Essential Research: 55-45 to Labor

Shortly after Newspoll found the Coalition’s tentative momentum grinding to a halt, Essential gives them their worst result since August.

Essential Research has come out with a second poll in consecutive weeks, the previous one having departed from its normal practice in having a longer field work period and a later release, tailored to work around the interruption of the long weekend. Coming after a period in which a media narrative of Labor taking on water over franking credits has taken hold, the results of the latest poll are striking: the Coalition has sunk four points on the primary vote to 34%, Labor is up two to 38%, the Greens and One Nation are steady on 10% and 7% respectively, and Labor’s two-party lead has blown out from 52-48 to 55-45. Other questions relate to the banking royal commission: you can read more about them from The Guardian, or await for Essential’s full report, which I assume will be with us later today.

UPDATE: Full report here. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1067.

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.

2,398 comments on “Essential Research: 55-45 to Labor”

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  3. Confessions @ 10.13 am

    Quite so; the problem is that the partisan argy-bargy isn’t just posted here; it’s reflective of a much broader mindset which has taken hold in the major parties.

    My take on events yesterday isn’t that anyone in favour of the Bill “won” or “lost” or backflipped; it’s that the Bill’s passage depended on bringing together a very disparate group of MPs, any one of whom could have killed the Bill by changing his or her vote. In that environment, it’s clear that compromise was going to be needed to avoid getting nothing at all. Full credit to those who were prepared to compromise, and little credit at all to those partisans who, after the event, then seek to disparage those who compromised sensibly as having backflipped. This observation doesn’t just apply to commenters here: it applies on a much grander scale to the media commentators, especially in the Murdoch press, who seek all the time to portray events as wins or losses/

  4. It will readily be observed that Mr. Dutton, with a little creativity could improve his appearance so as to not frighten the horses and other skittish creatures. Witness my after photo where the horror of the before is left to a shuddering imagination.

    Should Mr. Dutton perchance to read this – I would be only too pleased to offer my advice. 😇🧔

  8. Pedant

    Well posted.

    Labor in government has to work with those disparate MP’s and Senators.

    It’s not in Labor’s interest to burn bridges.

  10. Welcome back Boerwar. It was timely that you return to see the Greens doing what you spent about 3 years mocking them for not doing – compromising to delivery a meaningful result. Yet rather than giving credit for that, you instead merely change tack on how you mock them for “fail[ing] to meet all sorts of Greens threshold standards of humanity”. Then there’s Zoidlord hilariously claiming that it was the Greens playing games, not labor – ignoring the fact that it was labor who backflipped in suddenly rejecting the same bill that they had recently voted for.

    Thanks for proving that in the eyes of the conga line, there is literally nothing the Greens can do to satisfy you.

  12. Catching up…Good morning, and thanks BK.
    http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/australien-premierminister-scott-morrison-unter-druck-wegen-fluechtlingspolitik-a-1252869.html
    It’s in German, but I was taken by the description of “independents” as being “party-less”. The language of German politics takes the perspective of belonging or not belonging versus the language we use of being able to go our own way. Australia’s policies are described as “harsh”, and Naura and Manus are “camps”.

  14. Sounds to me as if Morrison is trying to have it both way: boats don’t come it’s down to us. Boats do come it’s Shorten has questions to answer.

    😆

  15. ScoMo going full panic and run in circles mode??

    Expect boats being reported by Boarder Farce as intercepted in the next two weeks. With the election coming up they will be reporting of turn-backs and intercepts rather than keeping them secret as “on water matters”.

  16. Scott fearmongering on ABC24 re. stopping the flotilla of boats which started immediately after the vote yesterday and which are now approaching our shores in waves.
    Be afraid, be very afraid!!!

  17. The LNP needs to be criticized for co-opting the national security services to serve partisan purposes. I want Labor, the Greens, and the Independents to assure the national security services that they will be treated with respect when this current government is removed. It would be helpful to have a Royal Commission into the relationship between the LNP and the security services in order to identify damage to the integrity of public agencies and to recommend ways of building public service resilience against the threat of partisan meddling.

  19. Labor made the amendments because of the advice they received from Australia’s security agencies. If you want to characterize that as a backflip or whatever else, then you’re exactly the same as the reactionary right wingers who have no respect for our institutions.

  24. So Greenies on this blog claim Labor were “backflipping”, “Scared”, “Gittering”, and so forth, you Greens are worse than Liberals.

  25. Bit surprised this morning to find there were no asylum seekers camped on my front lawn.
    Maybe tomorrow?
    The Tories dont have many ideas but obviously they think this one will work.
    It will be a shocking indictment on Australia if it does.
    I may think about seeing asylum somewhere myself.

  26. Labor doing the right thing, Greens are just jealous.

    Geoff Pearson
    ‏ @GCobber99
    1m1 minute ago

    Labor is attempting to limit debate speeches to five minutes and the debate to 30 minutes.

    That comes after last year’s filibustering saw the debate stretch into hours and hours.

  27. This whole reaction by Morrisson is totally reprehensible & irresponsible.
    He is not PM of Australia to stir up fear when there is no reason for it.
    Disgusting for a leader of this nation to be going down this road.

  29. Seems to me that a resumption of boats in the near future will look too convenient by half for Morrison.

    It’s the government’s job to look after matters like this and I fi d it difficult to see how the blame would not lie with them, rather than with Shorten. The government is the government after all.

    We’ve seen Shorten blamed for dodgy industry super (which turned out not to be dodgy at all), the Deficit, the Banks’ misbehaviour, the CFMMEU, dead fish in the Murray-Darling Basin, and at one point for Liberal Party leadership instability. Now it’s Boats.

    When are these people in the Coalition going to take responsibility for their own actions? They’ve had the media behind them most of the time on most issues. Even now we hear that yesterday’s humiliations (including a coupke at the hands of their own Speaker) are ominous, not for Morrison, but for Shorten! All they have ever done is blame Bill Shorten for their own mistakes and inactions, from virtually day one. What kinds of wimps do that? And if Shorten is truly de facto running the country, what’s the argument against putting him in charge officially?

    In short: if they’re the best managers, how come the Coalition can’t, or won’t manage?

    When (as seems to be the threat coming out of yesterday’s events) the first, newly emboldened boatload of future dole bludgers, terrorists and sexual molesters appears off Xmas Island, after miraculously dodging the pride of the fleet up there in the Indian Ocean, we should look to blame those whose job it is to keep them at bay, not the talentless little guy (or so the fairy tale goes) with no clout whatsoever.

    The Liberals thought they could play Musical Prime Ministers. There was no risk. Wentworth was the safest seat for them in the nation. WRONG. They could heavy their female MPs without blowback. WRONG. The new independents would never vote against them on the floor of the house. WRONG. The Speaker was their man, who would do as he was told. WRONG.

    So many WRONGs, and they still think they have right on their side.

    If he has any sense, Bill Shorten should tack his boat out of the crowded, confusing waters of the spectator fleet where Morrison has tried to trap him, gather clean air, and head for the finish line. Let’s see who’s chasing whom then.

  31. A piece of gratuitous advice.

    Make the Cortyard for Media announcements.

    Turn the Blue Room into the Media room like the White House.

    Then we will get pressers where we can hear the questions

    It makes a big difference for the public.

  32. If you can bring yourself to listen to Morrison right now, it is clear that there is only one party and one leader facing the rhetorical blowtorch from the desperate Coalition and that is Labor.

    For all the pontificating about who was responsible for what and who backflipped, compromised, etc – only Labor was going to wear the outcome, whatever it was.

  34. No Nicholas, there needs to be a root and branch purge of the national security agencies and the AFP if Labor wins the next election. They are already politicized beyond all reasonable measure and are happy to act as players in the game rather than objective public servants.

    I’d also be thrilled if Labor dismantled the Dept of Home Affairs. It’s insidious in name and by nature.

  35. FFS, this is idiotic even for this mob of clowns:

    1. this bill creates precisely zero incentive for boats to start up again – no new arrival will be affected by the legislation.
    2. medical evacuees will still be in detention at all times. They can only cease being in detention by the minister’s discretion
    3. actual criminals are ‘evacuated’ from prison to hospitals all the time – without endangering the public
    4. detainees on Nauru and Manus are being evacuated anyway – only by court order, instead of by legislation
    5. the only thing that could possibly be incentivising the people smugglers to start up again is the irresponsible government *TELLING* them that somehow this bill gives them better people smuggling opportunities

    Gawd, there are just so many levels of stupid here.

  37. Confessions,
    It may well be to us, but it’s precisely the gift he’s been looking for – he can carry on about borders and immigration and pin everything on the ALP. He’s desperate and the campaign will be vile, but a desperate bloke will cling to anything, And it’ll play well in a lot of marginals. It always does – appealing to the better angels in Australian politics is always stupid. Always keep in mind Burgey’s First Law: when push comes to shove, people are pricks.

  38. “Seems to me that a resumption of boats in the near future will look too convenient by half for Morrison.”

    Yup, and it would be really stupid, backfire in a lot of circles, make them look like dodgy spiv liars who think the electorate is dumber than they are.

    Want to bet $ that they will do it anyway?? 🙂

  40. Adrian, it isn’t the point. If the govt can get its message across simply and loudly with the help of its media boosters, and you (and me and Labor) have to reply by listing five numbered bullet points as to why they are wrong, then they have already won.

    That’s how politics works.

  41. Burgey @ 10.41am

    The ALP certainly should have a good hard look at the circumstances which led to the AFP raid on Senator Conroy’s office during the 2016 election campaign, with the media miraculously tipped off, as in the AWU case more recently. If the AFP has a policy on ensuring its political neutrality, especially during election campaigns, it’s either sadly deficient or was blatantly breached.

  43. We will continue the hard work, govern calmly, so much to do cleaning up Labor’s mess, you can flap your arms, I’ve got more important things to do, save the country from the filth to the north, so much to do, so busy, protecting the good bankers keeping the money flowing, so busy, so …

    … so we’re sitting for 10 days in eight months.

  46. I think that purging the politicised elements of the security agencies is a necessary part of protecting and respecting the conscientious people who work in those agencies.

  47. TPOF

    Of course.

    Not one Green is denying the reality that if the government changes its Labor who will be in the government and the LNP bottom line is to stay in government.

    Their best bet is divide the progressives so irrational fear can win.

    That’s why I hate the blame game.

    Yesterday was a win win. Not a lose lose.

    So no need for all this divisive talk that just plays into the LNP divide and conquer when Labor is winning.

    Let’s keep the focus on the LNP losing as its too focused on the right extreme where it belongs.
    Let’s not do the LNP work for them.

    Yesterday and I suspect today are going to be wins for progressives and another day of defeat for the LNP.

  48. ItzaDream says:

    What does “60 medical professionals on Nauru” actually mean?

    60 medical ———We have a doctor, a nurse and 58 jailers with a first aid certificate
    professionals—- we pay shitloads for them to a private company.

  50. Pegasus says:
    Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 9:43 am
    Hinch

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/derryn-hinch-throws-future-of-refugee-medical-transfer-bill-into-doubt-20190213-p50xej.html

    For Shorten the primary focus was to achieve “stronger borders”.

    For the crossbench the focus was on saving lives through a strengthened medivac bill, a bill designed to solve life and death medical issues, and has nothing to do with “national security”.
    ………………………………………………………………………………
    Well Pegasus as you and I are both primarily concerned with relieving cruelty to refugees, you must be very very pleased that Shorten amended the Bill, whatever you think his primary focus might be.

    Why, you aks?

    Because Hinch has just said in Parliament that changing the Minister’s time to 72 hours from 24 and increasing the Minister’s discretion to not allow pedophiles etc was very important to him voting for the Bill.

    So I guess we can both thank dog for Shorten’s pragmatism. No?

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