Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor

More dissonance between two-party preferred and other poll movements, this time from Essential Research.

The Guardian reports the fortnightly Essential Research poll has followed Newspoll in recording the Labor lead narrowing from 52-48 to 51-49 – and also in doing so from primary votes that you would think more likely to convert to 52-48. Labor are actually up two points from an unusually weak result last time, from 35% to 37%, while the Coalition are up a single point to 39%. The explanation for Labor’s two-party decline must lie in the two-point drop for the Greens, from 11% to 9%, and the attendant weakening in their flow of preferences. One Nation are up a point to 6%; no response option has been added for the United Australia Party, and there is nothing to suggest their ascent in the combined “others” tally, which is down a point to 9%.

If preference flows from 2016 are applied to these crudely rounded numbers, Labor starts with its 37% primary vote and gets 7.4% from the Greens (82% of their total), 3.0% from One Nation (50%) and 4.4% from others (49%), plus a 0.1% boost to correct for preference leakage between the Liberals and the Nationals. Add all that together and Labor comes out on 51.9%. Since this is, to the best of my knowledge, more-or-less the formula Essential uses, the explanation must lie in rounding. Dial Labor back to 36.6% and the Greens to 8.6%, and boost the Coalition to 39.4%, and you get primary votes that round to the published totals, but which produce a Labor two-party result of 51.4%, rounding to 51-49. There can’t have been much in it though.

The poll also features Essential’s occasional measure of leadership ratings, but all we are given at this stage is preferred prime minister. Scott Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister is 40-31, down from 44-31 when the question was last asked in early March. So here too the poll reflects Newspoll in finding leadership ratings headed the opposite way from the two-party headline.

We will have to wait until later today for the full report, but The Guardian report relates that 59% expect Labor to win compared with 41% for the Coalition (so presumably a forced response); that “voters have logged news stories about the Liberal party’s preference deal with the controversial businessman Clive Palmer’s United Australia party, and are noticing the debates about tax and healthcare”; that the top rated issues were health, national security and the economy; and that 19% reported taking no interest in the campaign, 29% a little, 33% some, and 20% a lot.

UPDATE: Full report here. The preferred prime minister is the only leadership ratings result – nothing on leaders’ approval and disapproval.

Further poll news:

Roy Morgan, which either publishes or doesn’t publish its weekly face-to-face poll in irregular fashion, has released its results for a second successive week. Polling conducted over the weekend had Labor’s two-party preferred lead steady at 51-49, according to both respondent-allocated and previous election preference measures. Both major parties are up half a point on the primary vote, the Coalition to 39.5% and Labor to 36%, while the Greens are steady on 9.5% and One Nation (which doesn’t do well in this series at the best of times) down two to 2.5%. Also not doing well in this series is Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, steady on 2%. The poll was conducted face-to-face on Saturday and Sunday from sample size unknown, but probably around 700.

• The Advertiser has a YouGov Galaxy poll of Sturt, the Adelaide seat being vacated by Christopher Pyne, which had the Liberals leading 53-47, compared with their post-redistribution margin of 5.4%. The primary votes were 42% for the new Liberal candidate, James Stevens (44.7% post-redistribution); 35% for Labor candidate Cressida O’Hanlon (23.1%); a striking 9% for the United Australia Party (triple what Palmer United managed in Sturt in 2013); and 6% for the Greens. The poll also gives Scott Morrison a 45-31 lead over Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister; finds 40% less likely to vote Liberal because of Malcolm Turnbull’s replacement by Scott Morrison, compared with 25% for more likely; and finds only 22% more likely to vote Labor because of its franking credits and capital gains tax policies, compared with “almost half” for less likely. The poll was conducted last Wednesday from a sample of 504.

The Age yesterday related that Labor internal polling had it leading 55-45 in Dunkley, 54-46 in Lyons, and by an unspecified margin in Gilmore.

• The weirdest poll story of the campaign so far turns out to be the revelation that a supposed ReachTEL poll of the Curtin electorate, provided by independent candidate Louise Stewart to The West Australian and run as a front page story on Saturday, was fabricated. The Liberals reacted to ReachTEL’s denial that any such poll had been conducted by calling on Stewart to withdraw from her campaign, but Stewart says she believes she is the victim of a trick by her opponents. However, a follow-up report in The West Australian relates that Stewart told the paper she had “committed two polls from ReachTEL/Ucomms before election day”, and is now refusing the provide the email she received either to the paper or to ReachTEL. ReachTEL principal James Stewart said Louise Stewart had told him the email had been “deleted somehow”, but Louise Stewart says this is “not true”. Alex Turnbull, the son of the former Prime Minister, who has loomed large in independent candidates’ efforts to unseat sitting Liberals (though not, so far, in Stewart’s), said he believed he had been impersonated as part of the ruse. Stewart tells Andrew Burrell of The Australian that Turnbull’s investigations linked the distribution of the fake poll to a source “close to a senior conservative WA Liberal MP’s office in Perth”.

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.

923 comments on “Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor”

Comments Page 6 of 19
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  1. Cricket Australia is dealing with another scandal.

    Did Faulkner make a joke about coming out. Or was pressure applied to take it back.

    Either way it’s not made it any easier to come out in the cricket world.

    My take is if it’s a joke it was meant to be a private post not public. Cricket Australia is doing the PR badly

  2. How many married men have frequented, and frequent strip joints, been drunk while there, made lewd suggestions and/or shoved money in strippers’ g-strings?

    By saying this I don’t condone such behaviour but I recognise hypocrisy when I see it.

    I have no truck with Dickson on the grounds of his political and social views.

  3. Reading with interest Briefly’s disillusionment.

    The reality is it is only the mass *free* propaganda produced by the mass media that favours the two majors, and inertia and history, that keeps Labor and Liberal with any possibility of forming government in their own right.

    The population if offered a free choice between 3 platforms (representing the two majors and a third platform), would likely support the 3rd platform if offered equal media & propaganda support as the others:

    Labor: high service spending (5), v.high service delivery (5), high govt waste (5), high immigration (5), high taxation (5)

    Liberal: slightly lower service spending (4), medium service delivery (3), high govt waste (5), high immigration (5), slightly lower taxation (4)

    3rd Option: slightly lower service spending (4), high service delivery(4), low government waste(2), low immigration(2), slightly lower taxation(4)

    The majors may feel comfortable where they are, still drawing way more support than any other individual option but we are only a series of major foreign ideology/nationals linked terror events, or economic crisis, away from politics tipping to increased support for more ideologically extreme parties based around opposing poles of nationalism & socialism.

    That might bring some comfort to those on the left who wish for more socialism, but based on European elections (& Brazil recently, & history) one could not count out right-wing nationalist parties winning out.

  4. Journalist just asked Morrison… what from the debate last night should the audience remember?

    Seriously…??? Could the questions be anymore in his favour?

  5. Rudd is hitting electorates with high Chinese populations, since the Libs are actively targeting them.

    Whatever you think of Rudd, the guy was an effective campaigner with Chinese voters.

  6. Regarding

    Strip clubs.

    Girls do them too. See Magic Mike.

    It was the comments made that forced Hanson to ask him to resign.
    Not his attending a strip club. That’s the difference.

  7. guytaur apparently he referred to his best mate as “his boyfriend” and it was taken in the media as a coming out message. From what I can tell it was out of genuine affection and not intended maliciously, though obviously if he’d understood the ramifications at the time he probably wouldn’t have tweeted it.

    I’m not at all offended by it, speaking for myself – and I was pleased to see how he used the misunderstanding to point out that there was a supportive and positive reaction to the tweet from his team-mates: perhaps in so far as that part of the message has any reach, it might actually make it a bit easier to come out in cricket?

  8. Labor preferences and the UAP

    https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6096982/labor-downplays-clive-palmer-preferences/?cs=14231

    Despite Labor MPs including Mr Albanese branding Mr Palmer a “tosser” and “con man”, the mining magnate’s United Australia Party is number two on the how-to-vote cards for two seats in Tasmania.

    The opposition is preferencing the UAP second in Franklin, held by Labor MP Julie Collins, and above independent Andrew Wilkie in his neighbouring seat of Clark.
    :::
    Mr Albanese said the ordering is probably just a “donkey vote” and wouldn’t sway the result in seats where Labor was likely to finish first.
    :::
    In Franklin, where Labor’s candidate is listed second from the bottom, this is effectively what its how-to-vote card recommends, starting with Ms Collins as number one.

    But in Clark, Labor recommends its voters jump all over the ballot paper.

    So Albanese’s explanation during ABC RN Breakfast this morning of a supposed donkey vote in Wilkie”s seat doesn’t wash.

  9. LGH

    That was why the Spanish result was so important.

    The right learnt the socialists win. 🙂

    More seriously Spain has started the narrative changing in the media.
    Overstating how far the far right is getting in popularity is dangerous.
    That’s exactly the problem here.

    Luckily going on the primary votes the public are not buying the media narrative

  10. This is a lie and deliberate political fraud by Morrison

    The Nationals are an independent party. They’re their own party. I don’t tell them how to run their political campaigns or how they make decisions in their party.

    If the national party were independent party , why is the leader and deputy leaders of the national party and other members of the national party on the liberal party website under members of our team

    If they were true independent from the liberal party they would not be on a another political party website as part of our team

  11. Well who would have thought it (sarcasm) –

    Labor policies don’t hit marginals: Morgan Stanley

    Most of Labor’s tax policies have less bite in marginal seats than elsewhere, according to an analysis by Morgan Stanley.

    People hit by Labor’s capital gains tax and negative gearing crackdown as well as franking credit refunds and the absence of tax cuts for those who earn over $180,000 are under represented in marginal electorates.

    The only exception was those who record rental losses – a proxy for negative gearing, which was slightly higher in marginal seats, where 9.5 per cent of voters post rental losses, relative to the rest of the country at 9.4 per cent.

    “Our analysis of marginal seats suggests that they are relatively less
    impacted by the ALP’s reform agenda,” Morgan Stanley’s Chris Reid, Chris Nicol and Antony Conte said in a note to clients.

    “We find that those demographics that have the potential to be directly negatively impacted by ALP policy changes that is people earning over $180,000, recording capital gains or rental income, or receiving franking refunds, are under represented in the marginal seats relative to their share nationally.”

    https://www.afr.com/news/economy/labor-policies-don-t-hit-marginals-morgan-stanley-20190430-p51ihi

  12. Pegasus says: Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 12:18 pm
    “How many married men have frequented, and frequent strip joints, been drunk while there, made lewd suggestions and/or shoved money in strippers’ g-strings?”

    Never done it and I don’t know anyone who has so far as I know. It may be a generational thing (I’m in my early 50s) but I don’t think this is common, normal or excusable behaviour – not from a moralistic perspective, just from a ‘that’s really sad-sack behaviour’. Years ago I derailed the best man’s plans for a mate’s bucks turn by declining to go to a strip club as he’d planned (all I said was “Nah – I’ll see you at the wedding”), at which point the majority of blokes also said they didn’t want to go either and the plan was abandoned for a great night at a few pubs, some live music and pool. It’s the only bucks turn I have been to where strippers were planned and most ‘bucks turns’ I’ve been to have been mixed company gathering of friends.

  13. shift

    I hope you are right. That does go with my point about no malicious intent to deceive by the original post.

    It still goes to the point Cricket Australia is doing the PR badly. It’s gay journalists reactions that have not been good. That is in their view of the handling of reaction.

  14. LGH says:
    Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 12:18 pm

    Reading with interest Briefly’s disillusionment.

    The reality is it is only the mass *free* propaganda produced by the mass media that favours the two majors, and inertia and history, that keeps Labor and Liberal with any possibility of forming government in their own right.

    The population if offered a free choice between 3 platforms (representing the two majors and a third platform), would likely support the 3rd platform if offered equal media & propaganda support as the others:

    Labor: high service spending (5), v.high service delivery (5), high govt waste (5), high immigration (5), high taxation (5)

    Liberal: slightly lower service spending (4), medium service delivery (3), high govt waste (5), high immigration (5), slightly lower taxation (4)

    3rd Option: slightly lower service spending (4), high service delivery(4), low government waste(2), low immigration(2), slightly lower taxation(4)

    Would you care to expand on you’re option 3 magic pudding?

  15. If the biggest reservoir of undecided and uninterested voters are young people 18 – 35, isn’t that a great thing for labor. Most of them will have progressive impulses, even if they are not sure who to vote for yet.

  16. Low immigration in Australia is critical to meeting the following two conditions: environmental sustainability & INTERNAL population sustainability.

    Mass immigration results in twin outcomes: growth of the geographical footprint of urban areas, and reduction of the amount of living space available per capita within urban areas.

    The outward growth encroaches on the environment, as well as the resultant population growth requiring increase resource load that must be pulled from surrounding areas.

    The inward growth increases the cost of raising a family (pushing land prices up, increasing mental load & stress levels on residents, increasing transport time (decreasing family time), whilst decreasing the available space per capita and space to raise a family.

    Did you know birth rates & levels of urbanisation have an inverse relationship?
    As urbanisation increases, birth rates decline. This makes sense from an evolutionary, biological and logical standpoint.

    Raising 2.2 kids in a 2 bedroom flat is a poor outcome compared to the alternative.
    Raising 2.2 kids in a 3 bedroom villa with 10m2 of outdoor space in a poor outcome compared to the alternative.
    Raising 1.3 kids per family is a poor outcome compared to the alternative.

    Take a nation with below replacement birthrates, pour more people in, decrease birthrates further, increase environmental load, increase taxation & social spending, further imbalance future age ratios, add more migration…

    Where do you end up? With population replacement and the original, well established population as a small minority within a nation, and being a small minority in a democracy, devoid of full & proper self-determination, in environmentally impoverished surroundings, in a less cohesive & increasingly fractured political environment.

    The policies of both majors and the Greens are hostile to maintenance of self-determination, environmental sustainability, families & national continuity.

    If you barf at the idea internal population sustainability is important, consider whether you would wish the lack of such a thing on Australian Aborigines and consider the reasons why you would not. ALL people deserve a policy mix that supports their maintained (or re-achieved) group self-determination & population sustainability, and yes this includes increasing measures for Aboriginal people to see they receive the same.

  17. What I find interesting is how low key this election is in the real world.

    Have a look on Youtube..
    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shorten+debate

    Last nights debate has only 10K views on Youtube. That’s very low.
    The Sky News debate from a couple of weeks back has only cranked up 65K views.

    Its only the political tragics who are paying attention. There’s a lot of people in the community who aren’t going to sit up and pay attention till the last week.

  18. Regarding Rudd visiting high Chinese-population electorates, I can confirm that he was quite well-respected. They tend to be quite impressed with any white guy who can speak Mandarin (even if you aren’t perfect – the video of Zuckerberg’s somewhat broken conversational Mandarin was a huge viral hit).

    What’s also interesting is that many Chinese in Australia didn’t know the name “Kevin Rudd” when I asked them, but they all knew who 陆克文 (his Chinese name) was.

    I also once was told by an older gentleman in Taiwan that he was impressed by how well Trump’s granddaughter spoke Mandarin. Took me a minute to work out he was talking about Jessica Rudd – this guy was vague enough about the world outside the Sinosphere to think Trump was “president of Australia”, but he at least knew who Jessica Rudd was.

  19. @antonbruckner11

    The 18-35 voters, especially if they vote in significantly larger numbers than at the last election, could mean that the Greens vote could be considerably higher than being predicted in the polls. Especially given they are been very vocal on climate change (which is an existentialist issue for the under 30’s) and opposing the Adani mine (since when you regard climate change as an existentialist issue, you are likely to advocate leaving fossil fuels in the ground).

  20. “So Albanese’s explanation during ABC RN Breakfast this morning of a supposed donkey vote in Wilkie”s seat doesn’t wash.”

    No. It doesn’t. I suspected yesterday that the UAP preferencing thing might have a donkey vote explaination. I thought that just to be clear that Shorten would have intervened and said in effect “local stuff up”, “labor will withdraw those HTV tomorrow (today) and reissue ones that have UAP below the coalition, Greens and any realistically possible winning independent like Wilkie, just to be like Caesar’s wife.”

    But no. I can’t see any sense in putting UAP above Wilkie. At all. Even though it makes fuck all difference to that contest AND unlike the Libs is not a result of any ‘deal’ it still unnecessarily muddies the waters.

  21. I don’t know if this has already been addressed on PB as I am not here all the time.
    The AEC says in it s guide to Senate voting “If you vote above the line, you need to number at least six boxes from 1 to 6”
    I thought it was determined in 2016, that even if you numbered at least 1 box, it would be accepted as a valid vote.
    I have sent a message to the AEC seeking clarification.
    What is the PB view?

  22. Morrision presser when asked re: losing the debate:

    “Australians will make up their own minds about the debate. I thank all those Australians who have got in touch with me. I note on the Nine MSN poll last night, some 50,000 people voted and they gave it to me two-thirds to one-third and on 6 PR it was 80/20.”

    HAAAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAA!!!!!

    The LNP voting bots should at least try to make it look realistic – these are the sort of results that Sadam Hussien and other dictators got/get in elections.

  23. The Tasie preferences to me are dumb.

    In seats where it is very unlikely that Labor preferences will even be distributed there is little to be gained and it weakens the message being put out regarding Palmer.

  24. Climate change damage to Queensland’s world heritage rainforest ‘as bad as Great Barrier Reef’
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/30/climate-change-damage-to-queenslands-world-heritage-rainforest-as-bad-as-great-barrier-reef

    Last summer was the hottest on record.

    “Extreme heat is the wet tropics world heritage area’s coral-bleaching event equivalent, with some mountain-adapted species, like the lemuroid ringtail possum, unable to survive even a day of temperatures above 29C,” the statement said.

    ‘Like opening a fan oven’: Australia’s rainforest threatened by bushfires

    “Mount Bartle Frere recorded an unprecedented 39C at its peak on six days this past summer. The board is convinced that, given the evidence, these key species endemic to the wet tropics world heritage area are under severe and immediate threat from climate change.

    “This is occurring now, not in the future, and requires an immediate response.”

  25. rossco
    If you number 1 box above the line it is counted as a valid vote, and you are counted as a valid idiot. If you want to make your vote count as well as being valid, number all the boxes.

  26. Guytaur

    Socialist victory in Spain? Oh? Was that where they secured less than 1/3rd of the vote?
    Where they would need the support of the ultra-nationalist Catalonian separatists to form government?

    Where was the hard-right nationalist vote in Europe in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s vs today?
    Which side is really increasing in support vs decreasing?
    What are the chances of Le Pen’s achieving a higher % of the vote in future French elections?
    Brexit, Trump, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia..

    Where I will agree with you is that gradually the centre is falling.. unsustainable policies will do that. Both Socialist and hard-right parties will likely increase in the future.

    My own view, is to support as many people having self-determination and being able to live under their system of choice as possible. Where this is interesting is that hard right & socialist supporting people tend to be geographically grouped in differing areas.

    What would be your (in principle) position on regions where hard-right support is over 65% being allowed to go their own way and areas of high socialist support being able to do the same?

    What is the point of large geographical blocks if it increases the number of people that must live under a regime that does not suit their needs or wishes? Surely that is anti-human, anti-democratic & anti-justice.

  27. The Nationals are an independent party. They’re their own party. I don’t tell them how to run their political campaigns or how they make decisions in their party.

    Scott is 100% correct but the Nationals tell him & the Liberal Party what to do … it’s in the secret signed undemocratic agreement.

  28. Hasluck Lib candidate Ken Wyatt currently canvassing outside the kebab shop in Mundaring. One volunteer that I can see, and I recognise the only punter as a bloke who’ll talk to anyone who’ll talk to him (he’s a regular in my shop nearby). There seems to be a lone ALP volunteer a few metres away

  29. rossco @ #276 Tuesday, April 30th, 2019 – 12:46 pm

    I don’t know if this has already been addressed on PB as I am not here all the time.
    The AEC says in it s guide to Senate voting “If you vote above the line, you need to number at least six boxes from 1 to 6”
    I thought it was determined in 2016, that even if you numbered at least 1 box, it would be accepted as a valid vote.
    I have sent a message to the AEC seeking clarification.
    What is the PB view?

    Kevin Bonham sets it all out –

    How To Make Best Use Of Your 2019 Senate Vote

    https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-to-make-best-use-of-your-2019.html

  30. rossco,

    That is the requirement set out by the legislation, so that is what the AEC must promote.

    However there are saving provisions to reduce informal votes which cover voters numbering less groups or misnumbering the boxes. i.e. a broken sequence or a duplicated number.

  31. BK says:
    Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 12:57 pm

    The National Press Club usually has a live audience. Today with McCormack it looks to have a dead one!

    Well, they have been a zombie Government.

  32. Sceptic says:
    Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 1:01 pm

    The Nationals are an independent party. They’re their own party. I don’t tell them how to run their political campaigns or how they make decisions in their party.

    Scott is 100% correct but the Nationals tell him & the Liberal Party what to do … it’s in the secret signed undemocratic agreement.

    … except in Queensland where they are a united Party. 🙂

  33. “By saying this I don’t condone such behaviour but I recognise hypocrisy when I see it.”

    You mean the hypocrisy of the right constantly being the party of family values and shaming the hell out of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the lights out, missionary position, one man one woman for life version of sex, yet goes out leering and strippers and bragging about how much “Asian” they’ve had?

    Not sure bragging about hookers at a Washington DC strip club move is covered by the dreaded Safe Schools indoctrination campaign.

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