 15% who want that day to replace Australia Day, with 40% opposed.

• Respondents were presented with various groups and asked who they felt they would prefer to see win the election. The most interesting findings are that the media was perceived as favouring the Coalition by 32% and 25%; that despite all the recent talk, pensioners were perceived to favour Labor by a margin of 42% to 28%; and that families with young children were perceived as favouring Labor by 50% to 21%.

UPDATE 2: It turns out that both the longer field work period and the larger sample were a one-off, to it will be back to Thursday to Sunday and samples of a bit over 1000 in future polls.

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.

2,781 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor”

Comments Page 7 of 56
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  1. Rossmcg

    When Labor was in government i’d occasionally listen to Hadley and The Parrot online. Call it car crash voyeurism if you like 🙂 Any ways it was a period where I learnt much about the sainted ‘self funded retirees’. Anything that may have affected them produced a torrent of outraged calls . Fully cheered on by the 2GB shock jocks I heard the most greedy grasping miserable bastards EVA !

    I’m sure there are some ‘nice ones’ but when ever I hear ‘self funded retiree’ I hears those bustards ringing ‘Ray and Alan’

  2. I’m happy to throw the Boomer generation under the bus (the good Boomers of PB excepted, of course), when they’re basically the only generation keeping the Tories in the hunt. It’s ever been thus.

  3. Late Riser says:
    Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 10:50 am
    Essential results
    34% Liberal
    4% National
    36% Labor
    10% Greens
    7% PHON
    9% other
    https://www.essentialvision.com.au/category/essentialreport
    ————————————————–
    Those questions on so-called Australian values really seems like a complete load of meaningless guff, a dunning-kruger like self-assessment… Simply a chance for narcissistic drongos to go the full delusional.
    Seems like only an ignorant fool could really think that any of those values were uniquely Australian, even if the terminology or language might be in a couple of cases.
    Seems so often these days a uniquely Australian value is to try and pump ourselves up more than ever. Sad to see we have we become a country of so many BS artists, who seem to want not much more than believing their own BS.
    Like 32% think we are uniquely good at caring for our land, native flora and fauna, and indigenous peoples? When we have the worst record of mammal loss, land clearing, indigenous life expectancy and incarceration rates, rivers of millions of dying fish… etc and you know, we’re uniquely good at this out of all the humans on the planet.
    Complete and utter BS

    Seems like glaring evidence that many Australians are complete f-ing dingbats with no idea what the hell is going on.

    As if the majority of people are going to have a clear eyed, informed and honest appraisal of themselves and their country?
    It seems almost psychologically and socially impossible to expect any real honesty from asking a population generally about itself.
    In the same way that I’m sure, if asked, most PBer’s would talk about how this is the greatest political blog ever, whilst ignoring what an abusive and frankly putrid mess that can often be found here.

    More value would be to ask about some these values and then provide some real comparisons with other people and places, to reflect on how far removed from reality so many people’s beliefs are.

  6. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-05/queensland-floods-unlikely-to-aid-dry-murray-darling-basin/10780788

    Despite record rainfall and widespread flooding in northern Queensland, none of the water will make its way into the Murray-Darling Basin to replenish starved waterways, the system’s authority has said.
    :::
    “Depending on the direction the current weather system moves, it is possible it may end up replenishing the catchment of the Lake Eyre Basin instead.”

  8. Poroti

    There are a couple of financial advice columns in the Fairfax press and hardly a week goes by without somebody writing to ask how they can arrange their retirement funds to get around benefit thresholds or retain benefits.
    One guy, a George Cochrane, is pretty blunt. He has been known to tell people with millions in assets that they should just enjoy the lifestyle their assets can provide them and stop wanting to be subsidised by taxpayers like him.
    Refreshing honesty sadly absent in most of this debate.

  9. Burgey says:
    Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 1:09 pm
    I realize there are a lot of Boomers who post regularly here….
    Deadset the worst generation ever. Basically a giant cabal of leaners.–

    And btw Keating saw a generation of pensioner “leaners” in an ageing population and introduced compulsory super because there would be too many pensioners and not enough workers to pay for it-

    2nd, the franking credit changes he made was to stop the same money be taxed twice, by the company and by the investor/super fund – Howard/Costello made the changes that gave boomers a chance to wrought the system with “cash refunds”. A whole generation did NOT vote for Howard/Costello after they introduced the wrought.

    That is, not all Boomers are self interested parasites who sneer at the unemployed at Centrelink on their way to their financial adviser to ensure they ‘bludge off the rest of us tax payers’ and do a better job of it.

  10. nath @ #36 Tuesday, February 5th, 2019 – 1:18 pm

    Burgey
    says:
    Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 1:09 pm
    I realize there are a lot of Boomers who post regularly here, but I have to say it’s really no surprise that the generation which was gifted free uni education and health care, a superannuation system which lifts them out of a subsistence aged pension model and who came into adulthood when you could buy a house and get change out of five year’s wages are having a whinge because they don’t get a cash refund on tax they haven’t actually paid, and because they might not get a tax concession to buy their umpteenth home and deprive a first home buyer of a shot at ownership.
    Deadset the worst generation ever. Basically a giant cabal of leaners.
    _______________________________________
    Free Uni was only a for a few years in the 70s. And most people didn’t go to uni then. There was only 3 tv channels, no internet, and porn was very expensive. If you wanted to find something out you either had to go to a library, or call someone, and they probably didn’t know the answer either. There was free health, but medicine was still kind of primitive. There was cheap houses, so that’s about it.

    More lies.

    Free education started in 1974 and ended in 1989.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education_fees_in_Australia#Abolition_of_university_fees

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/generation-hecs/news-story/92b580049562ec7068c0b786a00681b6

  11. Another FMD! from Essential. Did they have a panel of slack jawed yokels who have never left their village ?
    .
    .
    Australian Values

    Offering help to each other in times of need

    Uniquely Australian 52%

  12. PeeBee @ #301 Tuesday, February 5th, 2019 – 1:28 pm

    TPOF,
    You try telling PeeBee that!

    Tell me what?

    This:

    Re franking credits:

    It’s very simple.

    Franking credits can only offset the tax you owe the Australian people.

    If you are lucky enough to have dividend income but not pay any tax then count your blessings not complain about a relatively small brake on your greed and selfishness.

    And this:

    A dividend is income in your pocket. It is taxable at the taxpayer’s marginal rate. Franking credits offset any tax payable by the taxpayer because the tax has been paid once at the relevant company rates. They should not be an effective refund of company tax.

    And Chris Bowen made this very salient point:

    “Frankly, I find it perverse that we send cheques to people with big share portfolios that amount to more than we provide a pensioner with no assets and no other income source,” he said.

    Because YOU don’t seem to want to acknowledge any of that.

  14. Well those wiley Banksters made the right decisions.

    Get their political mates to set up a short Royal Commission that does a quick and dirty superficial job. Give it time for only a few consumers to recount their experiences and exploitation. Successfully ride the brief shock and horror at the report.

    After the dust settles it’s basically business as usual.

    No real changes to who really benefits from the current social and economic structures.

    On the whole, another successful Tory exercise.

  16. The reality of the aftermath – no threat to the big banks’ business models.

    https://www.theage.com.au/business/markets/markets-live-banks-poised-to-lead-asx-higher-20190205-h1av1i.html

    It’s not just hedge funds covering their short positions that are driving up the bank stock prices, according to private client adviser at Morgans, Simon Ferguson.

    “I think there is genuine interest in the banks and I think retail investors are buyers given there is a level of certainty now,” he tells me. The royal commission final report confirmed the banks’ business model is not going to be ripped apart, which some investors had feared. “It is not armageddon,” Ferguson says, and investors reasonably expect dividend levels will be maintained.

  17. SamraTW says:
    Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 1:13 pm
    So stick to companies that pay unfranked dividends and you will lose nothing to tax if you are under the tax free threshold, but if you go with companies that pay franked dividends you will all the franking credits. ok I think I have it. So the government will keep the tax paid for franked dividends and get nothing for unfranked dividends for people below the tax free threshold.

    _________________________________________

    Most Australian adults pay income tax. Very few who do not – primarily the ‘self-funded’ retirees who typically have income producing assets of over $1 million (not counting their home) – know what a share is, let alone a franking or imputation credit.

    If you are invested in shares, you want to invest in what provides the best outcome for you (with the advice of having a diversified portfolio). Typically companies that pay good dividends do so because they are earning good money on which company tax is paid. Company tax should not be discretionary, which means that unfranked dividends are typically lower because the company has been doing too poorly to pay tax.

    I cannot see anyone but stupid people switching from owning shares in high yielding and solid businesses to other equities solely on the basis that the former are worthless without the benefit of franking credits. If you plan to do that, you are welcome.

  18. I see from posts above that the MSM is now on the “Retirement Tax” wagon. So again we’ll have an election demonising a non existent tax.

  22. https://www.essentialvision.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Essential-Report-290119-D1.pdf

    The new Essential poll is based on surprising old data. Remember how it was done over 3 or 4 days ending on the Saturday, and presented on a Tuesday? Well this one was done over a longer period and finished collecting info last Thursday. The data set may overlap with the period Newspoll did their last poll. From page 3 of the pdf…

    “This report summarises the results of a weekly omnibus conducted by Essential Research with data provided by Qualtrics. The survey was conducted online from 23rd to 31th January 2019 and is based on 1,652 respondents.”

    It’s still a legit poll, but its not THAT recent. More of it was done during the holiday period.

  23. Former FBI Special Agent & CNN Analyst:

    Josh Campbell
    @joshscampbell
    Trump inaugural subpoena pertains to allegations of conspiracy against the U.S., false statements, mail & wire fraud, money laundering, disclosure violations, & laws prohibiting contributions by foreign nations and in the name of another person.

    😯

  25. Barney in Go Dau @ #264 Tuesday, February 5th, 2019 – 12:51 pm

    “NEVER”, really?

    Not 300 years ago, 400, 500 etc!

    Yes. Some of the trees in these forests are over 1,000 years old. I think any previous significant fire events that had occurred in their lifetimes would be detectable.

    It’s an event “unprecedented” in our experience, but like any other event does not prove or disprove climate change.

    Right. It’s just another of those “1 in 1,000” year events.

    It’s just another piece in the overall puzzle. 🙂

    The puzzle has very few missing pieces, and the picture itself is now very clear.

    And very ugly.

  26. BiGD

    Stick with companies that pay the best return on your investment.

    In general this will most likely be unfranked dividends because they have not factored in the companies tax liability, where franked dividends have.

    _______________________________

    As I posted a few minutes ago, this is not necessarily true. Companies that don’t pay franked dividends can be carrying serious tax losses. One other reason is that, rather than pay dividends, the income is heavily reinvested in the business – that reinvestment being tax deductible. In these cases, a savvy investor might invest for the long-term capital gain prospects of a growing business.

    At its heart, the attraction of franking credits which are a refund to the (non-)taxpayer, rather than an offset for tax assessed, will be of little interest to the market as a whole as they only affect a small number of investors (relatively speaking) and a small number of shares. And many of these businesses remain blue chip investments for this group on the basis of generous dividend yields, even without franking refunds on top.

  27. Australian retail sales suffered the biggest drop in 12 months and imports slumped by the most in almost seven years, raising doubts about the resilience of household spending.

    Sales fell 0.4 percent in December, compared with estimates for an unchanged reading, statistics bureau data showed Tuesday. Imports dropped 6 percent in the month, the worst result since February 2012. A private report released earlier in the day also showed a gauge of services — a key component of the Australian economy — plunged in January.

    The economy is confronting a sharp downturn in property prices that is threatening to hit consumers’ confidence through the so-called wealth effect — even if losses on house prices so far are only on paper. When combined with stagnant wages over the past five years and household debt close to a record high, scope for consumption is constrained.

    “Households are being forced to curb growth in spending as a result of weak income growth, and confidence appears to have taken a battering from heightened volatility in financial markets and falling house prices,” said Sarah Hunter, head of macroeconomics at BIS Oxford Economics in Sydney. “We expect momentum in household spending to remain subdued this year.”

    The Australian dollar fell after the release, trading at 71.98 U.S. cents at 12:03 p.m. in Sydney from 72.13 cents before the data.

    Strong economy Mr Morrison/Frydenburg?

  28. What a shock:

    https://www.theage.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/labor-and-coalition-will-continue-to-accept-political-donations-from-banks-20190205-p50vpb.html

    Both Labor and the Liberal Party have confirmed they will continue to accept donations from banks, a day after the banking royal commission’s final report recommended a radical overhaul of the sector.
    :::
    Last year, a Greens-dominated Senate select committee suggested the government should ban political donations from banks, as well as mining, tobacco and gambling companies.

    Both Labor and the Liberal Party no longer accept donations from the tobacco industry.

  29. @joshscampbell
    Trump inaugural subpoena pertains to allegations of conspiracy against the U.S., false statements, mail & wire fraud, money laundering, disclosure violations, & laws prohibiting contributions by foreign nations and in the name of another person.

    But crucially, “no collusion”!

  30. Burgey says:
    Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 1:29 pm
    I’m happy to throw the Boomer generation under the bus (the good Boomers of PB excepted, of course), when they’re basically the only generation keeping the Tories in the hunt. It’s ever been thus.

    ____________________________________

    Older people are more naturally conservative (a broad generalisation, but polls have forever shown the strongest inherent support for conservative parties from older voters). Apart from the ‘retiree tax’ lie, older people would still have the same impact.

    When the campaign rolls around, things will change.

  31. Julia Banks on Q+A

    “When I made my first announcement, I made it very, very clear … that it was an entrenched culture of anti-women within the Liberal Party which I had experienced from almost, from, since my pre-selection in 2015,”

    It’s time to play the music…Its time to….welcome to another week of the (ex) Muppet show. Whoever is standing for Gilmore, Chisolm, Higgins, Cowper, et al under the Fibs or Nuts flag must be having Miss Piggy nightmares.

  32. Lobbyists, sectional interests and opaqueness

    https://www.theage.com.au/national/now-hayne-has-reported-the-lobbyists-will-get-to-work-20190204-p50vi6.html

    However, what we may not hear are the inevitable footsteps up and down the back corridors of parliament, of banking and insurance lobbyists seeking to water down, chip away at and wind back any meaningful reform.

    The consumer movement has been here before. In fact, legislative watering down is the key reason the sector is in the mess that it is in. Time and time again effective reform is proposed and rendered ineffective, even useless through the well-resourced lobbying might of the financial services sector.
    :::
    If we have any chance of avoiding being here again in 10 years time, the government, opposition and politicians of all stripes need to take a stand on behalf of all consumers against the banks.

    It is time to stop listening to the banks and insurers and all those who have lost all credibility and trust and especially their lobbyists.

    It is time to listen to consumers and the community that they have harmed.

    Pigs might fly.

  33. steve davis says:
    Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 1:38 pm
    [It]
    I didnt know you were on Facebook.

    _____________________________

    Last and most deadly stage of relevance deprivation syndrome.

  34. Q

    In the same way that I’m sure, if asked, most PBer’s would talk about how this is the greatest political blog ever, whilst ignoring what an abusive and frankly putrid mess that can often be found here.

    ______________________________________________

    Well, you claiming that really reflects poorly on the substance and quality of anything else you might post.

  36. Ross Gittins’ more optimistic take and why

    https://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/never-fear-hayne-is-a-new-start-and-not-just-for-the-banks-20190205-p50vp0.html

    Why the change of heart? Because, in so many cases, the 30-year experiment with deregulation, privatisation and outsourcing is now seen to have ended badly.
    :::
    Big business may have power and money, but customers and employees have votes. And when voters experience mistreatment at the hand of business – or just read about the mistreatment of others – they tend to blame the politicians, who were supposed to ensure such things happened only rarely.
    :::
    And when the Australian community realises this hasn’t happened, who does it blame? Who does it seek most to punish? The government of the day. Even though the genesis of the policy problem lies in decisions made by governments long gone.

    Do you see now why the worm has turned on deregulation?
    :::
    Former Labor and Coalition governments’ naive faith that “market forces” would oblige businesses to do the right thing has proved badly misplaced.
    :::
    And now the chickens have come home, who’s most at risk of losing their jobs? Not the bosses of offending businesses, not the regulators asleep at the wheel, but the government of the day. That’s the rough justice of democracies. Voters hit out at those they have the power to hit – those they elect.
    :::
    But there’s more to it. During the decades in which politicians and some economists convinced themselves that the more lightly businesses were regulated the better they’d serve the rest of us, the regulatory authorities were left intact more for appearances than function.

    They soon got the message that their political masters – from either side of politics – wanted them to go easy on business. Both sides went for years reinforcing the message by repeatedly cutting the regulators’ funding.

    But all that’s changed. The politicians, claiming to be shocked by the regulators’ dereliction, are now pumping in taxpayers’ money as fast as they can go. Life won’t be the same for big business.

  37. Election blogger

    And btw Keating saw a generation of pensioner “leaners” in an ageing population and introduced compulsory super because there would be too many pensioners and not enough workers to pay for it-

    ________________________________________

    Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Keating ever saw prospective pensioners as ‘leaners’. On the contrary, the superannuation reforms were an attempt to create far more financial agency for retired workers, rather than relying on the handout of the social security old age pension. There was also the prospect of an untenable burden on wage and salary earners going forward from the ageing population, but not because that population was undeserving.

    The lifters and leaners ideology was pure IPA selfishness, not even neoliberalism but something far more fundamental and, in a way, religion-driven. The concept of the deserving and the undeserving. We can thank Abbott and Morrison and Hockey (a leaner if ever there was one) for that sick ideology.

  42. The Next government should hold a Royal Commission into the Australian banking and finance industry!

    If Labor is elected do you reckon this will be a priority for its first 100 days of government?

    If it does launch an RC in its first term, will its ToR cover the elephant in the room, viz vertical integration and the need for a people’s bank?

    Let’s speculate away!

  43. The ALP primary vote at 36% is way too low.
    Last newspoll it was 38% down from 41%.
    To me on a personal level it feels like the swing to Labor is on. However those primary vote number is still very weak.

  45. I’m not too unnerved by the apparent narrowing in the polls. Imho, the election year kicked off for real yesterday with the release of the Royal Commission report. This is nothing but bad news for the government. They will get no credit for establishing the Royal Commission, and will be lumped in with the banks by voters. It really isn’t all that surprising that the polls narrowed in the holiday period; people switched off, and when asked probably just reverted to more normal voting patterns. I seem to remember around Christmas 2012, many on here getting excited that the poll lead for the then Coalition opposition narrowed, only to quickly widen again. I think we’ll be back to 53-47 or 54-46 soon enough, possibly as soon as this weekend.

  46. C#t, just looking at Bowen’s statement:

    “Frankly, I find it perverse that we send cheques to people with big share portfolios that amount to more than we provide a pensioner with no assets and no other income source,” he said.

    Don’t you see where Bowen is pulling the wool over YOUR eyes.

    In general:

    People with large share portfolios will not be effected by his policy. They will get the full benefit of the franking credit.

    The poor pensioner with a few shares will get no benefit of the franking credit.

    You don’t seem to acknowledge that, that is not fair.

  47. a r @ #330 Tuesday, February 5th, 2019 – 2:02 pm

    @joshscampbell
    Trump inaugural subpoena pertains to allegations of conspiracy against the U.S., false statements, mail & wire fraud, money laundering, disclosure violations, & laws prohibiting contributions by foreign nations and in the name of another person.

    But crucially, “no collusion”!

    That’ll do me. 🙂

  48. Ven
    says:
    Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 2:23 pm
    nath@1:36pm
    Not as much as you
    ______________
    I don’t know about that “Sick of Nath” 🙂

  50. Pegasus@2:22pm
    What RC did Justice Hayne conducted for last 1 year? What was the report that was released yesterday by josh F? 🙂

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