Essential Research: bushfires, climate change and asylum seekers

A new poll finds respondents clearly of the view that not enough is being done to tackle climate change, but with opinion divided as to whether it appropriate to debate the matter in the context of the bushfire emergency.

The Essential Research poll series continues to chug along on its fortnightly schedule without offering anything on voting intention, with this week’s survey mainly relating to bushfires and climate change. Support for the proposition that Australia is not doing enough to address climate change have reached a new high of 60%, up nine since March, with “doing enough” down five to 22% and “doing too much” down three to 8%.

However, perceptions of climate change itself are little changed, with 61% attributing it to human activity (down one) and 28% opting for “a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate”. On the debate as to whether it was appropriate to raise links between climate change and bushfires, opinion was evenly divided – out of those who considered such a link likely, 43% felt raising the matter appropriate compared with 17% for inappropriate, while another 30% rated the link as unlikely.

A further question related to the issue of medical evacuations for asylum seekers, and here the situation is murkier due to the need to provide respondents with some sort of explanation of what the issue is about. As the Essential survey put it, the relevant legislation allows “doctors, not politicians, more say in determining the appropriate medical
treatment offered to people in offshore detention”. Put like that, 62% were opposed to the government’s move to repeal it, including 25% who believed the legislation didn’t go far enough. That left only 22% in favour of the pro-government proposition that “legislation will weaken our borders and result in boats arriving”.

The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1083.

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.

1,314 comments on “Essential Research: bushfires, climate change and asylum seekers”

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  1. From the X-FILES :

    Security officials told unknown object near Congress was ‘hovering’ — no one has any idea what happened

    Fox News reporter Chad Pergram spent the day looking into a strange security threat on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning that has left security officials stumped.

    Both the U.S. Capitol and the White House were on lockdown after the restricted airspace was breached and fighter jets were scrambled. The problem is that after several hours, no one knows what it was or even if it was real.

    “Officials heard it was ‘hovering’ and were even given ‘knots’ measuring its speed. But they still don’t know what it was,” Pergram continued.

    “We don’t know what the hell it was,” one knowledgeable source told Pergram. He explained that the security doesn’t know “if it was birds, a ‘weather anomaly,’ a drone or what.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/11/security-officials-told-unknown-object-near-congress-was-hovering-no-one-has-any-idea-what-happened/

  2. Alpha

    Sydney is installing London style air quality monitoring.
    Soon lawyers will have scope for a class action of adverse health effects.
    Potentially all the millions of residents could be eligible for compensation from local state and federal governments for funding the car is king culture.

    There is a World Health Standard that I suspect gets breached regularly.
    More and more cities are going to go the Amsterdam route. Especially now e bikes and scooters are here making hilly terrain irrelevant as an obstacle for cycling.

  4. Good to learn that Albanese has now jumped on dullard Morrison’s call to Fuller:

    [‘PM’s phone call to police commissioner ‘unprecedented’, Albanese says

    Anthony Albanese is on ABC Breakfast talking about Angus Taylor – and Scott Morrison’s call to the NSW police commissioner:

    For the prime minister to ring the police commissioner – not in the national interest, in his personal interest, to defend his government when he has an interest, clearly, in not having a minister step aside – I found it quite breathtaking when the prime minister came into the parliament yesterday and, instead of announcing that the minister would step aside, he did the opposite.

    ….

    What I took when the prime minister in question time said he would contact the police commissioner was that he wanted confirmation that there was an investigation.

    He didn’t believe it when we said that there was and I referred to the documents that were in at that time up online on the Guardian website and the Daily Telegraph.

    But what he reported to the parliament was something much, much more concerning because he indicated he had a discussion with the police commissioner about the nature of the investigation which he has a direct interest in.

    His job is to act in the national interest when he talks to authorities, not in his own personal interest, and I found it pretty unprecedented, frankly, that he would suggest that there had been a discussion about details of an investigation that was only launched hours beforehand.’]

  5. rhwombat @ #22 Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 8:25 am

    TKS: “No names – no pack drills” is the phrase that haunted my time at the old Kid’s Hospital.

    Camperdown? How’s the running in the filthy air going, against all medical advice ;). From one who ended up in ICU with a smashed up chest (after a major stack in a cycle race) in the pursuit of the preservation of fitness, and the odd endorphin rush, take care.

  7. Maude Lynne @ #44 Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 8:57 am

    Re: Gladys Lui in Chisolm
    It’s worth noting…

    ‘Nick’ Zhao, 32, was reportedly found dead in a Melbourne hotel room in March
    He was allegedly cultivated by Chinese government to run for the Liberal Party
    Mr Zhao allegedly told ASIO about the deal to run, before he was found dead
    Politician Andrew Hastie says the alleged plot needs to be fully investigated
    The alleged plot comes after claims from ‘Chinese spy’ Wang ‘William’ Ligiang
    Mr Wang claims he has worked as a Chinese intelligence operative
    He defected to Australia in April this year after disclosing information to ASIO
    Ligiang said he was tasked with infiltrating media and student networks

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7720063/Death-Melbourne-car-dealer-linked-Chinese-plot-infiltrate-Australias-parliament.html

    What makes us think that, after failing to get Nick to run for them in Chisolm, the Chinese backers would say ‘ Oh, ok. We give up. We won’t try again’
    Surely they would look around for another possible candidate to back.
    Well, a cynical person would think that I guess.
    Obviously not ASIO, apparently.

    And don’t forget that Gladys Liu dominated WeChat. And who controls WeChat? The Chinese government. Nothing happens on WeChat that they don’t know about or approve of.

  9. guytaur @ #53 Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 9:13 am

    PR

    Has Mitch McConell been sighted since that airspace breach?

    After extensive consultation with my crystal ball – I can now reveal that the ETs will be no longer be using this out of the way planet for a Psychiatric Facility and, as a result, millions of disappearances will be noticed in coming days.

    Those of the locals who have been extracted, sexually examined and replaced will remain to spread confusion in the wake of the withdrawal.

    Over – vacuuming day – big excitement. 😎

  13. Alpha Zero

    I entirely agree that “congestion” covers the whole box and dice: poor planning, too much emphasis on roads and private vehicles, you name it, it’s in the mix.

  15. bakunin

    Good to see Albanese Labor has adopted The Greens amendments to donations laws that Shorten Labor and the Coalition voted down last year.

    Isn’t it. Timing is everything.

  16. Noticing the Taylor scandal seems not to have made the news in the SMH despite its being the big political event of yesterday, and the involvement of Fuller and Moore.

    Curious.

    Edit: oops – stand corrected. Appeared ‘just now’ as apparently Malcolm Turnbull’s comments are newsworthy.

  18. From Labor’s perspective, it’s probably desirous for the shonky Taylor not to stand aside, for he’ll be in Albanese’s, Dreyfus’s sights for the rest of this session, along with Morrison. It’s probable, though, that
    Taylor’s dead meat, most likely resigning on Christmas Eve in order to spend more time with his family.

  19. C@t
    “And don’t forget that Gladys Liu dominated WeChat. And who controls WeChat? The Chinese government. Nothing happens on WeChat that they don’t know about or approve of.”

    Will Andrew Hastie have the guts to keep pushing against Chinese influence when it starts to threaten Glady’s seat?

  20. lizzie @ #63 Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 9:31 am

    I entirely agree that “congestion” covers the whole box and dice: poor planning, too much emphasis on roads and private vehicles, you name it, it’s in the mix.

    lizzie, the planning is appalling.

    A Sydney example: Sydney eastern suburbs are serviced by 1) ferries, with virtually no parking and so limited accessibility, 2) buses, threading their way in and out, and quite a good service too, and 3) one rail line that stops at Bondi Jn – let’s say that’s in the middle. What could/should be the case, imo, is that Bondi Jn becomes a major, major car/rail interchange with a huge parking station underground /overhead/ wherever, and commuters by a weekly ticket that includes a car spot, then park and ride, with all the necessary finessing.

    Instead, the major road into the city – New South Head Rd – from Vaucluse to William Street – is a battleground of several hours as all the cars are funnelled into the city. It’s crazy. It’s expensive. It’s filthy.

    (The new light rain to Randwick is running ‘below’ the areas I mention)

  21. C@tmomma:

    [‘Oh, and guess who’s father was a NSW Police Officer? Yes, Scott and Mick probably had a nice old chat.’]

    The plot thickens.

  23. The dread of being deceived over medevac reveals Australia at its most grotesque

    So many of us want to refuse urgent medical care for traumatised refugees solely because we think they’re taking us for mugs

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/26/the-dread-of-being-deceived-over-medevac-reveals-australia-at-its-most-grotesque

    Unlike marriage equality or global warming, which balance what ethicists call “competing goods”, that is, concerns about family values, workforce or the economy, the medevac bill is a different beast entirely. People need urgent medical care and doctors have said so. Normally this would be a no-brainer. But we are told these individuals are laughing at us, taking us for mugs according to Scott Morrison, gnashing his teeth with all the bluster of a pre-match footy coach or a sergeant preparing for battle. And that grabs us at that visceral part where other arguments fail to reach. They have become the enemy that must be beaten. The “preventing deaths at sea” line has been abandoned, as everyone is now aware that navy ships are permanently stationed in the Indian ocean to thwart boat arrivals and equally, the lack of a “queue”, orderly or otherwise, in war-affected regions is also well-established.
    :::
    We turn on our televisions at night and see wretched images of grown men crying in a rubble that was once their home, having watched their wives brutalised by soldiers and their infant child smashed beyond recognition. The same empathetic part in all of us that quickly rallies to help bushfire victims cries for the anguish these men must feel and the terror of the women and children. Until they dare to turn up on Australian shores and miraculously become conniving gamers.

    That anyone would ever leave their engineering, medical or accountancy position in Iran and drag their family and entire life savings across a perilous journey simply to laugh at Australia is a patently absurd notion. But it’s one that grabs many of us.
    :::
    Yet so many of us are prepared to accept refusing urgent medical care for these already traumatised people – and the sole “competing good” here is that we don’t like being laughed at.
    :::
    But to think that they might, and worse still, to act on that fear to the extent that many more could die suggests something particularly grotesque about the current Australian dialogue.

    Think about how you will justify this to your future generations.

  24. Mavis @ #68 Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 9:42 am

    From Labor’s perspective, it’s probably desirous for the shonky Taylor not to stand aside, for he’ll be in Albanese’s, Dreyfus’s sights for the rest of this session, along with Morrison. It’s probable, though, that
    Taylor’s dead meat, most likely resigning on Christmas Eve in order to spend more time with his family.

    Wanna bet? This lot don’t resign and don’t apologise. You heard Robert say that only a day ago.

  25. guytaur says:
    Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at 9:12 am
    Alpha

    Sydney is installing London style air quality monitoring.
    Soon lawyers will have scope for a class action of adverse health effects.
    Potentially all the millions of residents could be eligible for compensation from local state and federal governments for funding the car is king culture.

    There is a World Health Standard that I suspect gets breached regularly.
    More and more cities are going to go the Amsterdam route. Especially now e bikes and scooters are here making hilly terrain irrelevant as an obstacle for cycling.

    Good to see Sydney will finally catch up with other international cities in monitoring.
    Current monitoring indicates we routinely exceed standards for particulates and ozone. Our citizens’ health suffers.
    But
    more roads are better, aren’t they?

  26. Turnbull is on Skynews putting saying he would not have called the police commissioner over Angus Taylor.

    Journos need to ask ex-politicians if it is right or wrong?
    Morrisons ‘chat’ should be put on the public record, in full, by both parties.

  27. WB,

    I notice that the Essential pdf has a break down by voting intention for each of the questions.
    n = 1083, and the counts for Labor, Liberal, Greens and Others sum to 970.

    This would mean 113 / 1083 or 10.4% are undecided.

    Excluding the undecided:
    Liberal: 373/970 = 38.45%
    Labor: 342/970 = 35.26%
    Greens: 93/970 = 9.59%
    Others: 163/970 = 16.80%

    The percentages total 100.1 due to rounding.

  28. ItzaDream

    Be nice if we could raze our cities and start again. Snigger.

    I’m half serious there. The earliest planners tried to set up grids but their plans were soon over-ridden by shysters looking for a quick profit. The “wide brown land” seemed to stretch for ever, and a quick turnover meant rewards for speculators. To me, Dick Hamer was the last Liberal who tried to rein in the spread of Melbourne and retain green corridors, but now it’s rafferty’s rules (is that a non-PC expression now?)

  29. Our state and federal politicians are to blame for not adequately planning for the construction of new infrastructure to account for a high level of population, which is a result of having a immigration level with a high intake.

    Personally, I am more concerned that our immigration program is not humane, some policies pandering to racists and essentially aimed towards providing employers a large pool of cheap, easily exploitable Labor. So I want to immigration program redesigned to eliminate the temporary visa categories, mandatory detention abolished, the refugee intake drastically increased, along more rights for existing immigrants.

  30. ItzaDream

    Scout @ #3 Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 6:57 am

    Will Angus Taylor hang on? Reckon Morrison will stick by him

    For sure. Morrison has shown his hand.

    Ah but by his “hand” he showed Angus is knackered. Immediately after QT Amy Remiekis in her blog mentioned Scrott went and patted him on the shoulder, reminded of someone else he gave a pat on the back as he declared “I’m ambitious for him” . It didn’t end well for the ‘patee’ . 🙂

  32. NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller joins Ben Fordham to look back on the state’s major cases and discuss his special connection to the Prime Minister.

    The Commissioner explains Scott Morrison used to collect his bins, back when the two were neighbours.

    “He was the Treasurer at the time,” he tells Ben.

    “He did tell me recently that he’s the Prime Minister now, and that should be Josh Frydenberg’s job, but he won’t take my calls!”

  33. ItzaDream:

    [‘Wanna bet?’]

    Nah, and for the reason you advance. That said, Taylor’s so accident-prone, so devious that even Morrison will most likely come to the conclusion that it would be politically expedient to send him packing. Taylor’s a Rhodes Scholar but he certainly shows scant common dog f..k.

  34. Pegasus @ #73 Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 9:48 am

    The dread of being deceived over medevac reveals Australia at its most grotesque

    So many of us want to refuse urgent medical care for traumatised refugees solely because we think they’re taking us for mugs

    Think about how you will justify this to your future generations.

    Are we thinking about the closet racists ❓

    SBS have been running (it seems forever) a series concerning Nazi Germany. Many old SS members have no regret and justify the murders because of what the Jews did to the farmers.

    What the Jews did to the farmers is forever unknown and unknowable (nothing).

    Never mind, the situation can only get worse with the now Federal Government urging our youf to leave school early and own a car while that other lot of smart bastards are still studying stuff wot will never be of use. Dumbasses R Us ❗

    Sorry, vacuuming exhaustion has set in as I go about floor washing. Alas alack alay 😥

  35. The ‘Blue Labour’ model won’t work for the Australian Labor Party

    Does the Labor Party need to adopt a more conservative policy approach to win over Australian voters? Professor John Quiggin reports.

    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-blue-labour-model-wont-work-for-the-australian-labor-party,13355

    At its core, the “Blue Labor” model is one of identity politics. The central idea is that Labor is the natural recipient of the votes of the working class, defined as (implicitly male) manual workers, not because of policy differences with its opponents but because of cultural affinity, mirrored by antagonism to the silver tails and elites whom those opponents represent. Indeed, any policy difference with the conservatives on either social or economic issues is dangerous, since it may alienate working-class voters.

    In crude political terms, the big problem with this view is that manual workers are no longer numerous enough to provide Labor with a majority. The three blue-collar occupations in the standard ABS classification (technicians, machinery operators and labourers) together accounted for 29% of the workforce in the 2016 Census, less than Labor’s miserable first preference vote in 2019.
    :::
    Contrary to the lazy equation of blue-collar workers with the working class as a whole, a large proportion of low-wage jobs are in sectors such as retail, hospitality and routine clerical work. Even among professional and semi-professional workers in sectors such as health and education, wages and working conditions are under continuous pressure.
    :::
    To sum up, the view that Labor has abandoned a traditional base of socially conservative, religious, economically aspirational, manual workers in favour of an out-of-touch inner-city elite is the opposite of the truth. The best thing Blue Labor and similar groups could do to promote a more inclusive style of politics is to stop deriding and caricaturing the majority of ordinary Australians who don’t fit their outdated stereotypes.

  36. Bin Chicken @ #82 Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 7:06 am

    NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller joins Ben Fordham to look back on the state’s major cases and discuss his special connection to the Prime Minister.

    The Commissioner explains Scott Morrison used to collect his bins, back when the two were neighbours.

    “He was the Treasurer at the time,” he tells Ben.

    “He did tell me recently that he’s the Prime Minister now, and that should be Josh Frydenberg’s job, but he won’t take my calls!”

    Is there a link for this quote please?

  37. Bin Chicken:

    [‘…discuss his special connection to the Prime Minister.’]

    The plot further thickens.

    Fuller was a fool to take Morrison’s call, and Morrison was a fool to make it.

  38. lizzie
    Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 9:56 am
    Comment #78

    ItzaDream

    Be nice if we could raze our cities and start again. Snigger.

    Steady on ❗

    The aliens collecting their surplus ratbags may hear you and decide to turn the planet into cinders – just in case (of what I know not). 😵

  41. lizzie @ #78 Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 – 9:56 am

    Be nice if we could raze our cities and start again. Snigger.

    Apparently building new cities costs only about 1/3 of adding new capacity to existing cities.

    So, naturally, if your goal is to maximize your profit, you would always lobby to build new infrastructure in existing cities. Few seem to give a thought to the consequences for the cities concerned (well, the developers certainly don’t). Just yet another example of the “tragedy of the commons”, which is supposed to be one of the things we pay our politicians to prevent. But in fact, they often exacerbate it.

    Australia is an extreme example of this – we have only one city of notable size per state, into which we cram more than half our population 🙁

  42. Mavis

    Taylor’s a Rhodes Scholar but he certainly shows scant common dog f..k.

    The omens getting more ominous for Angus. Scrott pats back of Rhodes scholar, declares support. Rhodes scholar Turnbull gets the DCM within days. Yesterday Scrott pats back of Rhodes scholar, makes supportive noises…………….tick tick tick tick 🙂

  48. I’m starting to have some interactions with refugees here in Makassar.

    My overwhelming impression is that Australia would only benefit if we decided to give them an opportunity.

    One Somali girl I spoke with, she’s in her late teens, early 20s, was born in Yemen. That’s how long her family has been on the move.

    Some Palestinian kids I met, they really stand out with their red hair and freckles, have been in Makassar more half their lives.

    I don’t know the solution, but I’m certain it’s not the Dutton/Morrison approach of demonising them all.

    For one it’s a lie. 🙁

  50. No-one that I know in Labor subscribes to the ‘Blue Labor’ model that Quiggin writes about.

    There is a well-founded appreciation that the social, occupational, educational, material, demographic and value-based composition of the electorate has changed very significantly and continues to change. Labor’s challenge is to assemble the great variety of voters into a plurality that’s large enough to deliver election wins. This project is continually disrupted by the splitters, who seek at all times to open cracks in Labor’s plurality.

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