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”

Comments Page 19 of 22
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  1. Cat

    Yes that is one of the reasons why many scientists think it is already too late to avoid major change. Greta is correct, or at least well advised. That is not to say we should give up reigning in emissions. the higher CO2 goes, the worse it will get. History will not be kind to the current generation of leaders, or those who elected them.

  6. The US polling standards are infinitely better than our sad cohort. Compare the latest Gallup methodology and analysis with Simon Benson’s biased backside kissing with NewsPoll…

    ‘Ratings of Trump as a person are similar to those of Clinton in the final 16 months of his presidency, during a period when Clinton’s personal behavior was being heavily criticized by both parties. But there was much more daylight between the personal and job performance ratings of Clinton, who had recently endured an impeachment himself at the time, than is currently the case for Trump.

    Clinton’s and Bush’s respective ratings illustrate that Americans view presidents’ performance differently than they view them as people, but that distinction might be lessened in the highly polarized political environment Trump governs in. It is also possible that Democrats’ views of Trump are specific to him, seeing him as a president for whom the line between his personal and work behavior may be more blurred.

    Still, Trump’s personal ratings are sharply lower than his performance ratings among two groups that are key to his base: Republicans and regular churchgoers — with less than half of the latter group approving of Trump as a person. This could put pressure on Trump to keep these groups satisfied through presidential actions and policies rather than the personal expressions he is wont to make.’

    https://news.gallup.com/poll/267182/trump-job-approval-higher-approval-person.aspx


  7. C@tmomma says:
    Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 9:06 am

    Soc,
    Have you seen the Permafrost in Russia?

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-siberia/

    Don’t have to go to Siberia. For example
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LclL5oPB-kM

    You have to pretty ignorant sod not to accept we have to start thing about how this going to be handled.

    It is a lot more difficult than pissing people off by closing a mine that will never open.

  8. Simon Katichsays:
    Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 9:03 am

    Barney, also, you can book me on the first passenger train from Iran to China.

    I seriously considered Iran when looking into my last move.

    Will no doubt be high on my options when I next move Countries. 🙂

  9. WaPo’s Max Boot – The GOP’s choice: Betray Trump or betray the country?

    When President Trump stood Thursday on the South Lawn of the White House and brazenly called for Ukraine and China to investigate Joe Biden, I thought of what E.M. Forster wrote in 1939: “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” That choice — between your friend and your country — is not one that most of us ever have to make. But it is one that Trump is now forcing on his Republican friends. They must decide whether they will betray the president or the country. It is as simple and stark as that.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/04/gops-choice-betray-trump-or-betray-country/

  10. frednk @ #907 Saturday, October 5th, 2019 – 9:31 am

    You have to pretty ignorant sod not to accept we have to start thing about how this going to be handled.

    It is a lot more difficult than pissing people off by closing a mine that will never open.

    And you have to be a pretty ignorant sod to support opening a new coal mine, then pretending that this is perfectly fine because no-body will buy the coal anyway. Especially when coal consumption worldwide is still rising and is not expected to fall substantially – if at all – for several more decades.

  13. Funny how it’s become so bleeding obvious here that Labor is now completely irrelevant for the next few years, and still doesn’t have the stomach for a fight or the courage of it’s convictions – I think it still has a few – that all we do is talk about the USA…….or Boris

  15. CNNVerified account@CNN
    14m14 minutes ago
    Elizabeth Warren’s campaign has fired its national organizing director, Richard McDaniel, after “multiple complaints regarding inappropriate behavior,” the campaign says

  18. Republicans in Congress wont desert Trump because Republican voters wont.

    538 has a good article today (yesterday?) on the effect on Trumps approval rating caused by the impeachment. My read – next to zip (so far).

  20. I was listening to local ABC radio yesterday morning to the morning conservative journo/DJ/presenter whatshisname. He was promoting MOrrisons new international order statements and for backing, quoted Sheridan (I kid you not). He then got on Mark Kenny who tore shreds off him for using Sheridan as supporting evidence. I had tears of joy running down my cheeks.

  21. 538 has a good article today (yesterday?) on the effect on Trumps approval rating caused by the impeachment. My read – next to zip (so far).

    The segment I watched with Rick Wilson they cited a poll (can’t remember which one) which had the president’s approval rating dropping 2 points. They compared and contrasted with the polls at the same time period in Clinton’s impeachment inquiry which apparently improved for him.

    Trump’s base will always be with him, but it’s doubtful, esp as more info comes to light that independent voters will think more favourably of him.

  22. ‘Confessions says:
    Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 7:39 am

    Thanks BK.

    Federal ministers touring drought-hit Australia found farmers in survival mode who are angry over politicians’ failure to plan for increasing dry times.

    How many of them will vote with their anger next time instead of playing sheep and continuing to vote for Liberal or Nationals MPs and candidates? It’s fine to wake up and smell the coffee, but only if you make sure you wake up and smell the coffee!’

    There was something of a national bipartisan approach to drought planning. Such plans usually collapse when the political imperatives of drought responses overwhelm good drought policy. The reason for the collapse is that the response basically expects bad farmers to go broke and droughts expose significant numbers of bad farmers – those whose risk management for droughts is not up to scratch.

    In response to your particular question, farmers know that the Greens intend to destroy the way of live of thousands of farmers and dozens of regional communities. It is in their policies. They do not trust Labor not to give in to the Greens should the Greens gain the Senate BOP. That leaves the farmers (their families, their workers, their contractors, their suppliers, their buyers and their service providers) with no real choice but to go with the short term sugar hit of various forms of drought aid.

    It is this set of dynamics that has delivered the Coalition 27 out of 34 large state regional seats.

    The larger problem is global warming issues are now confusing pre global warming settings. Temperature expectations and water availability expectations and rain expectations are having to be reset. Since Global Warming is a one-off experiment, with chaotic rather than linear changes to climate inputs to farming, the core difficulty for drought planning now is that farmers simply do not know what sort of drought to plan for.

  23. Bernie is not dropping out.

    Bernie SandersVerified account@BernieSanders
    5m5 minutes ago
    Hello everybody! We’re in Las Vegas. I’m feeling so much better.

    Thank you for all of the love and warm wishes that you sent me.

    See you soon on the campaign trail.


  25. P1
    Coal supply will never be an issue.
    Dealing with the changes that are already happening will be.

    What is the point of dealing with the current changes while ignoring the causes of them?

    That’s just another form of denial.

    Because the time for hollow action has ended. Coal supply will never be an issue. There are reserves in pretty much all countries. If there is a demand it will be supplied.

  28. Y’see, that’s where the climate atheists are correct. There’s no second version of the global warming experiment to act as a control, so they hold on to their belief that it’s ‘unproven’. (sarc)

  30. frednk @ #926 Saturday, October 5th, 2019 – 10:07 am

    Because the time for hollow action has ended. Coal supply will never be an issue. There are reserves in pretty much all countries. If there is a demand it will be supplied.

    For people like you, briefly and a few others here, the time for action will … somehow … just never arrive.

    You can dress it up with whatever justification you like, but the reality is that you are here day after day arguing that we don’t need to actually do anything. The Market will do it all for us. All hail The Market!

  31. Boerwar:

    Farmers continually voting for the same LNP parties is not going to get them anything other than quick-fix, band-aid solutions, as the article said.

    The only sensible thing they can do is vote Labor as the one party both willing and capable of addressing AGW.

  32. lizzie @ #929 Saturday, October 5th, 2019 – 10:11 am

    Y’see, that’s where the climate atheists are correct. There’s no second version of the global warming experiment to act as a control, so they hold on to their belief that it’s ‘unproven’. (sarc)

    Well, there’s Venus 🙁

    https://www.universetoday.com/22577/venus-greenhouse-effect/

    Why is Venus so hot? The Venus greenhouse effect shows you what happens when this the process of trapping sunlight goes out of control into a runaway process.

    As you probably know, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Various wavelengths can pass through this invisible gas, but it’s very effective at trapping heat. Light from the Sun strikes the ground of Venus, and warms it up. The ground tries to radiate heat back into space but the carbon dioxide traps much of it around the planet keeping it so warm. This is the same thing that happens when you keep your car windows closed on a hot day.

    Scientists think that Venus used to be more similar to Earth, with lower temperatures and even liquid water on the surface of the planet. At some point, billions of years ago, the planet started to heat up.

  33. ABC News
    @ABC
    NEW: Joe Biden: “We gotta get something straight: All this talk from the president about corruption comes from the most corrupt president we’ve had in modern history. He’s the definition of corruption.” https://abcn.ws/31NppBH

  34. This story is based on interviews with 12 former or current officials with knowledge of the president’s foreign calls. These officials had direct involvement in the calls, were briefed on them or read the transcripts afterward. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s private conversations with world leaders.

    The first call Trump made that set off alarm bells came less than two weeks after his inauguration. On Jan. 28, Trump called Putin for what should have been a routine formality: accepting a foreign leader’s congratulations. Former White House officials described Trump as “obsequious” and “fawning,” but said he also rambled off into different topics without any clear point, while Putin appeared to stick to formal talking points for a first official exchange.

    “He was like, ‘Oh my gosh, my people didn’t tell me you wanted to talk to me,’ ” said one person with direct knowledge of the call.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-calls-with-foreign-leaders-have-long-worried-aides-leaving-some-genuinely-horrified/2019/10/04/537cc7a8-e602-11e9-a331-2df12d56a80b_story.html

  37. Several different sets of symptoms are called ‘heart attacks’, but Bernie had a myocardial infarction, which means that the blood supply to a part of his heart muscle failed, and that particular part of his heart muscle died. The dead part will not regenerate, and is no longer capable of carrying the electrical signals that cause a normal heartbeat, or of contracting to pump blood to his lungs, or the rest of his body. High stress is absolutely contra-indicated.

  39. This is apparently an ABC journo. Cue outrage from the reactionary Murdoch claque demanding he be sacked.

    James DunlevieVerified account@jamesdunlevie
    4m4 minutes ago
    ‘Bad news, Republicans… there’s no daylight at the end of this tunnel. Trump’s a suicide bomber, you’ve strapped yourselves to him so tightly that when he explodes, you’re going to meet the 72 porn stars of the Trumpian afterlife (Spoiler alert: They all look like Ivanka)’


  40. Player One says:
    Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 10:17 am

    frednk @ #926 Saturday, October 5th, 2019 – 10:07 am

    Because the time for hollow action has ended. Coal supply will never be an issue. There are reserves in pretty much all countries. If there is a demand it will be supplied.

    For people like you, briefly and a few others here, the time for action will … somehow … just never arrive.

    You can dress it up with whatever justification you like, but the reality is that you are here day after day arguing that we don’t need to actually do anything. The Market will do it all for us. All hail The Market!

    It has nothing to do with the market P1. It has a lot to do with the time for stunts belong in the past.

    The supply of coal will never be an issue. Any attempt by Australia to restrict supply is a stunt. It is close to irrelevant nonsense.

    Demand for fossil fuel has to be reduced.
    1) All out effort to convert our grid to renewables. People who are serious about this are supporting wind mills, solar farms, storage and the conversion of the grid to support distributed generation and supply from location where renewable resources are available. Serious people accept that electricity generation has to continue if the change required are to be accepted.

    Australia is behind on this effort not in front.

    2) Move to electric cars. Serious people recognize that the use of cars will continue.

    Australia is behind on this effort not in front.

    And we have to start working towards solutions for what is going to happen. It is not going to be stopped, too late, for that we had to start worrying about 200 years ago, when the survival rate of you children started being about 100% instead of 25%.

    In the last 16 thousand years the sea level has risen about 100 meters. Twelve thousand years ago you could still walk to Tasmania. About 8 thousand years ago the sea level stabilized. Stable sea levels is the exception not the rule.

    Sea level is on the move again, it is going to have very very serious repercussions.

    You don’t do what needs to be done in a Democracy by doing and supporting cheap irrelevant stunts.

  42. frednk @ #946 Saturday, October 5th, 2019 – 10:56 am

    The supply of coal will never be an issue. Any attempt by Australia to restrict supply is a stunt. It is close to irrelevant nonsense.

    You really have no clue as to why Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal and gas, do you? Why Australia can sell its coal and gas to poorer, undeveloped countries even though it has to be transported halfway around the world in some cases? Do you somehow think we do this out of charity?

    You need to give these issues some thought, and not simply parrot party propaganda.


  45. Player One says:
    …
    You really have no clue as to why Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal and gas, do you? Why Australia can sell its coal and gas to poorer, undeveloped countries even though it has to be transported halfway around the world in some cases? Do you somehow think we do this out of charity?

    Because we have the infrastructure in place and the resources to do it.

    And there can be an argument made that it would be morally irresponsible for us to force other countries to use their resources to open/reopen mines when they should be using the resources to install and commission renewable assets. But I suspect that argument is a little too subtle so I won’t go there.

  46. ‘Yabba says:
    Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 10:45 am

    Several different sets of symptoms are called ‘heart attacks’, but Bernie had a myocardial infarction, which means that the blood supply to a part of his heart muscle failed, and that particular part of his heart muscle died. The dead part will not regenerate, and is no longer capable of carrying the electrical signals that cause a normal heartbeat, or of contracting to pump blood to his lungs, or the rest of his body. High stress is absolutely contra-indicated.’

    I was not actually thinking about it from a Sander’s point of view. What I was thinking was that the choice of VEEP running mate systemically throws up people who are quite different from the POTUS candidate.

    Thus, in the US right now, we have a secular insane person as POTUS and a religious insane person (don’t worry about the national medical system, talk to Jesus to sort your health issues out) as VEEP.

  47. Rick Wilson‏Verified account @TheRickWilson

    With this new WaPo story of Trump’s calls with Putin, I ask again; if Putin doesn’t have Trump’s pecker in his pocket, how could you tell?

    Trump’s calls with foreign leaders have long worried aides, leaving some ‘genuinely horrified’

    In one of his first calls with a head of state, President Trump fawned over Russian President Vladimir Putin, telling the man who ordered interference in America’s 2016 election that he was a great leader and apologizing profusely for not calling him sooner.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-calls-with-foreign-leaders-have-long-worried-aides-leaving-some-genuinely-horrified/2019/10/04/537cc7a8-e602-11e9-a331-2df12d56a80b_story.html

  49. ‘They’re busted’: Chris Hayes breaks down the ‘damning new evidence’ against Trump

    “Now, here’s the thing about Trump, always for everything the president has two big defenses, two defenses. One, he does everything in public so there’s no scandal, right? Like how could it be a scandal? Russia, if you’re listening,” he said.

    “And number two and the second defense, and you’re going to hear it lot — you’ve been hearing it last week — it basically comes down to this and these are not my words. This is the characterization of the people defending him. Donald Trump is a morally incontinent sociopath who cannot tell the difference between right or wrong so you have to just give him a break because he like literally doesn’t understand the difference,” he continued. “That is the defense. He’s just Trump being Trump. What do you want? He literally doesn’t know what’s wrong.”

    “The people who are party to this corrupt conspiracy already know it’s wrong. They already know they’re going to get caught, and they are already working on their cover story.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/theyre-busted-chris-hayes-breaks-down-the-damning-new-evidence-against-trump/

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