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 20 of 22
1 … 19 20 21 22

  1. frednk @ #951 Saturday, October 5th, 2019 – 11:22 am

    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.

    Talking Point #7: It is our humanitarian duty to sell our coal to poorer undeveloped countries!

    🙁

  3. Yep it certainly does….

    Log in
    Sign up
    Conversation

    Dan Rather
    @DanRather
    It can feel like Alice in Wonderland meets the Sopranos meets the Marx Brothers, a narrative that is at the same time worrisome and dizzying.
    11:15 AM · Oct 5, 2019·Twitter Web App

  4. Renato Mariotti
    @renato_mariotti
    A second CIA official with more direct knowledge of Trump’s wrongdoing is thinking about coming forward and becoming a whistleblower, according to the
    @nytimes
    .

    2nd Official Is Weighing Whether to Blow the Whistle on Trump’s Ukraine Dealings
    The official, a member of the intelligence community, was interviewed by the inspector general to corroborate the original whistle-blower’s account.
    nytimes.com

  5. Talking Point #7: It is our humanitarian duty to sell our coal to poorer undeveloped countries!
    ___________________________________

    And there is a virtuous circle too – we can then blame them for not doing enough carbon emission reduction to justify our own inaction.

  6. Everyone, including us, needs to be reducing our use of coal and other fossil fuels, moving to renewables. Whether we should stop mining and exporting the stuff is a different question. Coal will be a major input to energy supplies for the next couple of decades, but it’s a dying industry, especially now since the economics seem to be moving against it. Mining billionaires don’t care about the environment or the climate, but they do care about the dollars.

    I think we should continue to mine and sell the stuff as long as anyone wants to buy it, as we do with uranium. However, at the same time we should be making every effort to move away from dependence on what has got to be a dying industry. Otherwise we’ll look like Saudi Arabia after the oil runs out.

  7. “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.”

    P1, i think you are substantially misrepresenting the attitudes of many who post here. People would probably have more respect for your assertions if you didn’t.

    Seems to me broad agreement there is a problem, we are all very late in addressing it and real, actual change is urgent. The arguments are around how to do that. Actually, practically, how to get the political and policy changes needed to mitigate (we are well past solve) the problems that come with Climate Change.

    Yup, a lot of the people like me, obviously ALP supporters are pissed at the Greens over this. But that’s mainly because I see the Greens attitude to policy purity as an impractical impediment to real action.

    LoL, if they had supported the Rudd CPRS back in the day, got what they could and worked to then improve on it, we probably would never have had Abbott as PM and where would we be now?? 🙂

    Then there was the complete fwark up on Adani . Making it THE icon issue on which all else must be judged that gave the Coalition so much room to frame as they wanted.

    But, whats obvious is that the Center/Left of politics has to get its shit together and while not doing a “Coalition” thing (that’s toxic for the ALP out in punter-land) at least be considerably more co-operative at a policy level.

    I will always pref Greens ahead of the RWNutbaggers and Libs and Nats. But i’d be happier with that if they would as a party actually admit to fwark ups when they make them and actually walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Until then, more and more of same same blame on the left that works to the coalitions advantage.

  10. Vic:

    The bonus with the whistleblowers is that while the WH and Trump’s crony cabinet can stonewall and deflect House requests for information, whistleblowers can front the inquiry any time.

    It’s why Trump is so stupid attacking whistleblowers – there’s bound to be more career employees who would rather blow the whistle on his crimes than endure his slurs.

  12. I’m nervous about this. They haven’t got anything right so far. Any response, guys?

    David Littleproud @D_LittleproudMP
    · 21h
    We’re extending the Emergency Water Infrastructure Rebates to permanent horticultural plantings. We’ll pay 25% for de-silting dams, digging bores and improving on farm water infrastructure for drought affected farmers.

    Vision credit: ABC (Littleproud speaking)

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1179985510049013760

  13. “I’m nervous about this. They haven’t got anything right so far. Any response, guys?”

    Honestly lizzie……..I dont think any of this matters until they make the rules such that upstream irrigators dont snaffle huge amounts of water when it floods and let that flow down to spread out and soak into floodplains. Doesn’t matter what infrastructure you have, if there is no water its useless.

    Strange, the problem isn’t completely about how we deal with dry times when threat of drought is obvious. Part of it is how we deal with wet times when no-one is thinking about water allocation problems.

  14. imacca

    Doesn’t matter what infrastructure you have, if there is no water its useless.

    That’s the base they seem to be ignoring. It’s all “when it rains again”.

  15. Dr Julia Baird @bairdjulia

    THREAD: Am increasingly concerned about the unwillingness of many on this platform to listen to any divergent views. Hate is poured on those whom they disagree with. Contempt on those who speak to, publish or broadcast commentators or experts with different conclusions. 1/2
    …
    And yet, and yet, every night after #thedrum, people yell on here: “how DARE you invite that drongo on?” Even if they are in agreement with say three or four panellists, a rage at the fifth prevails. What does this say? If we support diversity, who expects to agree with everyone?

  16. lizzie
    1. Taxpayer funds are going to subsidize on farm irrigation works including those owned by very large multi national corporations either partially or completely owned by overseas investors. To that extent it is a net wealth transfer from Australia to other nations.
    2. Taxpayer funds are going to subsidize an increase in on-farm water holding capacity. Depending on the volumes involved this will result in even further distortions of the MDB water management.
    3. Digging bores is another word for expediting access to groundwater. This is a taxpayer subsidy to increase private farm values. Where groundwater is already fully exploited or over exploited drilling additional bores makes the water management situation worse, not better.

    In short yet another pork barrel which makes the larger long term issues worse and which involve city taxpayers subsidizing increases in the capital value of both individuals and foreign-owned corporations.

    To top it off, the environment will suffer even more.

  19. ‘lizzie says:
    Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 12:17 pm

    imacca

    Doesn’t matter what infrastructure you have, if there is no water its useless.

    That’s the base they seem to be ignoring. It’s all “when it rains again”.’

    You desilt dams when they are bone dry so now is the right time to do it.

  20. lizzie
    Yep. Coalition BAU. It is like a political positive feedback machine. Feed money into the bush and the bush votes for you so you feed money into the bush and the bush votes for you…

  21. imacca @ #963 Saturday, October 5th, 2019 – 11:50 am

    P1, i think you are substantially misrepresenting the attitudes of many who post here.

    No, I don’t think so. Anyone who thinks we can or should continue to either burn or export coal for a few more decades is just plain wrong, and has not been keeping abreast of the science. Such nonsense should not just be allowed to just go unchecked – it should be challenged.

    You should perhaps instead be asking why the same few posters insist on posting such nonsense – usually unprovoked – day after day after day. Why do they oppose any action to prevent new coal mines opening, while simultaneoulsly claiming that those coal mines will never produce any coal? Why to they oppose carbon taxes when this has been demonstrated to be an efficient and cost-effective way to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?

    Now, I am not expecting our coal exports to drop to zero tomorrow (although I would expect us to stop burning coal ourselves – particularly brown coal – within a very short time frame) but maintaining that some mythical “market forces” are going to do that for us without significant additional intervention is possibly just plain ignorance, possibly just poking your head in the sand … or possibly deliberate obfuscation or deceit. Take your pick.

  22. Jennifer Marohasy has written a book on the “facts” and climate change. Seems BOM can’t be relied on. Haven’t got the energy to dissect this. I’ll just paste it.

    Right up until the city of Brisbane in my home state of Queensland was flooded back in January 2011 — flooded following the emergency release of water from the overflowing Wivenhoe Dam — the considered opinion from Australian experts was that the dams would never fill again. This was accepted by many as a ‘fact’.

    After that exceptionally wet summer, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology continued to forecast below-average rainfall even for Australia’s Murray Darling Basin through the exceptionally wet spring of 2016. Now there is drought again across much of eastern and southern Australia, and what farmers really need to know is: “When will it rain again?”

    Of course, droughts in Australia always break, and with flooding rains. But there is no indication from the Bureau when we can expect this break.

    Many claim such flood events are unpredictable. In which case, we arguably don’t have a scientific theory of climate. A scientific theory is something substantiated: a body of facts that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation and that can be confirmed through accurate prediction.

    There is no doubt that the Western World is currently being significantly affected by climate change activism. But, the more rational amongst us — who are not necessarily those with a more formal education — can perhaps already see that very little of what is currently being articulated by this populist movement resembles fact.

    Currently what we see from activists is more prophecy than numerically verifiable prediction — certainly no testing of falsifiable theory through what might be considered the scientific method.

    Indeed, the leaders of the current populist movement against climate change seem unaware of the history of science or the history of climate change embedded in the geological record. And while obsessed with climate, they seem unable to make a practical forecast for next week or next year when it comes to issues such as when the drought here in Australia might break.

    https://www.spectator.com.au/2019/10/climate-change-the-facts-and-how-you-can-help-to-spread-them/

  24. Oh, and second edit. This is actually an appeal for money for the IPA book!

    If you are at all sceptical of the catastrophist’s claims that the current drought in Australia is the very worst on record, sea levels at record highs, and the planet about to melt — and most importantly, if you would like to contribute in a practical way to a fact-based new theory of climate change — then make a financial contribution to the IPA’s next book in the ‘Climate Change the Facts’ series via the dedicated appeal page

  25. lizzie @ #971 Saturday, October 5th, 2019 – 12:20 pm

    Dr Julia Baird @bairdjulia

    THREAD: Am increasingly concerned about the unwillingness of many on this platform to listen to any divergent views. Hate is poured on those whom they disagree with. Contempt on those who speak to, publish or broadcast commentators or experts with different conclusions. 1/2
    …
    And yet, and yet, every night after #thedrum, people yell on here: “how DARE you invite that drongo on?” Even if they are in agreement with say three or four panellists, a rage at the fifth prevails. What does this say? If we support diversity, who expects to agree with everyone?

    Interesting observation and it also happens on this blog. However, the advantage Julia has over the readers of PB is that she at least participates in a programme that considers a diverse range of issues.

    What we have on PB is the same people making the same points they made yesterday, and the day before and the week before and the often the year before. It does become a little tedious.

  27. lizzie
    Classic Marohasy = not worth the time and effort to rebut.
    The fact that the IPA publishes this sort of tendentious rubbish tells us about the intellectual qualities of the IPA.

  32. Oops!

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-05/rix-creek-mine-approved-before-decision-made/11576662

    An “embarrassing” administrative blunder by the NSW Independent Planning Commission (IPC) saw a 21-year mining lease approved before public submissions had closed.

    …

    Just a few hours later, the Commission reversed the approval, saying a decision on the mining lease had not yet been made.

    I’ll give you one guess what the eventual outcome will be, once the IPC have actually pretended to read the submissions. 🙁

    I reckon some of these IPC people must post here on PB 🙂

  36. Bill Kristol‏Verified account @BillKristol

    Putting Russia First: “In a summer 2018 call with Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump…disputed her intelligence community’s conclusion that Putin’s government had orchestrated the attempted murder and poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil.”

    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

    Tom Nichols‏Verified account @RadioFreeTom

    This is a level of discord between the Western allies the leaders of the old Soviet Union could only dream of achieving. And all because the US President is not only ignorant and uneducable, but also, very likely, because he fears what Russian intelligence might know about him.

  37. Strikes me that The Guardian should have named the longstanding friend of Morrison’s who’s also a QAnon Krazy.

    Since when would the

    ● potential entanglements between the two men (and their wives, apparently),
    ● the perception of nepotism, and
    ●Morrison’s agreement to investigate Alexander Downer’s role in Trump’s travails (themselves part of the whacky QAnon worldview)

    warrant the protections of anonymity?

    I’m probably missing something here, I guess. But on the surface this appears to involve t least common cronyism as well as more serious matters of state at the absolute highest levels.

  38. “Another one who can’t seem to understand the difference between ‘climate’ and ‘weather’ ”

    Quite common among the denialatte. But, the kind of people who take Marohasy seriously are also the kind who think daS Bonkers Monkers is brilliant.. go figure……

  39. Horrible story. The guy flew from Norway to the US for this surprise.

    “A man accidentally shot and killed his son-in-law who had jumped out of a bush to surprise him on his birthday, US police said.
    Richard Dennis, 61, will not face criminal charges after killing Christopher Bergan in Florida on Tuesday.
    The 37-year-old victim made a growling sound before he jumped out to surprise Mr Dennis, the police said.”

  42. Greensborough Growler says: Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 1:58 pm

    Good story on the reach of David Rowe.

    **************************************************

    Great article GG !!!! …… David Rowe is an absolute genius in his work.

  43. Diogenes
    says:
    Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 1:41 pm
    Horrible story. The guy flew from Norway to the US for this surprise.
    “A man accidentally shot and killed his son-in-law who had jumped out of a bush to surprise him on his birthday, US police said.
    Richard Dennis, 61, will not face criminal charges after killing Christopher Bergan in Florida on Tuesday.
    The 37-year-old victim made a growling sound before he jumped out to surprise Mr Dennis, the police said.”
    _______________________________________________
    It was probably going to end badly either way:

    What more barbarous than the sudden scream of “Surprise!” and the unpleasing visages from the past looming into view, not to mention the wrong cocktails?

    Now the scientific evidence is in. Surprise parties can kill. To put the matter in scientific terms: Emotional stress can precipitate severe, reversible left ventricular dysfunction in patients without coronary disease. Exaggerated sympathetic stimulation is probably central to the cause of this syndrome.

    Or, in the words of the press release from Johns Hopkins: Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that sudden emotional stress can also result in severe but reversible heart muscle weakness that mimics a classic heart attack. Patients with this condition, called stress cardiomyopathy, but known colloquially as “broken heart” syndrome, are often misdiagnosed with a massive heart attack when, indeed, they have suffered from a days-long surge in adrenalin (epinephrine) and other stress hormones that temporarily “stun” the heart.

    https://freepress.org/article/no-surprise-suprise-parties-can-kill

  45. Dr. Dena Grayson
    @DrDenaGrayson
    ·
    1h
    COVER UP

    BREAKING:
    @SecPompeo
    fails to meet House #subpoena deadline to produce #Ukraine-related documents.

    @HouseDemocrats
    should hold him in #contempt until he complies‼️

    #Coverup #Ukrainegate #Obstruction
    @SpeakerPelosi

    @RepAdamSchiff
    Pompeo fails to meet House subpoena deadline to produce Ukraine documents
    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday failed to meet a subpoena deadline from the House to produce Ukraine-related documents.
    cnn.com

  47. Victoria says: Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 2:18 pm

    Dr. Dena Grayson

    SecPompeo fails to meet House #subpoena deadline to produce #Ukraine-related documents.

    **************************************************

    This is a real test to see how committed the Democrats are with this impeachment process – they need to drop the hammer on Pompeo – and anyone else who does not comply – and subject them to the strongest legal options they have – be it jail, fines etc etc …..

Comments Page 20 of 22
1 … 19 20 21 22

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *