Essential Research leadership ratings

Essential’s latest leadership ratings find Scott Morrison continuing to struggle, despite being back to level pegging on preferred prime minister.

The Guardian reports on yet another fortnightly Essential Research poll with no voting intention numbers, but we does at least get the monthly leadership ratings. These show Scott Morrison down a point on approval to 39% and steady on disapproval at 52%, after the previous poll respectively had him down five and up nine. Anthony Albanese is respectively down two to 41% and up one to 31%, and he has lost his 39-36 lead as preferred prime minister, with the two now tied on 36%. The BludgerTrack trends on the sidebar have now been updated with these results.

Further questions on bushfire recovery, sports rorts and coronavirus don’t seem to have turned up anything too mindblowing, but the publication of the full report may turn up something hopefully later today.

UPDATE: Full report here. The most interesting of the supplementary findings for mine relate to the budget surplus, the consistent theme of which is that respondents aren’t that fussed about it: 79% agree spending on bushfire recovery is more important than maintaining it, with 11% disagreeing; 65% say it would be understandable if the coronavirus impact meant it wasn’t achieved, with 18% disagreeing; and 57% agree it was wrong for the government to discuss the surplus in the present tense before the election, with 24% disagreeing.

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.

1,911 comments on “Essential Research leadership ratings”

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  1. William
    Might the new information about other grant programs (I saw a figure of $630 million somewhere) invalidate your analysis of the $100 million program?

    Pork barreling in aggregate may perhaps have had some impact – even decisively in the very close seats, i.e. Bass and Chisholm. Even so, the Coalition’s 51.5% TPP better explains the result than an unusually effective effort to shore up marginal seats. John Howard won three more seats than Morrison in 1998 with 1.5% less.

  2. I suppose it’s quite normal for the gov to answer criticism with “But the Opposition didn’t…” It does become boring and annoying, though, especially when it’s someone like the smug little Hunt.

    Cheryl Kernot
    @cheryl_kernot
    7m
    This needs to be a daily reminder- esp in #QuestionTime Lib/Nats have been in government for the past seven years and 18 of the past 24 years. #auspol

  3. Andrew Wilkie says most NSW clubs ‘are operating illegally … and no-one is doing anything about it’

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-13/wilkie-says-clubs-non-compliant-with-money-laundering-laws/11958254

    Up to 95 per cent of registered clubs in New South Wales “are operating illegally” by being non-compliant with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws, independent MP Andrew Wilkie has claimed.

    In an explosive speech to Federal Parliament, Mr Wilkie said the “alarming information” came from a 2019 ClubsNSW board paper provided to him by a whistleblower.

    ClubsNSW represents over 1,000 RSL, sporting and other clubs in the state, which has around half of Australia’s poker machines.
    :::
    “Another example of the corrupt political parties and politicians who turn a blind eye to their mates and former colleagues in the gambling industry, a sector that invests millions of dollars in tainted political donations.”

  4. William Bowe @ #1303 Thursday, February 13th, 2020 – 3:38 pm

    William
    Might the new information about other grant programs (I saw a figure of $630 million somewhere) invalidate your analysis of the $100 million program?

    Pork barreling in aggregate may perhaps have had some impact – even decisively in the very close seats, i.e. Bass and Chisholm. Even so, the Coalition’s 51.5% TPP better explains the result than an unusually effective effort to shore up marginal seats. John Howard won three more seats than Morrison in 1998 with 1.5% less.

    Isn’t this a chicken or the egg scenario? What produced what? Did the highly advantageous Grants that the Coalition deployed engender the 51.5, or would it have happened anyway, despite the egregious pork barrelling?

  5. Were I in Wuhan I would avoid contact with people of Chinese appearance. No brainer.

    But most Australians who have thus far tested positive seem to have been sundry Aussie cruise ship passengers. They might be all sorts of racial mixed odds and ends. We should start with what we know.

    IMO, when they are let back into Australia the Government should make them wear a big yellow ‘C’ so we know whom to avoid.

    BTW, I was earnestly informed by an otherwise reasonably sane friend of long standing (albeit a Greens Party member) that the Coronavirus had been cobbled together by a Chinese scientist with a view to enabling Chinese World Domination.

  7. ALP under pressure to act over racism row

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/alp-under-pressure-to-act-over-racism-row-20200212-p5407l.html

    The Victorian Labor Party is facing internal pressure to act over accusations factional heavyweight Jasvinder Sidhu, who was assaulted at a suburban branch meeting last month, made racist comments.
    :::
    Tensions are flaring within state Labor as Left and Right factions jostle for control of key seats in Melbourne’s west and south-east ahead of preselections.

    Mr Sidhu has become a controversial figure within the party since he lost pre-selection for the seat of Tarneit to MP Sarah Connolly in 2017 and crossed from the Right faction to Premier Daniel Andrews’ Socialist Left faction.

  8. ‘The party of Jeff Kennett’: Liberals in revolt over VicRoads sell-off

    https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/the-party-of-jeff-kennett-liberals-in-revolt-over-vicroads-sell-off-20200213-p540i7.html

    Victorian Liberal leader Michael O’Brien faces a backbench revolt over the flashpoint issue of privatisation, with one dissident MP accusing him of abandoning core Liberal beliefs.

    The rebellion by two MPs, James Newbury and Beverly McArthur, comes after Mr O’Brien slammed the Andrews Labor government over reports it was planning to sell off VicRoads’ registration arm.

    Mr Newbury said Mr O’Brien’s opposition to any proposed “flog-off” of the rego agency by Labor, with the leader concerned about rising costs to consumers and data privacy fears, was at odds with the traditional values of the party.

    The Brighton MP invoked the legacy of Liberal hero Jeff Kennett, who as premier presided over a massive program of privatisation.
    :::
    “Successive governments have accepted that privatisation ultimately delivers better services and investment back into the community.

  11. Peter van Onselen
    @vanOnselenP
    So the Otis Group named themselves after Otis restaurant in Canberra where they first met…it’s also an acronym for Outside The Inner Sanctum

  13. nath @ #1310 Thursday, February 13th, 2020 – 12:59 pm

    Peter van Onselen
    @vanOnselenP
    Of course the Labor deputy leader has to play down the story…but it’s not just about a dinner – it’s all the leaked texts and emails between the group which followed, and their contents of course. I’ll have more to reveal on
    @10NewsFirst
    tonight https://skynews.com.au/details/_6132012415001… #auspol

    Good to see PvO living up to his reputation as the only journalist in Australia holding the government to account.

  15. Danama Papers
    says:
    Good to se PvO living up to his reputation as the only journalist in Australia holding the government to account.
    _______________
    I’m glad he gives it to all comers. Isn’t that what good journalism is supposed to be about?

  16. C@t

    You give as good as you get. There is huge consequential difference between a bit of trash talk on a blog between two unnamed strangers, and spreading of racism under a fig leaf of “telling it like it is”. As I say BB has form on this front.

    BTw why don’t you and he go back to the PUB, which is proudly pro-Labor, as you want this site to be?

  17. ‘Unchained and unhinged’: Conservative Max Boot says Trump knows he can do whatever he wants

    Conservative Washington Post columnist Max Boot blasted the Republican Senate for giving President Donald Trump a license to do “whatever he wants.”

    “He has really emboldened by that acquittal — after the sham trial the Senate Republicans put on,” Boot told CNN’s Don Lemon Wednesday. “He basically sees it as a license to do anything he wants to do. He said that repeatedly, he says he thinks he has the right to do pretty much everything under the Constitution.

    Boot called it “banana republican stuff,” saying it was something he never thought we’d see happen in the United States.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/unchained-and-unhinged-conservative-max-boot-says-trump-knows-he-can-do-whatever-he-wants/

  18. Otis is a brand of elevator. It was obviously chosen as a name because the plotters wanted to go right to the top very quickly!

  19. nath @ 4:03pm

    Leaking emails….fomenting instability… could be a Greens mole, after all teh evil Greens are responsible for everything and a whole lot more.

    Northern Territory Labor ‘manufactured’ leaks to drive out dissenters over budget crisis, politician says

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-22/northern-territory-labor-leak-drive-out-dissenters-budget-crisis/10663766

    One of a trio of dumped Northern Territory Labor Government members has said that there had been a “concerted effort” to drive them out of the party, with damaging email leaks manufactured by Government advisors.

    Aboriginal Affairs and Primary Industry and Resources Minister Ken Vowles, Assistant Minister Jeff Collins and backbencher Scott McConnell were ejected from the Labor Caucus on Friday after a series of leaked emails earlier this week exposed dissent within the party regarding the NT’s ballooning debt and how the Government is handling it.
    :::
    “It would be setting an incredibly dangerous precedent for Labor parties and Labor governments around the country to talk about expelling members simply because you had a difference of opinion? That’s outrageous,” Mr Collins said.

    He said none of the three had voted against the Government.

  21. lizzie,

    Referring to privatisation of….?

    I thought it was funny and ironical. Labor spruiking privatisation and the Liberal opposition opposing it.

    Shifting sands, shifting values, when it suits.

  27. nath @ #1310 Thursday, February 13th, 2020 – 12:59 pm

    Peter van Onselen
    @vanOnselenP
    Of course the Labor deputy leader has to play down the story…but it’s not just about a dinner – it’s all the leaked texts and emails between the group which followed, and their contents of course. I’ll have more to reveal on
    @10NewsFirst
    tonight https://skynews.com.au/details/_6132012415001… #auspol

    Re this so called Otis Group. If PvO has copies of emails and texts between members of this “secret” cabal, that means that at least one of them has leaked them to PvO implying they’re not quite the close “band of brothers” they’re portrayed as being. It seems at least one of them is actually either a mole or a rat.

  29. Lovey @ #1318 Thursday, February 13th, 2020 – 4:06 pm

    C@t

    You give as good as you get. There is huge consequential difference between a bit of trash talk on a blog between two unnamed strangers, and spreading of racism under a fig leaf of “telling it like it is”. As I say BB has form on this front.

    BTw why don’t you and he go back to the PUB, which is proudly pro-Labor, as you want this site to be?

    Why don’t you stick your suggestion where the sun don’t shine? This blog is not going to become The Green Left Weekly, no matter how hard you try.

    Oh, and I love the justificication for nath’s (and LvT’s, for that matter, and BB, when he is of a mind), casual misogyny. ‘You give as good as you get’. Stridently defending oneself from the attacks of these grubs is reduced to, ‘You give as good as you get’. Uh huh. Now I get it. The Lord of the Flies Rules, ok?

    No, sorry, nath has been nothing but trouble since he turned up with his hating on Bill Shorten, the AWU and the SDA schtick. Then, when people tried to defend them, he hated on them too. You may think I should just grin and bear it, because, ‘same-same’. I don’t.

  31. lizzie

    Kennett’s reign galvanised me to become a community activist. The image of him shovelling sand over the waiting mdia was ….grrrrrrr…..and is forever embedded in my mind.

  34. The Queensland town of Clermont was at the centre of the coal debate last year when anti-Adani protesters visited the region, but a new debate has inflamed the community. This time questioning the environmental impact of a new proposed thermal coal mine.

    Key points:
    *An open-cut, export-grade thermal coal project has been proposed 25km north-west of the Queensland town of Clermont
    *The pro-coal community have objected to development through the Blair Athol State Forest
    *One researcher has questioned the veracity of Huaxin Energy’s self-assessed environmental impact report, with concerns for the region’s koala population
    *The Moorlands Coal Project, owned by Chinese company Huaxin Energy, is a proposed open-cut, export-grade thermal coal development project planned 25 kilometres north-west of Clermont.

    But the staunchly pro-coal community is concerned about the proposed location of a haul road, arguing the development through the Blair Athol State Forest will have a negative impact on koala populations and the tourism economy.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-02-13/coal-town-clermont-fights-to-save-koala-habitat-mining/11882884

  37. First time I’ve been on here for a while and I haven’t seen a change in the behaviour of some posters, IMHO some people have decend even lower in their racist and personal attacks. Mr Bowe, you appaently have a set of rules for posting here, yes? How about enforcing them now and then? I know you, like everybody else are flat out (going by the amount of posts by some there is a possibility some are busier than others) but the site is getting to the stage where it’s unreadable because of all the juvenile games people are playing. Once it was the first plce I’d recommend to people that had an intrest in politics or any subject you can think of invariably there would be a comment that mentioned what your current interest at the time. Do I do it now? Nope. Why not? Because of the previously mentioned reasons amongst others.
    All that was a long way of saying “For fek sake, apply the rules you created”

  39. It seems GG is appropriating the humour of a former Greens’ Senator. Bad form.

    Greensborough Growler
    says:
    Thursday, February 13, 2020 at 4:07 pm
    Otis is a brand of elevator. It was obviously chosen as a name because the plotters wanted to go right to the top very quickly!

    ________________________________
    Andrew Bartlett
    @AndrewBartlett
    Replying to
    @vanOnselenP
    I thought it was because it’s a brand of elevator, and they think they’re all movin’ on up.

  40. From The Grauniad blog:

    Tony Burke is talking to Patricia Karvelas about last night’s factional dinner:

    “Sorry if I sound not especially engaged with the excitement of the fact, a group of member for Parliament were all invited to dinner on an email chain, and they were encouraged to talk about a particular policy issue if they came along.

    This happens in Canberra across a range of different opinions, different parties every night of the week.

    That’s what has always happened. All that has happened as a journalist got hold of some emails which say no more than what member for Parliament have said publicly.”

    Sounds about right to me.

  41. C@t + poroti

    I got called out earlier but thanks for posting those pics up of the Potter goblin.

    LOL Dr Evil is much more Robert’s style.

  42. Danama Papers @ #1342 Thursday, February 13th, 2020 – 4:34 pm

    From The Grauniad blog:

    Tony Burke is talking to Patricia Karvelas about last night’s factional dinner:

    “Sorry if I sound not especially engaged with the excitement of the fact, a group of member for Parliament were all invited to dinner on an email chain, and they were encouraged to talk about a particular policy issue if they came along.

    This happens in Canberra across a range of different opinions, different parties every night of the week.

    That’s what has always happened. All that has happened as a journalist got hold of some emails which say no more than what member for Parliament have said publicly.”

    Sounds about right to me.

    A storm in PvO’s teacup?

  46. nath,

    Not true.

    But, as per your brilliant statistical analysis the other night, I wouldn’t expect you to know whether you were up or down.

  47. No, no, no Lovey…

    Imagine you are an Asian ethnic, Australian born, knows no other country, and now is being shunned – as a disease carrier, displacing the earlier meme of spy, BB.

    One of the key traits of the Holier Than Thou brigade here – the Loveys, the Pegasii, the roaring Guytaurs – is their indecent rush to condemn others morally, particularly with the “racist” slur. They think it’s a conversation stopper. How can anyone recover from it?

    The point is this: one of the few lucky breaks the world has been afforded with the COVID-19 epidemic is that, for better or worse, it’s pretty easy to avoid potential carriers of the disease: by recognizing their ethnicity (or race, if you want to use that term). It’s a pretty coarse filter, but it’s better than none.

    Referring to “Africans” doesn’t mean you’re racist towards black people. Even using the term “black people” isn’t racist – a word employed to denigrate, not just identify.

    Likewise referring to “Chinese”, is not to use a racist code word. Recognizing physical “Chinese” ethnic or racial traits doesn’t mean you’re racist. That is too easy a driveby slur to make.

    99% of COVID-19 patients are Chinese. Many, many travelled here before the government banned flights. It is effectively impossible to distinguish the 3rd generation Chinese- Australian waiter serving your table in a Chinese restaurant from the newly-arrived Chinese tourist from Wuhan sitting at the next table.

    I guess you could make enquiries of the individuals in question. Perhaps the government would force the tourist to sew a Chinese flag on the sleeve of their jacket? The former would be rude, the latter disgraceful. It’s easier to avoid the entire embarrassing (and potentially infectious) situation by staying away.

    We’ve already seen here today the cocksure Dr Wombat tell us all that COVID-19 definitely cannot be transmitted by air, so anyone not wishing to be seated near a possibly infected person, or to breathe the air they breathed a few seconds before must be hysterical, or racist.

    I’d already read the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) web site on the disease before I wrote what I wrote. Wombat assumed I hadn’t and took the opportunity to score an easy point, and impress us all with his superior knowledge.

    Except he was wrong.

    You CAN catch COVID-19 by inhaling airborne droplets. That is the primary method of infection according to the CDC.

    Hey, the CDC could be wrong too. But that only goes to prove how LITTLE we know about this disease, which was unknown to science up to a couple of weeks before last Christmas.

    Just sashaying off down to Chinatown to show solidarity, assuming that others will accuse you of being racist if you don’t, is how this disease is going to spread. It mighn’t be a restaurant. It might be a university college or lecture theatre with newly arrived Chinese students present. Or a school hall at assembly time. The latter two are why many of these institutions remain closed to Chinese students until we know more: we are erring on the side of caution.

    If Lovey can spot a tourist newly arrived from a Chibese city, in contrast to that 3rd generation Chinese-Australian waiter serving him at the next table, simply by sight, then good luck to him.

    But I’ll pass on the Yum Cha, just the same thanks. For the time being at least.

  48. A storm in PvO’s teacup?

    C@t

    To some extent yes but I’d still be interested in knowing who are the true ringleaders and who simply decided they needed to come along for whatever reason..

    The reporting I’d like to see is the detail of individual MPs views on climate change, coal and whether they are well informed on technology.

    One of the photos was none other than my local MP Meryl Swanson. I’d like to think she was obliged to be involved by having Fitzibbon as a neighbour. Still no real info.

  50. frednk
    “I have no experience with them, I’m just not impressed with EA’s efforts when it comes to representing the the profession. I agree with BB’s summary.”

    I would agree and was not suggesting EA does anything meaningful in an IR sense to protect the work positions of engineers. But my point is, not for lack of trying them out, that neither do the unions that supposedly do represent engineers. In over 30 years I have never had a single one visit an engineering workplace where I worked, even some departments with several hundred engineers on staff. They seem to have a very 1960s view of all professionals as some type of rare in-demand breed of worker who can negotiate with employers to always get a good deal for themselves. For some that is true when times are good. For others it is never true. For public service engineers it has not been true in my working lifetime.

    I am suggesting there is actually a big opportunity here for the union movement, but the incumbent organisations are not up to the task. They want the fee income, so they can pay themselves and justify delegate numbers, but do not do their job effectively.

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