Essential Research: leadership ratings and more coronavirus

Monthly leadership ratings from Essential confirm the overall picture painted by Newspoll, with both leaders up but Scott Morrison especially so.

As reported by The Guardian, the fortnightly Essential Research poll (a sequence complicated by a bonus coronavirus poll last week) includes the pollster’s monthly leadership ratings, which reflect the findings of Newspoll in very slightly lesser degree. Scott Morrison is up on approval from 41% to 59% (compared with 41% to 61% in Newspoll) and down on disapproval from 49% to 31% (compared with 53% to 35%), while Anthony Albanese is respectively up from 41% to 44% (compared with 40% to 45%) and down from 33% to 29% (compared with 40% to 36%).

For the fifth successive poll, Essential asked respondents about their level of concern about the threat of coronavirus to Australia, to which the combined very concerned and quite concerned responses climbed from 68% to 63% to 82% to 88%, and has now remained steady at 88%. No information is provided on preferred prime minister — we will have to wait for the full report later today to see, among other things, if the question was asked.

UPDATE: Full report here. Scott Morrison now holds a 46-27 lead as preferred prime minister, out from 40-35 last time (note that the BludgerTrack trends are now updated with the latest Essential and Newspoll numbers). The government’s response is now rated good by 58%, up from 45% a week ago, and poor by 21%, down from 31%. The poll also finds 29% expecting a lengthy recession due to coronavirus; 51% expecting that “the economy will be impacted for 6-12 months or longer and will stagnate or show slow growth thereafter” (which for my tastes is not sufficiently distinct in its wording from the first option); and 11% expecting the economy will “rebound within 2-3 months”. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1069.

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.

2,902 comments on “Essential Research: leadership ratings and more coronavirus”

Comments Page 6 of 59
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  3. Assantdj, I can see a massive class action happening because insufficient supplies of PPE. Doctors in hospitals have been directed to NOT wear PPE in ‘low risk’ areas of the hospital. Low risk is anywhere in the hospital except in the corona wards.

    Why would they direct doctors not to wear PPE, because they haven’t enough of the stuff.

    This is compounded by disallowing doctors to bring to work and wear, PPE they have sourced and paid for themselves.

    I can see this is going to work out badly for the authorities. A cluster of doctors at the Alfred here in Melbourne have come down with COVID19. They have never been in the Corona Ward and were infected while working in the low risk areas while being directed not to wear PPE. This is a standout case of negligence.

    Designating (incorrectly) that an area is low risk to justify the non use of PPE is not a defence. Not allowing doctors to use PPE they have sourced themselve, will compound their negligence.

    Offering two weeks in a hotel room free of charge, to quarantine infected doctors, is acknowledging your mistake.

    These doctors are well resourced and will have significant damages. The government is in big trouble.

  4. Holdenhillbilly @ #242 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 11:54 am

    An Adelaide man has reportedly hoarded more than 5400 toilet rolls after panic buying saw supermarket shelves stripped.

    An anonymous grocer told 9 News Adelaide they had been approached by the man, who has allegedly been contacting independent stores about his stash after being banned from online selling.

    It comes as many shoppers continue to struggle to get their hands on the precious paper despite assurances from the big supermarkets that stock levels are returning to normal.

    Surely Dutton will be knocking on his door anon. Or is it to be all show no go Dutton again?

  6. guytaur

    Wearing of masks in public should only be recommended if there is scientific evidence that it is effective.

    Right now in Australia with quite low community infections the use of very limited PPE that is of highest value in Clinical settings is a waste of resources.

    Most masks being worn in public are ineffective because they are either the wrong type or being used wrongly.

    If you are sick – wear a mask but do not go out.

    If you have been in contact with a confirmed case you should not be out of isolation for 14 days.

    I will not be wearing a mask in public unless I am instructed to.

  7. Socrates

    The reason I posted about your last sentence is precisely because I think it is a defence issue. There are many terrorists getting ideas from the impacts of the virus.

    It would take only one such bad actor to force a cruise ship to infect a country with the virus.

    Having the results of the police investigation public are in the national security interest not against it as a result.

    Secrecy only ever helps the terrorists who are emboldened by seeing weakness even if its not apparent on the surface. We are in agreement I just think our culture is to undersell the advantage of transparency as a national security tool.

  8. “Andrew Forrest is spending $160 million of his own money on medical supplies including PPE with the first deliveries already at hospitals”

    Not quite – he’s stumping up the money initially, but he’s going to sell the equipment back to government at cost.

    Still useful.

  9. Buce

    You just made an assumption. You and I don’t know how many asymptomatic cases there are in the community.

    We don’t have mass testing. Thats the only way to find out. The closest we have to that is Iceland finding 50% of the population was asymptomatic.

    I think your assumption is flaky at the best.

  10. Vogon Poet

    How is it bullshit? The first 2 plane loads – 400 tonnes – is on the ground and first deliveries have been made.

  11. Guytaur

    Fair enough. I am against the secrecy on many grounds. Neither of us can see any obvious way it benefits the public.

  14. “To allow this generous commitment to continue to scale, the WA Government will reimburse Minderoo Foundation at cost for the supplies purchased so that Minderoo Foundation can further leverage its incredible commitment of up to $160 million over the coming weeks and continue to source these critical medical supplies for Australia,” says Cook.

    https://www.businessnewsaus.com.au/articles/twiggy-forrest-s-foundation-commits–160m-for-medical-supplies.html

  17. I don’t think Twiggy ever was donating it. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I’m not sure if he claimed he was or if it was just picked up by the media that way.

    The useful contribution he is making is using the suppliers he has, and presumably people on the ground, to organise the equipment.

  18. Ryan Struyk‏Verified account @ryanstruyk · 14m14 minutes ago

    Reported US coronavirus cases via @CNN:

    5 weeks ago: 91 cases
    4 weeks ago: 678 cases
    3 weeks ago: 4,459 cases
    2 weeks ago: 42,663 cases
    1 week ago: 160,698 cases
    Right now: 367,507 cases

    Reported US coronavirus deaths via @CNN:

    5 weeks ago: 2 deaths
    4 weeks ago: 26 deaths
    3 weeks ago: 86 deaths
    2 weeks ago: 541 deaths
    1 week ago: 3,003 deaths
    Right now: 10,908 deaths

  19. Guytaur

    We know that there is very low number of asymptomatic people in the community because the statistics of the cases show that. Most cases are overseas/Cruise travellers and contacts with them. There are very few unexplained cases.

    I’m happy to be proven wrong if you can produce statistics that tell me I am.

  22. Buce

    You do not know that. You are assuming that.

    Only mass testing can prove it one way or the other. Thats the point.

  23. Blobbit,

    I initially thought he was donating but he is using his own money to finance the purchases and using FMG employees to do the admin – so there are some significant costs.

  24. If these are the questions, frankly I wouldn’t know how to answer. More explanation needed. For one thing, what’s the difference between flattening and squashing?

    Try to eradicate the virus
    39%
    Squash the curve
    18%
    Flatten the curve to herd immunity
    43%

  25. Guytaur

    I am not assuming it – the statistics don’t lie. If there were lots of asymptomatic carriers in the population then there’d be lots of symptomatic patients turning up in hospitals – it is clear that you don’t have one without the other.

  26. beguiledagain: “We will lock down until we eradicate this beast, no matter how long it takes.
    What good is an economy if thousands of people die.”

    So why do we allow people to drive cars and trucks on the road?

  28. Buce

    We don’t test asymptomatic people. We have restricted testing. There are good reasons for that but its not mass testing and your assumptions remain just that. Assumptions.

    Plus whats the problem in adopting the culture anyway to prevent the spread of colds and flu when we know the double whammy is a killer?

  29. Dandy Murray
    It’s good to see some states being proactive and tha acknowledgment that this is an example of an industry that should receive ongoing support in the national interest.
    It will be interesting to see what happens down the track. Will our federal government continue to procure cheaper and has now been found, not always safe equipment from overseas or will they look to the bigger picture of national interest and support local producers.

  31. meher baba

    So why do we allow people to drive cars and trucks on the road?

    This is not a relevant argument because driving cars and trucks is part of economic productivity.

  33. As so many so often seem to get the wrong end of the stick around here

    Without specifically defending Peter Collignon, I’d suggest people actually read or follow up what he has to say himself, Not sprout imaginary nonsense about whatever they think he might’ve said somewhere they’ve never actually taken the time to check out. A big ask around here often enough.

    The poll I posted is simply an online poll asking for readers opinion following an extended article that quotes epidemiologist Prof Blakely and outlines the options, in his opinion. If anyone wants to suffer themselves by reading the freely available news com au site they can see it all. Just wasn’t going to post the link. Front page top article last time I looked.

  34. Socrates @ #266 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 12:25 pm

    A sobering stat here for Boris Johnson – of UK NHS Covid 19 patients admitted to an ICU, 48% (79 of 165) have died.
    https://www.physiciansweekly.com/mortality-rate-of-covid-19-patients-on-ventilators/

    That statistic must be outdated. The UK has over 5,000 deaths; surely more than 165 of those were admitted to an ICU?

    But also yes, with more than 10% of confirmed cases in the UK resulting in death, the odds of surviving an ICU admission must be poor. Although the criteria for admitting a PM into ICU is probably different from what’s used for the plebs, so not necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison.

  35. lizzie: ” If these are the questions, frankly I wouldn’t know how to answer. More explanation needed. For one thing, what’s the difference between flattening and squashing?

    Try to eradicate the virus
    39%
    Squash the curve
    18%
    Flatten the curve to herd immunity
    43%

    I agree with you. First of all, as I argued earlier today, eradication of a disease is a very difficult goal which hasn’t been achieved yet with polio, measles, whooping cough, diptheria and a number of other illnesses for which we have had effective vaccinations for a long time.
    Perhaps, as someone pointed out, they meant “elimination”: that is, zero active cases in Australia, but with some prospect of another breakout at any given time.

    “Squash the curve” could mean a number of different things. If it means what I’m in favour of: that is, something that might be described as maintaining “near-elimination” with a gradual return to normal economic and social activity, then that’s great.

    “Flatten the curve to herd immunity” doesn’t make any sense. We have succeeded in flattening the curve and, by my calculations, at the current rate of daily infection of around 100-150 per day we are around 150 years away from reaching 30 per cent of the population becoming infected (which would seem to be at around the bare minimum required to establish any sort of herd immunity).

    So, no wonder you and I are confused by the choice of responses.

  36. Bucephalus
    The last I saw about Twiggys supplies was they were being checked to ensure they met the quality standard required. I have not read anywhere that they have been distributed, which made me think they might have been faulty.
    Overseas we have seen significant numbers of health workers being infected. It raises the question of how much of the PPE supply was faulty. I did read that a lot has been returned as unfit for purpose.

  37. lizzie: “This is not a relevant argument because driving cars and trucks is part of economic productivity.”

    So are restaurants, shopping malls, universities, holiday resorts, airlines, etc, etc,

  38. Bucephalus

    Blobbit,

    I initially thought he was donating but he is using his own money to finance the purchases and using FMG employees to do the admin – so there are some significant costs.

    Mr Forrest has consistently stated what he is doing, namely:
    – leveraging his business connections to obtain and expedite access to the equipment
    – leveraging his reputation to ensure (to the extent possible) that the equipment is fit for purpose (and bearing the financial risk if it is not – his overseas partners will not want to embarrass him so they will ensure that the equipment is good)
    This is a great thing for him to to, and much better and more appropriate than “donating 160m of his own money” for the same reason that smart money is better than the alternative.

    These facts have been known for days if not weeks.

  39. Guytaur

    You are the one making the assumption that there are lots of asymptomatic people in the community but that isn’t causing symptomatic cases in the community – that just doesn’t gel with the evidence of a highly contagious virus that produces both types of presentation.

  42. Norway on elimination
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-norway/coronavirus-epidemic-under-control-in-norway-health-minister-idUSKBN21O27H

    “OSLO (Reuters) – The coronavirus epidemic is “under control” in Norway, the health minister said on Monday, pointing to the low rate of transmission of the disease.
    …
    The Norwegian government announced three weeks ago emergency shutdowns of many public and private institutions, including schools and kindergartens, sending the economy into a tailspin and triggering hundreds of thousands of layoffs.

    The government will decide on Wednesday whether to extend the restrictions beyond mid-April. It was not immediately clear which measures could be lifted, nor when they would be.”

  43. Oh sorry Lizzie, just to be clear, my comment to beguiledagain meant shutting down roads in general as a means of preventing deaths, not just in the current crisis.

    If, as beguiledagain argued, it’s no good having an economy if there are thousands of deaths, then this rule must surely be applied to everything, not just coronavirus. While it is not yet clear that Australia will experience thousands of deaths from coronavirus, we most definitely experience thousands of deaths every year from road accidents.

  45. Guytaur

    I am not assuming it – the statistics don’t lie. If there were lots of asymptomatic carriers in the population then there’d be lots of symptomatic patients turning up in hospitals – it is clear that you don’t have one without the other.

    As I understand it, what one will likely first see is “unusual pneumonia” cases – namely otherwise fit people under forty or so who have no reason to have pneumonia. This is quite a weak signal initially, but presumably the health system is onto it.

  46. Meher Baba
    I read, flatten the curb to mean slow the rate only enough to mean health care is not overrun.
    Squash the curb to mean as close to elimination as we can.

  47. meher baba

    No, I knew you were speaking generally. I suppose government would take the view that the economy is more important than anything else. 😉

  48. “As I understand it, what one will likely first see is “unusual pneumonia” cases – namely otherwise fit people under forty or so who have no reason to have pneumonia. This is quite a weak signal initially, but presumably the health system is onto it.”

    And I’d think given how far we are into this, those cases would be showing up if there was currently large numbers of undiagnosed cases in the community. This of course doesn’t mean that it could be about to take off, but the low hospitalisation rate does allow for some inferences to be made.

  50. Bucephalus @ #289 Tuesday, April 7th, 2020 – 12:50 pm

    You are the one making the assumption that there are lots of asymptomatic people in the community but that isn’t causing symptomatic cases in the community – that just doesn’t gel with the evidence of a highly contagious virus that produces both types of presentation.

    In between “asymptomatic carries exist” and “they don’t” is the possibility that they exist but have largely been prevented from infecting others due to the lockdown/social-distancing measures in place.

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