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. Boerwar says:
    Thursday, October 3, 2019 at 9:00 pm
    nath
    IMO there is a very high potential for H. sapiens, as a species, to survive the suite of environmental feedbacks coming its way.
    There will be some brutal tradeoffs between average standard of living and total number of individuals.
    There is, IMO, no way that the current suite of biodiversity or the current level biodiversity services is going to survive.

    I agree Boer. Widespread extinctions are already occurring. Biodiversity is barely more than a theoretical term in many domains. Even in very large zones, such as we have in Australia and in the marine environment, there is mass and rapid change…

  2. There’s little doubt about it, Trump has a dirt file on Senator Lindsey Graham

    Yes, many others have puzzled at his 180 degree turnaround, although I suspect it has something to do with him being re-elected to the Senate next year.

  3. frednk
    They should try Endone.
    I had a minor op this morning that involved receiving an Endone script. I was not quite in the class of Colderidge’s Xanadu but I have spent a pleasant drowse.

  5. Boerwar says:
    Thursday, October 3, 2019 at 9:07 pm
    It is not so easy for Morrison. Australia is a heavily trade-exposed nation. It needs globalism.

    So doing the nationalist/isolationist/xenophobic/racist pea and thimble trick is going to be a bit tricky for Morrison.

    Morrison, like Trump and Johnson, subscribe to White-man’s globalism. It’s a neo-Imperialist worldview….archaic, escapist, futile….

  6. Boerwar
    says:
    Thursday, October 3, 2019 at 9:10 pm
    frednk
    They should try Endone.
    I had a minor op this morning that involved receiving an Endone script. I was not quite in the class of Colderidge’s Xanadu but I have spent a pleasant drowse.
    _______________
    Endone is oxy, aka ‘hillbilly heroin’. I took it once for a toothache late at night when I had nothing else. I was so drowsy and weak that my cat began to bully me. The pain went away though.

  10. fred….the damage has been attributed to a combination of cyclones, excessive heat and drought….failure to recover is troubling….

  11. frednk

    The headline is a bit misleading, IMO.

    ‘It’ was a devil’s brew of several events, one of which was entirely new: a heat wave killing large swathes of mangroves.

    And that is how biodiversity loss is happening: a series of small and large incremental blows. The trend is that the resilience of systems is finally overwhelmed and there is no coming back.

    Not to worry. The Andromeda Galaxy will probably finish the job some billions of years down the track.


  13. Mavis Davis says:
    Thursday, October 3, 2019 at 9:10 pm

    frednk:

    [‘Alcoholism has always been a problem in Scandinavian countries.’]

    Probably a result of seasonal affective disorder:

    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/30/sad-winter-depression-seasonal-affective-disorder

    Christmas and the advent Calendar has a real purpose.

    Have you ever tried to build a snowman when the snow is too cold?
    Christmas determination, we ended up bringing out hot water to make the snow stick together.
    A snowman was so unusual next day we saw the neighbour taking photos.

  16. Boerwar:

    [‘Might not alcohol itself cause Omnis-easonal Affective Disorder?
    Are we looking at the marriage of like minds in S.A.D?’]

    I think that some of those suffering SAD self-medicate, as do many who suffer clinical depression.

    And do go easy on those opioids, though I have heard that fentanyl’s an excellent pain reliever.

  17. I hope Andrew Earlwood comes back. His points are usually quite sensible to me without too much monomania. As well, assuming a continued lack of psephological material, the blog needs wacky and wonderful characters and comments to remain interesting.

    But please please please diminish the anti green obsessions. In that regard it’s good to see Briefly gone as his Lib kin special language was getting mind numbing.

  18. Jayne McCormack
    @BBCJayneMcC

    Tanaiste Simon Coveney says “if that is the final (Brexit) proposal, there will be no deal”. He adds he believes Boris Johnson does want a deal and the latest proposal was an effort to move in that direction, but it contains “fundamental problems” on customs & Stormont consent

  21. frednk:

    I was born in the northern hemisphere and well remember snow, particularly around XMAS. It was great as a kid but given my aging bones, not so now.

  23. History….

    Andrew E responds to guytaur, who has an infuriating talent for the obtuse and irrational. Andrew has shown remarkable restraint and has many pertinent things to say….I hope he comes back.

    briefly….now welcomes criticism from the Greens, believing full disclosure of their ingrained hostility can only help Labor rebuild its plurality.

  25. Well, time for bed.
    I am hoping for some particularly vivid dreams.
    Maybe tomorrow I might start writing a poem that starts something like:
    ‘In Xanadu did Kublai Khan..

  26. Historyintime:

    [‘In that regard it’s good to see Briefly gone as his Lib kin special language was getting mind numbing.’]

    briefly still posts under a different nom de plume – RI.

  28. Because it reacts on the nervous system like heroin or opium, some abusers are using one brand of oxycodone painkiller, OxyContin, as a substitute for, or supplement to, street opiates like heroin.
    Armed robberies of pharmacies have occurred where the robber demanded only OxyContin, not cash. In some areas, particularly the Eastern United States, OxyContin has been the drug of greatest concern to law enforcement authorities.
    OxyContin, widely known as “hillbilly heroin” because of its abuse in Appalachian communities, has emerged as a major crime problem in the US. In one county, it was estimated that addiction to this drug was behind 80% of the crime.

    https://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/painkillers/oxycontin-the-hillbilly-heroin.html

  29. “fred….the damage has been attributed to a combination of cyclones, excessive heat and drought….failure to recover is troubling….”

    Came up at a conference last year in Darwin i think that a friend who..works on mangroves….went to. Apparently mangroves are physiologically pretty much always on the edge of survival. Drought means that the ground water moving through doesn’t affect salinity as much as normal and that kills the mangroves over a wide area. Cyclone comes along and trashes the dead trees and without the cover of live, established trees, any seedlings have a hard time establishing enough to survive the next cyclone.

  31. “Sock puppetry used to be a sin around here”

    BB, I reckon its only actual sock puppetry when people actually try to hide it. 🙂

  33. Andrew E responds to guytaur, who has an infuriating talent for the obtuse and irrational.

    Which are surely grounds for ignoring, not responding to much less doubling down with equal parts hyperbole?

  34. imacca @ #381 Thursday, October 3rd, 2019 – 7:44 pm

    “Sock puppetry used to be a sin around here”

    BB, I reckon its only actual sock puppetry when people actually try to hide it. 🙂

    briefly/whoeverheis has been upfront about his screen name change. I even asked him about it, and he had no qualms about sharing a) the screen name change and b) reasons for it.

  36. Mavis Davis
    says:
    And do go easy on those opioids, though I have heard that fentanyl’s an excellent pain reliever.
    __________________________
    fentanyl is very powerful. I woke up in intensive care attached to a fentanyl drip. For a while I thought I was in a place where they were chopping up body parts of people and attaching them to other people. I yelled out for a while ‘stop mixing us up’. Only later did I realise that this was a fentanyl induced episode brought about by my recent watching of a Simpsons episode:

  43. nath:

    [‘fentanyl is very powerful. I woke up in intensive care attached to a fentanyl drip.’]

    Yes, it is. When I jumped off a retaining wall in March I severely broke an ankle. Following surgery, I was put on a fentanyl drip which I could administer at will. As I said, a great pain reliever, which is apparently 50 times more powerful than other opioids. Anyway, I’m off.

  49. The last time the RBA raised interest rates was 2010-11-03, when the rate was raised by 0.25% to 4.75%. By comparison today we’re at 0.5% and in 1990 we were at 17.50%.
    1990-01-23 17.50
    2000-02-02 5.50
    2010-11-03 4.75
    2019-10-02 0.50
    More data and a graph at: https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/#cash-rate-chart

    The GFC oversaw a drop in the rate from 7.00 to 3.00 in 6 months and then it started slowly up again, until 2010. It’s been dropping since. The comparison with 30 years ago is stark, but even compared with 2010 we appear now to be at historic lows. (Something about not in Kansas anymore?) When do we go negative? Politically (by which I mean recognised politicians doing this), I hope someone starts pointing out that this is unusual, and maybe not a good place to be.

  50. Confessions says:
    Thursday, October 3, 2019 at 9:45 pm

    Andrew E responds to guytaur, who has an infuriating talent for the obtuse and irrational.

    Which are surely grounds for ignoring, not responding to much less doubling down with equal parts hyperbole?

    Indeed.

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