Essential Research: US visit, economic conditions, Middle East intervention

A new poll records a broadly favourable response to Scott Morrison’s US visit, mixed feelings about the state of the economy, and support for Australia’s new commitment in the Middle East.

Essential Research has released its fortnightly poll, once again without voting intention results. It includes a series of questions on Scott Morrison’s visit to the United States, with results generally more favourable than I personally would have expected. For example, the most negative finding is that 32% agreed that Donald Trump’s presidency has been good for Australia, compared with 49% who disagreed. By way of comparison, a Lowy Institute survey in March found 66% believed Trump had weakened the alliance, and only 25% had either a lot of or some confidence in him.

Only 38% agreed that a good relationship between Scott Morrison and Donald Trump reflected badly on Australia, compared with 48% who disagreed. Other results were probably too influenced by question wording to be of much value. Fifty-seven percent felt Morrison had shown “good diplomacy skills” during the visit, a quality that might be attributed to anyone who maintains a straight face in the President’s presence. The statement that Morrison “should have attended the UN Climate Summit, alongside other world leaders” is compromised by the words in italics (which are my own), but for what it’s worth, 70% agreed and 20% disagreed.

A question on the state of the economy likewise produces a result less bad than the government might have feared, with 32% rating it good and 33% poor. Fifty-one per cent supported Australian military involvement in the Middle East, after it was put to them that Australia had “agreed to provide military support to their allies in the Middle East to protect shipping and trade in the region”, with 35% opposed.

Essential has not yet published the full report on its website, so the precise sample size cannot be identified, but it will assuredly have been between 1000 and 1100. The poll was conducted online from Thursday to Sunday.

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.

1,065 comments on “Essential Research: US visit, economic conditions, Middle East intervention”

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  1. I get so sick of people on this blog telling me “I do not get this science” because I am not totally in support of their latest stunt.

    But, if you deal with something called radiative transfer (see e.g. http://www.astro.spbu.ru/sobolev100/sites/default/files/p3_Nagirner.pdfO), in your work life, including consulting on atmospheric physics, you just feel like crying when you are told you “do not accept the science”.

    I think Greta Thunberg and the people supporting her have been fantastic for getting out the “young ” vote in various jurisdictions, and generally raising awareness that anthropogenic global warming is going to lead to catastrophic outcomes for some humans.

    But, we also need to understand the science – Yes, stop burning fossil fuels now, ASAP, but understand that the global warming we are seeing now is due to fossil fuel burning around 70 – 100 years ago.

    The fossil fuel burning we are undertaking now will have the biggest effect in around 50 – 100 years. Very bad, but in no way does this justify hurting people in the developing world so our lovely white wealthy grandkids have a slightly better climate.

    We are now well into the mitigation phase.

    Not sure? I will happily provide you with the the equations of radiative transfer, so you can draw your own conclusions.

    And, if you cannot put together a simple computational model of the equations of radiative transfer – it is not that hard – please do not @me about how you know so much more about climate models than I do !!!!!!!

  2. Douglas and Milko @ #1063 Sunday, October 6th, 2019 – 12:07 am

    The fossil fuel burning we are undertaking now will have the biggest effect in around 50 – 100 years. Very bad, but in no way does this justify hurting people in the developing world so our lovely white wealthy grandkids have a slightly better climate.

    The idea that the developing world has to go through fossil fuel energy generation as a stepping stone to renewable energy and will be “hurt” if we encourage them to skip the fossil fuels and go straight to renewables is a false narrative.

    If you’re developing today, you deploy the best technologies that are available today. Developed countries wouldn’t have developed using fossil fuels if the energy tech we have today was available back when they were still developing countries.

  3. D&M,

    Good to see you put your foot down.

    I get so sick of people on this blog telling me “I do not get this science” because I am not totally in support of their latest stunt.

    Same here, but for operation of power systems.

  4. That wretched thing called ‘price’ not always an accurate portrayal of cost.
    It would be nice to have a government that didn’t insist on demonizing new technology and renewable energy to protect short term gains for fossil fuel interests.
    Perhaps ‘price’ may save us from some long term climate pain. How quickly?
    Gillard’s ETS scheme looks rather successful in my hindsight!

  5. Douglas and Milko says:
    Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 12:07 am

    I get so sick of people on this blog telling me “I do not get this science” because I am not totally in support of their latest stunt.
    ——————————-
    I think this comment highlights why the pro-climate change action people lose the debate. The way they will bang on with what they think yet in some cases they themselves are not across how climate change works and when faced with questions, they often turn to insults.

    Now image how the pro-action people sound to people that are time-poor low information people who are trying to make ends meat for their family while facing higher power bills.

  6. frednk @ #1044 Saturday, October 5th, 2019 – 9:55 pm

    P1
    I don’t think I missed the point. I also didn’t miss ( the nicest way of putting this), the dishonesty.
    Putting in place policies does not result in instant change. It takes time to build new stuff.
    Labor has put in place plant closures that will result in major changes to WA energy mix.

    No, I don’t think you got the point. Or if you did, you are just dissembling. Possibly excepting NT (which the link doesn’t include), WA is the state with the least penetration of renewables, the highest dependence on fossil fuels, and a massive overcapacity in fossil-fueled generation capacity. I think you have more than enough coal-fired power stations to power the entire state alone, and something like twice that much gas generation capacity.

    If you think closing one small, old, decrepit and underutilized part of one coal-fired power station is a serious attempt to address this, or is being done to reduce your green house gas emissions, or is going to affect your power generation mix, then you might want to think again.

    It is no wonder that some WA posters here really hate the idea of shutting down coal mining, or imposing a carbon tax. WA would very likely be the state most affected.

  7. Dandy Murray @ #1058 Sunday, October 6th, 2019 – 12:21 am

    Case in point – A R.

    Well meaning, but not (yet) feasible (at the scale desired).

    Irrelevant. The exact same statement could be made about any source of AC electricity when the developed nations of today’s world began electrifying. Didn’t stop them.

    If anything that statement is less true about renewable energy generation today than it was about energy generation generally back then.

  8. Mexicanbeemer @ #1060 Sunday, October 6th, 2019 – 3:04 am

    Douglas and Milko says:
    Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 12:07 am

    I get so sick of people on this blog telling me “I do not get this science” because I am not totally in support of their latest stunt.
    ——————————-
    I think this comment highlights why the pro-climate change action people lose the debate. The way they will bang on with what they think yet in some cases they themselves are not across how climate change works and when faced with questions, they often turn to insults.

    Now image how the pro-action people sound to people that are time-poor low information people who are trying to make ends meat for their family while facing higher power bills.

    Simples, if you’re too time-poor just listen to the consensus science, any other approach is totally cuckoo.

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