Essential Research leadership polling

A belated account of the first set of post-election leadership ratings, recording a victory bounce for Scott Morrison and a tentative debut for Anthony Albanese.

Contrary to expectations it might put its head above the parapet with today’s resumption of parliament, there is still no sign of Newspoll – or indeed any other polling series, at least so far as voting intention is concerned. Essential Research, however, is maintaining its regular polling schedule, but so far it’s been attitudinal polling only. The latest set of results was published in The Guardian on Friday, and it encompasses Essential’s leadership ratings series, which I relate here on a better-late-than-never basis. Featured are the first published ratings for Anthony Albanese, of 35% approval and 25% disapproval, compared with 38% and 44% in the pollster’s final pre-election reading for Bill Shorten.

To put this into some sort of perspective, the following table (click on image to enlarge) provides comparison with Newspoll’s debut results for opposition leaders over the past three decades. The only thing it would seem safe to conclude from this is that Albanese’s numbers aren’t terribly extraordinary one way or the other.

Scott Morrison’s post-election bounce lifts him five points on approval to 48%, with disapproval down three to 36%, and he leads Albanese 43-25 on preferred prime minister, compared with 39-32 for Shorten’s late result. Also featured are questions on tax cuts (with broadly negative responses to the government policy, albeit that some of the question framing is a little slanted for mine), trust in various media outlets (results near-identical to those from last October, in spite of everything), and various indigenous issues (including a finding that 57% would vote yes in a constitutional recognition referendum, compared with 34% for no). The poll was conducted June 19 to June 23 from an online sample of 1079.

Elsewhere in poll-dom:

• Australian Market and Social Research Organisations has established an advisory board and panel for its inquiry into the pollster failure, encompassing an impressive roll call of academics, journalists and statisticians. Ipsos would appear to be the only major Australian polling concern that’s actually a member of AMSRO, but the organisation has “invited a publisher representative from each of Nine Entertainment (Sydney Morning Herald/The Age) and NewsCorp to join the advisory board”.

• A number of efforts have now been made to reverse-engineer a polling trend measure for the last term, using the actual results from 2016 and 2019 as anchoring points. The effort of Simon Jackman and Luke Mansillo at the University of Sydney was noted here last week. Mark the Ballot offers three models – one anchored to the 2016 result, which lands low for the Coalition in 2019, but still higher than what the polls were saying); one anchored to the 2019 result, designed to land on the mark for 2019, but resulting in a high reading for the Coalition in 2016; and, most instructively, one anchored to both, which is designed to land on the mark at both elections. Kevin Bonham offers various approaches that involve polling going off the rails immediately or gradually after the leadership change, during the election campaign, or combinations thereof.

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.

1,688 comments on “Essential Research leadership polling”

Comments Page 22 of 34
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  2. Lizzie

    It is frustrating. But here we are. Morrison and co won the election. As unpalatable as that it is, we need to adjust our expectations

  3. Pegasus @ #1040 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 8:41 am

    Tax cuts were always going to pass with the numbers as they are now.

    In that case did Labor box clever by waving the bill through the HoR yesterday?

    Why the pathetic stunt re amendment to change the title of the bill? If the Greens had attempted to do that the howls of outrage on here would have been loud and sustained.

    1. There was no point, as has been exhaustively explained before, for Labor to vote against the Bill in the Lower House.

    2. The hope was that the numbers could be found in the Senate to block the Bill.

    3. Labor proposed substantive Amendments to the Bill, not simply the one you seek to selectively highlight so as to paint Labor in as bad a light as possible.

  4. lizzie @ #1048 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 8:41 am

    CA just wanted to make a splash with their “please bring prices down”. And I thought that Lambie would be tougher.

    How could she be? With Labor strongly implying that they won’t oppose any part of the tax cuts Lambie’s bargaining position is basically destroyed. The Coalition doesn’t need her vote.

  5. Lars Von Trier:

    Smart writers in this type of format can usually make their point in one or two short paras. More complex issues may take more. Scholarly writing is more suited to academia than here.

  6. Douglas and Milko @ #1044 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 8:44 am

    Umm Peg,

    Could you give us a clue as to why you thought it was important to post this?

    This morning’s interview with Jacqui Lambie on ABC RN Breakfast. Near the end she was also asked about Medevac.

    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/government-tax-cut-to-pass-with-promise-of-tasmanian-debt-relief/11276998

    It was because someone asked about Lambie’s position re the Medivac Bill.

  7. Lizzie
    Lambie will live to regret rolling over for the tax cuts on nothing more than a promise. How can she make Morrison and Cormann keep their word? Turnbull couldn’t do it. Neither could Dutton.

  8. Lambie has been back for two minutes and has already rolled over to have her tummy tickled. As a Tasmanian I’m disgusted.

  9. Part 4 of the ABC series Who Runs This Place?

    Tim Dunlop – Power in Australia favours the elite, and that’s a problem. Here’s a solution

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-04/power-in-australia-how-can-democracy-better-represent-the-people/11199382

    The point of a democracy is self-rule, and voting once every three years is a poor proxy for that.

    In fact, what recent elections in Australia have shown is that people are looking for something beyond what the two major parties offer, but that voting alone is failing to deliver it.

    Academic Elizabeth Humphrys notes the trend: “As the count currently stands, the combined vote for the ALP and the Coalition sits at 75.3 per cent, continuing the trend down over a number of decades — and down slightly on the result of 76.8 per cent in 2016.”

    At the 2019 election, 24.7 per cent of voters gave their first preference to minor parties and independents — the largest percentage ever.
    :::
    Again, this reflects the power of systems, the way in which it flows through institutional processes — in this case, our voting system — and drains power away from we-the-people and directs it towards a political elite.
    :::
    Our current system of representative democracy is in fact hugely unrepresentative. On almost any axis you choose — gender, profession, ethnicity — our parliament looks nothing like the country itself. Worse still, it is dominated by professionals who have little experience of life outside the rarefied air of party politics.
    :::
    We mightn’t know exactly how power flows through our body politic, but it is clear that it favours an elite and not the majority.

  11. Take it easy zoomster. It was just a joke. Although I do find your antipathy towards Albo a bit unusual. All because of a bad interaction apparently. Politics is full of people who hate each other working together without much outward sign of hostility yet you can’t seem to forgive Albo for apparently being rude to you. Perhaps he was having a bad day, perhaps you were rude too. Who knows.

  13. If the tax cuts get passed today, will the Parliament rise until this time next year?

    With no further agenda they can take a 364 day break before they must sit again.

  14. Peg

    Not everyone has time to listen to/read what you have. That’s why it’s polite to give them an idea of what has been said/written. Then, if it’s of interest, they might take it further.

    C@

    Thanks! Of course, dishonesty around minor points hints at dishonesty around major ones…

  15. This religious freedom thingy will become more and more absurd by the day.
    ______
    lizzie
    As will religion itself as the light get shone upon it.

  16. Bert:

    She’s merely aping her predecessor Harradine, who mastered the art of quid pro quo.

    Socrates:

    If Morrison reneges, they’ll never secure Lambie’s vote again

  17. It’s raining heavily here on the Central Coast of NSW and it’s making me feel depressed to realise that you need a microscope to find Jacqui Lambie and Sterling Griff and Rex Patrick’s backbone.

    At least Labor proposed Amendments to the Tax Cuts Bill and The Greens, to their credit, voted against it in the Senate. All the rest of them aren’t worth the price of admission.

    Though I do wish The Greens’ partisans here would give the highlighting of Labor’s inadequacies a break for a while. It’s tiresome, and as I said to Socrates, just too easy to kick a dog when it’s down. Especially when the dog is trying its best to get up.

  19. nath says:
    Thursday, July 4, 2019 at 8:54 am
    Take it easy zoomster. It was just a joke. Although I do find your antipathy towards Albo a bit unusual. All because of a bad interaction apparently. Politics is full of people who hate each other working together without much outward sign of hostility yet you can’t seem to forgive Albo for apparently being rude to you. Perhaps he was having a bad day, perhaps you were rude too. Who knows.
    _____________________
    I for one would be happy to offer my services as an independent facilitator between the Labor leader’s office and zoomster to heal this unhappy relationship.

    No need for anger and tears!

  21. zoomster @ #1057 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 8:56 am

    Peg

    Not everyone has time to listen to/read what you have. That’s why it’s polite to give them an idea of what has been said/written. Then, if it’s of interest, they might take it further.

    C@

    Thanks! Of course, dishonesty around minor points hints at dishonesty around major ones…

    *taps nose* Say no more. 😀

  25. z

    lol

    I provide a link to an interview with no comment and it’s like considered rude and it’s shoot the messenger with an ad hominem.

    How dare I provide a source so individuals can actually go and listen for themselves to what Lambie has actually said rather than providing a commentary filtered through what my take-out is.

    omg shoot me.

    One take-out from this blog is the necessity to follow up the source of so many comments here because well, you know, there’s so much bs and fake news sprouted here by some posters.

  26. “Lambie will live to regret rolling over for the tax cuts on nothing more than a promise. ”

    Sad if she has fallen for that. Libs are basically lying liars that lie and wil say anything that they think someone else want to hear so they get their lolly!

    I’m sure the Coalition will “allocate” the funding though. 🙁

  27. briefly:

    [‘Lambie is a Lib. Always has been.’]

    More a pragmatist, I think. She wants to be known as the champion of Tasmania, thereby assuring her of a number of more terms.

  28. nath

    If I make a joke, and the butt of it objects, I don’t make the same joke again, because it’s obvious what’s funny to me isn’t to them, and I respect that.

    I don’t like lies being told about me.

    I know, it’s a weird hang up, but there you go.

  29. Pegasus @ #1067 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 9:01 am

    z

    lol

    I provide a link to an interview with no comment and it’s like considered rude and it’s shoot the messenger with an ad hominem.

    How dare I provide a source so individuals can actually go and listen for themselves to what Lambie has actually said rather than providing a commentary filtered through what my take-out is.

    omg shoot me.

    One take-out from this blog is the necessity to follow up the source of so many comments here because well, you know, there’s so much bs and fake news sprouted here by some posters.

    Pegasus,
    Before you cranked up your outrage-o-meter you should have checked that I had already made all aware of why you put up the Lambie link.

    And it was actually Douglas and Milko who questioned why you had put it up. 🙂

  30. So according to the cormanatorLambies deal is the Govt will “do something” when they are in “a position to do so”.

    FFS, CA and Lambie have blown this one big time.

  31. peg

    1. I was trying to be helpful. Several posters had responded negatively to your post, and I was trying to help you understand why.

    2. Note the ‘several posters had responded to your post’ — so why respond to only me when– see 1.

  32. Stage 3 is there in writing in 5 years time.

    Hopefully by then, team Red or Team Red/Green+others will be in and will decide that stage 3 is unaffordable and throw it and many other pieces of poor legislation away in the bin in their first year of governing.

  33. Alpha Zero @ #1080 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 9:08 am

    Stage 3 is there in writing in 5 years time.

    Hopefully by then, team Red or Team Red/Green+others will be in and will decide that stage 3 is unaffordable and throw it and many other pieces of poor legislation away in the bin in their first year of governing.

    And hopefully they won’t go to the election telling everyone what they plan on doing.

  34. z

    Your engagement with nath is highly amusing to me but I am guessing you wont understand why.

    I have learnt not to play your games so do continue believing you are landing sucker punches and winning the exchange, as appearing intellectually superior is very important to you.

  36. Calling it a joke is standard operating procedure to sideline proper accountability. All the best blog disruptors are well-practised with this tool.

  38. Pegasus @ #1076 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 9:10 am

    z

    Your engagement with nath is highly amusing to me but I am guessing you wont understand why.

    I have learnt not to play your games so do continue believing you are landing sucker punches and winning the exchange, as appearing intellectually superior is very important to you.

    Pegasus continuing the condescending snark. Sad.

  39. Mavis Davis
    A “pragmatist” really means “getting things done”. The word for Lambie is “opportunist”. But then, aren’t they all? Sigh….

  40. Labor’s dilemma on the tax cuts a la Guardian:

    Why is what Labor will do in the tax bill important, considering its vote is meaningless, at least as far as the legislation matters?

    It’s all about the next election. And while that is a good three years away now, the decision Labor makes will impact what it decides to do in the next term, if there is a change of government.

    Repealing a tax cut you helped legislate is not a great sell, politically. Hence the wringing of hands within caucus. But then to vote for it is to overturn six years of policy foundation. To not vote for it means not voting for stage one and two, which everyone is in agreement about.

    Cool beans.

  41. Well, today will cap off what’s been a politically catastrophic period for Labor – losing the unloseable election and then haplessly watching the Govts only agenda fly through the parliament in record time.

    Albanese and Chalmers have a difficult task now in changing the momentum. Their only option is to chip away at the Morrisons credibility with negative messaging that cuts through.

    How long it will take is the question for Labor partisans.

  43. zoomster @ #1073 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 9:06 am

    peg

    1. I was trying to be helpful. Several posters had responded negatively to your post, and I was trying to help you understand why.

    2. Note the ‘several posters had responded to your post’ — so why respond to only me when– see 1.

    Because

    3. It gives Pegasus an opening to be condescending towards you, a Labor supporter on the blog. Note she never does it to Greens supporters or others when they make obvious asses of themselves.

  45. “So according to the cormanatorLambies deal is the Govt will “do something” when they are in “a position to do so”.”

    And what did I say about trusting Corman and Morrison? I do not think Lambie is a Lib, or a bad person. But to be charitable she is out of her depth.

    She extracted a promise for $157 million debt relief in return for a $150 billion tax package. She could have gotten billions.

  46. I actually found Nicholas’s contribution this morning to be sufficiently succinct whilst detailed enough to set out in summary form his ideas. Well written. Not that I agree with all of it, but it was well written.

    Peace. Out.

  47. Rex Douglas says:
    Thursday, July 4, 2019 at 9:13 am
    Well, today will cap off what’s been a politically catastrophic period for Labor – losing the unloseable election and then haplessly watching the Govts only agenda fly through the parliament in record time.

    Albanese and Chalmers have a difficult task now in changing the momentum. Their only option is to chip away at the Morrisons credibility with negative messaging that cuts through.

    How long it will take is the question for Labor partisans.
    _________________________________
    I must say I have my doubts about Chalmers – that Rudd anecdote in his book (which has not been denied) is very telling about the person.

    Albo is very good but he cannot win government on his own.

  48. C@tmomma @ #1061 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 8:57 am

    It’s raining heavily here on the Central Coast of NSW and it’s making me feel depressed to realise that you need a microscope to find Jacqui Lambie and Sterling Griff and Rex Patrick’s backbone.

    At least Labor proposed Amendments to the Tax Cuts Bill and The Greens, to their credit, voted against it in the Senate. All the rest of them aren’t worth the price of admission.

    Though I do wish The Greens’ partisans here would give the highlighting of Labor’s inadequacies a break for a while. It’s tiresome, and as I said to Socrates, just too easy to kick a dog when it’s down. Especially when the dog is trying its best to get up.

    The dog definitely needs some worming tablets.

  49. phylactella:

    [‘A “pragmatist” really means “getting things done”. The word for Lambie is “opportunist”. But then, aren’t they all? Sigh…’].

    In common usage, pragmatism is closely related to opportunism, though the former does have a philosophical base.

  50. Rex Douglas says:
    Thursday, July 4, 2019 at 9:19 am
    C@tmomma @ #1061 Thursday, July 4th, 2019 – 8:57 am

    It’s raining heavily here on the Central Coast of NSW and it’s making me feel depressed to realise that you need a microscope to find Jacqui Lambie and Sterling Griff and Rex Patrick’s backbone.

    At least Labor proposed Amendments to the Tax Cuts Bill and The Greens, to their credit, voted against it in the Senate. All the rest of them aren’t worth the price of admission.

    Though I do wish The Greens’ partisans here would give the highlighting of Labor’s inadequacies a break for a while. It’s tiresome, and as I said to Socrates, just too easy to kick a dog when it’s down. Especially when the dog is trying its best to get up.
    The dog definitely needs some worming tablets.
    _______________________________
    There’s some learned behaviours which need to be addressed as well, but can you teach an old dog new tricks that is the question!

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