Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

Another pollster finds an incremental movement to Labor, and gives Bill Shorten an improved set of personal ratings.

The latest fortnightly result from Essential Research follows Newspoll in recording a one-point move to Labor, who now lead 53-47 on two-party preferred. As reported by The Guardian, the primary votes have the Coalition down a point to 37%, Labor up a point to 38%, the Greens down a point to 8% (their weakest result in any poll since September 2016) and One Nation up a point to 7%. The pollster’s leadership ratings (which they normally do monthly, but this is the first set since January) have Scott Morrison steady on 43% approval and up two on disapproval to 41%, Bill Shorten up three to 38% and down three to 44%, and Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister at 44-31, compared with 42-30 last time.

Other findings relate to climate change and asylum seekers. On the former cont, 62% express belief in climate change caused by human activity, and 51% say Australia is not doing enough to address it. On the latter, 52% believed the government was acting out of genuine concern in reopening Christmas Island while 48% said it was a political ploy (suggesting there was no uncommitted option, which would be unusual for Essential). Also featured was an occasion suite of questions on best party to handle various issues, which seems to have produced typical results, with the Coalition stronger on broader protection and economic management and Labor stronger on the environment, wages, health and education, as well as housing affordability. The full report should be with us later today.

UPDATE: Full report here. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1089.

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.

1,959 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

Comments Page 28 of 40
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  1. citizen

    They just want to make wage theft ‘legal and above board’ ,let the government do it rather than them have to do it themselves. Bustards. I hope a name and shame and boycott campaign starts on those that are calling for it. Grrrrr.

  2. Runs on the board

    Then over to the bowlers supported by their fields

    I have been of the view that Carey is the premier ‘keeper in Australia for some time now – and he can bat

    Politics

    The Greens are a single issue group – and single issues resolve the catalyst being public opinion

    Government is something entirely different

    I was in Adelaide for private reasons coincidentally at the same time as the ALP Conference – a Conference which sets the policy agenda of the ALP

    To put that the Greens, and their issue or issues is the conscience of Labor is abject, straw clutching nonsense

    Australian society covers who and what it covers

    Hence you never judge others by self

    There are very well managed businesses in Australia, with business models delivering outcomes including acknowledgement of staff including by remuneration and other considerations, businesses which make profit, allowing a financial return to the Shareholders (whose Company it is – Shareholders also being the subordinated financiers of the business as distinct from Current and Non-current liabilities on the Balance Sheet) AND retaining profit to fund (or part fund) growth because growth requires equity funding at its core

    Simply, well managed Companies continue to grow – and continue to employ and reward because of that growth

    Plus they pay tax on their profits – and their employees pay tax on their wages (salaries, wages and superannuation being tax deductible expenses)

    Australia and the Australian community have an absolute reliance on the good order of these Companies and the business they transact

    They are central to our society – noting we are a 70% plus Service Industry economy

    To quote from a children’s verse (reading to grandchildren!), the wheels on the bus go around and around I

    Without doubt there are some in business not of the same ilk as others

    But you benchmark against the best – not the worst

    The worst will be found out, because at the end of the day their business model is unsustainable

    It is a more complex world than single issues, no matter the integrity of the single issue

    We are all inter reliant

    Growth is the positive and the deliverer of opportunity – including population

    In terms of accomodating, that is why we have between our ears what we have and why there are amongst us the exceptional

  4. All Labor has to say: IF ( a big IF), there is a 6 billion dollar iron ore bonanza we will use it to pay down some of the Liberal debt burden.

  5. A quick survey seems to indicate that Kidd has largely killed off options for the shadow whisperers, or shadow shouters, who have consistently been seeking to undermine the Law in relation to Pell’s conviction.
    Ferguson has a desultory go in ‘The Australian’ but, really, Kidd left him nowhere to go.

  7. In a surprise to no one. Who could forget the sweaty guy acting AG Whittaker when answering questions before Congress.
    He is going down for perjury.

  8. Boerwar:

    If I were a Pell victim, or relative of a Pell victim I’d be thinking he got off lightly in the circumstances. He’ll be out in just under 4 years.

  9. C
    I can understand that response.
    But what do we do?
    Lock every single child sex abuser up for life because the impact is for life?
    If not life, then for how long?

  10. “It is not Labor who are aggressive and offensive, it is the Grouper Junta.”

    Pot. Kettle? Or is personal insight something that other people do?

  11. BK

    The complexities, including entrenched over a generation, meant no one could correctly assess

    It was not a matter that should ever have been put in the hands of the electorate

    As Beasley said with the GST, once you have it there is no unscrambling of the egg

    It is a fact of life

    In regards Liberal DNA, remember Costello attempted to compromise the incoming Bracks government re the withdrawal of the metro train operator and Eastlink actually being completed – to financially compromise the future of that government

    Bracks correctly told Costello where to go

    Then we had the East-West side Letters

    This is the Liberal DNA and legacy

  12. Dan Gulberry says:
    Thursday, March 14, 2019 at 3:30 am

    The biggest cost in any organisation is always labour….

    This is just not correct. Non-labour/labour input ratios vary widely between industries. In construction, for example, labour costs are likely to be about 25-30% of the bills. The rest is consumed by materials. In mining, most of the expense is in machinery and energy. The same applies to broad-acre agriculture. Service industries are obviously quite different. It’s not particularly useful to generalise.

  13. Tax cuts in this country are theft.

    Theft of funds that could be better allocated.

    The tax cuts always go disproportionately to higher income earners and significantly increase inequality.

    They then cut services to fund these things…

  14. Confessions @ #1356 Thursday, March 14th, 2019 – 9:01 am

    So Manafort is sentenced to a total of 7.5 years for his millions of dollars worth of fraud, grift and scams. What a joke.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/paul-manafort-faces-sentencing-in-washington-in-mueller-special-counsel-case/2019/03/12/d4d55dd4-44d0-11e9-aaf8-4512a6fe3439_story.html?utm_term=.f6a419bd8f5c

    Now we just wait for the presidential pardon.

    Hi Fess,

    I think I heard that he’s just been indicted on further crimes, this time by the State prosecutor (which the President cannot pardon). Also, whether through these current sentences and/or any other sentences on the new charges (no one’s missed in their charges yet), there’s every chance he will die in prison.

    Does that sate your lust for justice?

  15. Maude @8:33
    “Scott Morrison, a PM of little brain, can think of nothing better to spend a lazy $6B on than a tax cut.”

    As C@t said earlier, it’s a deliberate strategy, not just an attempt to buy their way back into office in the face of bad polls, but to financially hamstring an incoming Labor Government. Howard did the same.

    But it’s more than that. You mention three alternative uses for the windfall. There are lots more, including a boost to infrastructure spending, tertiary education, health. But a right wing Government doesn’t want to do any of these things. It wants to reduce the size of Government. It wants to dismantle welfare, in particular to ultimately abolish unemployment benefits, privatise service delivery to the largest extent possible, leave health and education to the States and ultimately dismantle Medicare. Cutting taxation starves future Governments of revenue. This is intended to constrain spending and stymie any action to either reverse cuts and privatisation or to boost Government services.

  16. Outside left says:
    Thursday, March 14, 2019 at 7:39 am
    And that extra $6 Billion can also be promised/spent by Labor, nice!

    Exactly. Good comment.

  17. So, the UK Government doesn’t like May’s proposal (confirmed again yesterday), and doesn’t want a “no deal” Brexit.

    I asked myself why then is there another vote tomorrow to ask for an extension? What choice do they have?

    I think the answer is that the UK might delay Brexit, but has yet to decide for how long. It might fail agree to a date or the EU might reject the proposal – I think it needs to be unanimous.

    If it fails to do that then May may have rescind Article 50 (which I don’t think needs EU approval) and “start again”, or leave without a deal anyway, despite the vote not to.

    Is this correct?

  19. @JohnWren1950
    5m5 minutes ago

    Dear @AusElectoralCom, you’ve recently cleared @GetUp of being an associated entity. It does NOT fund candidates, just campaigns for causes. Can you now please investigate #AdvanceAustralia, that is actively boasting that it is directly funding @LiberalAus candidates. #auspol

  21. Boerwar:

    With Pell it isn’t just that he sexually abused two boys, but that he used his position of authority in the church to hide it. Personally I’d like to see more in the church face justice for the roles they played in covering up for their abusive priests.

  22. Darc:

    Yes, Manafort is facing a further 16 indictments in the state of New York and we will wait to see how that goes.

    Meanwhile, as I said earlier, we wait for the presidential pardon for the federal crimes he’s been convicted for.

  23. Is Giuliani next in Mueller’s sights?

    Before he pleaded guilty and began assisting federal prosecutors last summer, Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, spoke with a lawyer who agreed to reach out to the president’s legal team on his behalf.

    The lawyer, Robert J. Costello, had about a dozen conversations with Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, according to emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with people involved in the matter. In one email, the discussions were characterized as a “back channel of communication.”

    During one of the conversations last April, Mr. Costello said in an interview, he asked whether Mr. Trump might put a pardon “on the table” for Mr. Cohen, who was under federal investigation for a variety of possible crimes, including arranging hush-money payments to two women who had said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. Mr. Giuliani told Mr. Costello that the president was unwilling to discuss pardons at that time, Mr. Costello said in the interview, and they did not discuss it again.

    Now federal prosecutors have requested the emails and documents from Mr. Costello, according to a copy of the request, which cited an investigation into “possible violations of federal criminal law” but offered no further detail. The request, sent last week, was for any documents related to Mr. Cohen as well as any bills Mr. Costello had sent him.

    In one of the emails, sent by Mr. Costello in April 2018 after a conversation with Mr. Giuliani, he assured Mr. Cohen, “Sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places.” He added, in a postscript: “Some very positive comments about you from the White House. Rudy noted how that followed my chat with him last night.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/us/politics/cohen-giuliani-pardon.html

  24. Advisory committee member Bill Barker, from the Nature Coast Marine group, said he was stunned by the move which had “put a giant wrecking ball” through the future planning of the Batemans Marine Park.

    “Now it’s hard to imagine what kind of advisory body you would have, if in fact, instead of giving advice, the advisory body is simply expected to take instructions from the local member.”
    …
    “This is supposed to follow a procedure at arm’s length from the Minister and anyone else influencing it so that all sectors of the NSW community are represented,” Dr Fulton said.

    According to the NSW Department of Primary Industries, the Batemans Marine Park was unique and contained large expanses of rocky reef that supported a diverse array of fish, invertebrates and algae.

    One of the sites Mr Constance earmarked to be opened for recreational fishing was the Montague Island Nature Reserve, home to hundreds of seals and more than 90 bird species, according to the DPI.

    Dr Fulton, a marine ecologist, said the four sites were iconic to Southern Australia.

    “Some of these places have endemic species that we find nowhere else in the world,” he said.

    The Member for Bega said when the park was created, people were just drawing lines on maps.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-14/nsw-marine-park-advisory-independence-questioned/10898322

  25. Gladys patently prefers concrete to conservation. Report from Aug 2018.

    New South Wales gave permission to clear over 7,000 hectares of native vegetation in 2015-16, the second highest rate of clearing in a decade, while the creation of new conservation areas and restoration of bushland has slumped under the Berejiklian government.

    In 2013-14, 900 hectares was cleared in total. In 2014-15 this jumped to 2,730 hectares and by 2015-16 it had increased to 7,390 hectares.

    At the same time measures to conserve native vegetation, such as new conservation measures and restoration, slumped to the lowest level in a decade. Restoration of native vegetation areas fell to 116,170 hectares in 2015-16, less than half the decade average.

    Weed removal programs also went into reverse, with just a tiny fraction of the areas being managed for weeds – 29,970 hectares compared to the decade average of 182,200 hectares.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/04/clearing-of-native-vegetation-in-nsw-jumps-800-in-three-years?CMP=share_btn_tw

  26. Crikey Worm:

    Western Australian Energy Minister Bill Johnston has rebuffed calls from the Environmental Protection Authority for a state-based emissions trading scheme, while publicly backing the Adani-Carmichael coal mine in a speech at Australia’s largest oil and gas conference.

    The Australian Financial Review ($) reports that the Labor energy minister endorsed Adani, coal-fired power stations and the local gas industry at the Australasian Oil and Gas conference in Perth, which also saw about 30 protesters storm the stage prior to keynotes by Woodside Petroleum and Chevron executives. The comments come as the WA government prepares to meet with the state’s gas producers today, and follows a separate decision to terminate a $16 million wave farm contract over issues with the company Carnegie.

  27. Sometimes I notice things

    Like for example

    Some* people using the Poll Bludger comments section have a tendency to write using an unusual syntactical style

    There is also something strange about the line spacing

    Punctuation raises additional questions

    Some** of the posts using this heterodox style seem overly long

    For the most part they have characteristics more akin to haiku than danraku

    Whatever

    I just scroll on by.

    *One
    **All

  29. My double hope is that a. Labor can hold its nerve and not do what Rudd did in ’07, and promises to use any lift in revenue to lock in increased funding for services; and b. that the Oz people have finally had enough of twenty years of private splendour and public squalor to actually back services over tax cuts.

  30. frednk @ #1354 Thursday, March 14th, 2019 – 7:59 am

    All Labor has to say: IF ( a big IF), there is a 6 billion dollar iron ore bonanza we will use it to pay down some of the Liberal debt burden.

    More effective would be to promise matching tax cuts, but allocated so that they only apply to people earning under $120k/year or so. Because high earners don’t need them, and there aren’t that many high earners anyways.

  31. I’m hearing that Big Business is spooked by the Living Wage proposals coming from Labor and they are in Morrison’s ear howling for him to do something.
    Apparently his advisors are saying the time maybe right for a blast from the past and a campaign put together around the PM leading the charge against wage rises. A case to be put that the time is not right in these troubling times for wage rises and that the right and patriotic thing for people to do is to vote against them for the wellbeing of the country.
    A similar campaign was used successfully by the Liberals in the past decades ago, and it worked.
    The Salesman in Morrison, likes the idea and he thinks he can sell it with MSM help. He thinks this can put him on the front foot in his fight with Shorten.
    I’ve also heard this morning that Liberal polling in NSW is showing the TPP is closer to 52/48 to Labor and still moving up.

  32. Why do Liberals have so many problems with taking advice?

    Is it a clear sign that ideologically they so out of touch?

  35. Royal commission into disability abuse was a decade in the making, but the time is ripe for change:

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-14/royal-commission-disabilities-abuse-analysis/10896646

    It’s not just charities and not-for-profit organisations that will come under the scrutiny of a royal commission.

    There are the state governments who for so long ran the institutions, homes, hospitals and schools that came in contact with people with a disability.

    There are also organisations like police forces, which face incredible challenges in training officers to deal with the complexities of people with profound intellectual disabilities who may be putting others, or themselves, at risk.
    :::
    This is one royal commission that many people will hope will recommend criminal charges.
    :::
    The Commonwealth has agreed to foot the bill — but only after Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John dragged them kicking and screaming over the line to hold the inquiry.
    :::
    But no amount of time in court will solve all the problems or clean out all the problematic people and systems.

    With so many of these commissions examining the abuse of vulnerable people, perhaps a permanent standing commission with powers to investigate abuse of any vulnerable person whether it be juveniles, the aged or people with disability could be a possible outcome.

  37. “A case to be put that the time is not right in these troubling times for wage rises and that the right and patriotic thing for people to do is to vote against them for the wellbeing of the country.”

    Funny how this patriotic duty only ever applies to workers, not the capital owners.

    ANd when will the time be right? When the economy starts to recover? No, can’t afford to damage the ‘fragile recovery’. When things are going well? No, can’t risk a downturn.

    Nothing but self-interested bleating from business. They can get stuffed.

  38. Fake news or satire?

    “In Lismore, Ms Berejiklian and Mr Barilaro visited a hay property to talk to farmers concerned about Labor’s tax on luxury cars, which will hit any vehicle over $100,000.”

  39. According to the AFR: https://outline.com/YSvfMe

    Labor distances itself from ACTU push on living wage proposal

    Labor leader Bill Shorten said this week that Labor would either use legislation or make a submission that the Commission take more factors into account than it does now when setting the subsistence wage. He said the wage setting process did not take into account modern necessities such as mobile phones and internet connection.

  40. The ACTU and minimum wage

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/13/unions-demand-6-rise-to-minimum-wage-after-shorten-makes-promise-on-pay

    Australian unions have called for a $43 a week increase in the minimum wage – a pay rise of 6% – as the first step of a two-year push to create a “living wage”.

    The call comes after Bill Shorten confirmed on Tuesday that Labor would change the rules used by the Fair Work Commission to lift the minimum wage, currently $18.93 an hour, but would not mandate a living wage of 60% of the median wage.
    :::
    The ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, said the current minimum wage guaranteed that workers were “forced to work below the poverty line”.

    “Within two years, we can make sure no full-time working Australian lives in poverty while also stimulating spending and generating economic activity and growth,” she said. “We also need to change the rules so that our minimum wage is one that people can live on – this is the basis of the fair go.”

  41. Red13,

    At a time of already stagnant wages, o.k. we’ll campaign to maintain low wage growth.

    They wouldn’t be that dumb, would they?

    Hope so! 😆

  43. lizzie

    It has to be fake news ……….BUT OMFG!!!!!!!, they are beyond parody…………………..

    THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD › Annotations
    ALEXANDRA SMITH MARCH 13, 2019

    In Lismore, Ms Berejiklian and Mr Barilaro visited a hay property to talk to farmers concerned about Labor’s tax on luxury cars, which will hit any vehicle over $100,000.

    Labor says the tax will pay for extra nurses and midwives but the Coalition says it will slug farmers in drought-stricken areas with another tax.
    https://outline.com/jTkGJ5

  44. “A case to be put that the time is not right in these troubling times for wage rises and that the right and patriotic thing for people to do is to vote against them for the wellbeing of the country.”

    BRING IT ON!

  47. The wider legal community and even the twitterverse have accepted Pell’s sentence as appropriate. Anyone who bothered to watch KiddCJ and understand the complicated principals and procedures that sentencing demands would likely be the wiser for it, and agree with the experts about the sentence.

    Of course parents, friends, relatives of victims of all crimes often / usually think the sentence is too short. What’s new. That’s why we have the rule of law and allow the impartial system to decide a fair and just sentence.

    It is safeguarded by the availability of an appeal process against excessive of insufficient sentences by both the convicted person and the Crown.

  48. Come on Beto, ya forgot to put a log cabin in the background you old man o’ the land you.

    Where is the rifle? Where is the skateboard?

  50. p
    Farmers in Global Warming stricken areas have received $6 billion in drought aid and other rort aid so that they can buy luxury cars while millions of people are struggling to make ends meet?
    Hesus wept!
    These fucking born-to-rule types just don’t get it.

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