Essential Research leadership ratings and coronavirus polling

As the contours of the Eden-Monaro by-election start to take shape, a new poll finds respondents highly satisfied with antipodean governments’ handling of coronavirus, and mindful of the less happy situation elsewhere in the anglosphere.

The Guardian reports Essential Research’s latest weekly round of coronavirus polling includes the pollster’s monthly leadership ratings, which have Scott Morrison’s approval at 64%, gaining a further five points after his 18-point hike a month ago. Anthony Albanese is down two to 42% — we must await the full report later today to see their disapproval ratings. Morrison holds a 50-25 lead as preferred prime minister, out from 46-27 last time (UPDATE: Full report here; both are at 27% disapproval, which is a four point drop in Morrison’s case and a two point drop in Albanese’s).

The most interesting of the latest tranche of coronavirus questions relate to other countries’ handling of the crisis, with 79% rating New Zealand’s response very good or good, whereas (if I’m reading this correctly) the United States’ response is rated very poor or poor by 71%, and the United Kingdom is similarly rated by 48%. Another question finds 57% support for maintaining Newstart either at its current level “after the current crisis passes” or aligning it with the rate for single pensioners, with only 28% in favour of returning it to its earlier level.

The poll also finds growing appetite for easing restrictions, with 37% now saying it is too soon to do so, down from 49% a fortnight ago, and 36% wanting restrictions eased over the next month or two, but still only 10% wanting them gone as soon as possible. Respondents were also presented with a series of propositions about school closures, which found 45% sayig schools should reopen, “half” saying schools should teach students remotely until the outbreak passes, and 41% saying they would keep their children at home even if schools reopened.

The latest news on the by-election front is that NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro has announced he will not run in Eden-Monaro, and Senator Jim Molan has likewise withdrawn his intention to pursue Liberal preselection, with both allowing a clear run for Andrew Constance, NSW Transport Minister and member for the seat of Bega, most of which is within Eden-Monaro. The by-election now looms as a straightforward contest between Labor and Liberal, with the Nationals sure to be only a minor presence in Barilaro’s absence, if indeed they run at all.

Constance was the subject of sympathetic media attention after nearly losing his Malua Bay house in the summer bushfires, a particularly helpful asset given the federal goverment’s handling of the fires loomed as its main liability in the campaign. He revealed in March that he would be quitting politics when the bushfire recovery was complete, albeit without making clear when that might be. The by-election that will now be required in Bega will thus be less disruptive than one in Barilaro’s seat of Monaro would have been, and the seat is also at less risk of being lost by the government. No indication so far as I can see as to who might be in the running in Bega.

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.

3,512 comments on “Essential Research leadership ratings and coronavirus polling”

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  1. Danama Papers

    “All those battlers living off their EARNED(!) franking credits on Struggle Street in Point Piper, will be crying into their Dom Perignon! They may even be forced to sell their second yacht!”

    The tears will flow in Peppermint Grove.

    This is the end of the world as we know it.

  2. alfred venison @ #100 Tuesday, May 5th, 2020 – 9:09 am

    Barney : that’s what i thought. so why is she getting flack like that? ’cause she’s an ex-yank? i don’t get it. has anyone slanging her read the original article? -a.v.

    Because this Government loves a distraction and their media lackeys and Peg will happily play along.

  3. Why do progressives such as Aly and Soutphommasane immediately hit the racism button when Australians want to talk about a sustainable population?

    Why don’t these very same progressives LEAD the debate on a sustainable population?

    After all, any vague hope of a Green New Deal being sustainable must have at its core two elements: per capita patterns of resource use AND the number of people.

    Why is that individual Greens have to be forced by the Virus to get off planes when planes use up around 9% of the world’s energy use – ALL of it fossil fuels?

    The world’s population in 1920 was 2 billion. It is now around 7.5 billion – more than three times as large.

    What is the Green New Deal sustainable population target? And how are the Green going to double the conservation estate, reduce fisheries, reduce forest use, reduce water use, reduce the impact on coasts, reduce the impact on soils AND double the population by 2050?

  6. alfred venison

    Conservative anarchist sounds like a contradiction in terms, but I think the explanation might fly over my head. 🙂

  7. I really don’t have a problem with the level of immigration if it is for permanent workers. I do have a problem with workers being shipped into Australia on a temporary basis to allow companies, usually overseas owned, to undermine the Industrial relations pay and conditions that are currently in place. This puts Australian owned businesses at a massive disadvantage or they can replicate the actions of these companies and underpay their workers.
    Meat processing plants are one area where this has occurred, to the detriment of the local workers who all lost their jobs when the plant was sold. Not only do people lose their jobs but the money the workers make is shipped overseas, the product is often not available locally, it also doesn’t help that there have been instances were these workers have actually undermined the living standards in the local area because they don’t abide by our local customs.
    Now during this virus the warehousing of these workers in share houses after working all day in an unsafe environment increases the general publics risk.

  9. Bluebottle
    “I had a look at the Qantas website to see how much a hypothetical airfare costs now.
    There are no discount fares. At all. Flights that used to cost around $200 each way are now over $400 each way.”

    The business model of airlines, including Qantas, is busted. High priced business class travel, plus massive numbers of pleb-class tourists, drove their income. Both are gone. The international travel income stream is also gone. Even when domestic restarts, there will be less demand than before, since so many businesses realise they can now use video-conferences.

    With planes less full, and new Covid 19 screening security meaning slower boarding, airfares will return to former levels, as you have found. Fuel prices are low, but airlines are carrying huge finance costs on fleets of planes that are sitting idle.

    Likewise airport corporation revenues, driven on flight numbers and car parking charges, are greatly reduced.

  10. Someone might like to point out to the Commissioner that in medical parlance, the opposite of mild is severe. ‘Acute’ relates to the time frame involved – acute means of recent or sudden onset, with nothing to do with severity, or contagiousness, and the opposite of acute in this context is ‘chronic’.

  12. Poroti and a.v.
    There are a lot of rich people relying on people on temp visas to prop up their businesses.

    The system where a worker must keep the employer happy on pain of losing the job and being shipped out (they don’t get to stay in Aus if they lose their sponsor) is tantamount to serfdom.
    It leads to exploitation of the worst kind. Illegal pay, conditions, WH&S, even demands for sexual favours have been verified.
    A disgrace which Australians should demand be shut down.
    But no, we have the seriously naive out there with the self-interested attacking the person who is trying to change the system.

  13. Progressives are saying, wtte, that now is not the time to be talking about actually having a sustainable population policy…

    Well then, let’s double our population by 2050 because we can’t even discuss sustainability.

    Oh, and we MUST do a Green New Deal.

  17. Dr Sally KoalaKoala
    @slsandpet
    ·
    1h
    So my parents nursing home will not permit me to look the through the window and wave to them when I drop off the meds to Goulburn on Monday.

    Apparently it’s against the rules of NSW Health

    Have not clapped eyes on them since March 9

    Surely this is just officiousness gone mad. Can’t even look through a window and wave? Bloody stupid.

  20. Assantdj says:
    Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 11:19 am
    I really don’t have a problem with the level of immigration if it is for permanent workers. I do have a problem with workers being shipped into Australia on a temporary basis to allow companies, usually overseas owned, to undermine the Industrial relations pay and conditions that are currently in place. This puts Australian owned businesses at a massive disadvantage or they can replicate the actions of these companies and underpay their workers.
    Meat processing plants are one area where this has occurred, to the detriment of the local workers who all lost their jobs when the plant was sold. Not only do people lose their jobs but the money the workers make is shipped overseas, the product is often not available locally, it also doesn’t help that there have been instances were these workers have actually undermined the living standards in the local area because they don’t abide by our local customs.
    Now during this virus the warehousing of these workers in share houses after working all day in an unsafe environment increases the general publics risk.

    Well argued, Assantdj.
    This stuff needs to be stated and re-stated every time the topic of temp visa workers comes up.

  21. Maude Lynne

    The system where a worker must keep the employer happy on pain of losing the job and being shipped out (they don’t get to stay in Aus if they lose their sponsor) is tantamount to serfdom.

    Exactly. The people at my old work place were mighty pissed with conditions and pay but had to put up with it for those reasons. All had the aim of eventually getting on to the pathway to permanent residency. There was no shortage of their skills ,just a shortage of local people willing to be so overqualified and underpaid.

  23. boerwar

    How about the suburban shopping centres ? I reckon those big malls might struggle to get people back. Avoiding crowds will be well ingrained for many.

  24. We did our weekly shop this morning in Canberra’s main mall. Moribund.

    Where is Moribund? Near Belconnen?

  25. Again, the meanings of ‘acute’ and ‘severe’ in medical parlance is confusing the questioners, as they head into recess.

  27. You can’t build wealth through debt. Or rather, you can’t build wealth for anyone except the bank that way.

    That’s just a silly over-generalisation.

    Taking on debt to cover capital investments, where you can reasonably expect to make a higher return on those investments than the servicing cost of the debt, makes perfect sense.

  28. Almost 1 million Australians have lost their jobs since social-distancing measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 ramped up, according to official figures.

    Analysing payroll data from the tax office, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found the number of jobs slumped by 7.5 per cent between March 14 and April 18.

    With slightly more than 13 million employed people in Australia in early March, that means almost 1 million people lost their jobs in just over a month.

    The ABS said job losses were heaviest in accommodation and food services, where more one-third of workers lost employment, followed by arts and recreation services where 27 per cent of staff found themselves out of work.

  30. I am starting to think that this government believes that casual workers should be classed as leaners rather than lifters.
    After years of allowing employers to casualties the work force, now that the shit has hit the fan, the government has gone all out to pull the rug from under the feet of this class of worker.

    It started to show its colours when it denied jobkeeper to casuals and I think that the manner in which this initiative is being implemented by business will ensure that any casuals still working are about to be kicked to the kerb.
    Last night DIL was talking about the implementation of roster changes now that her employer has been approved for jobkeeper.
    No shifts for casuals, just a separation letter
    All permanents part timers to be rosterd to fill shifts up to the wage cap.

    This is going to force a number of these workers to have to send kids back to school, rely on grandparents for childcare and generally undermine the ability they had to manage their lives including juggling study and career commitments whilst doing increased hours. The rules are not debatable and store managers are the meat in the sandwich.

    The question is, is this an unintended consequence or a planned strategy. Anyone with half a brain could have predicted it would unfold this way.

  31. @MaralynParker
    ·
    47m
    The clutching of pearls over Annaliese van Diemen’s tweet can now cease please – as the Victorian Public Service Commission investigated (good grief) and decided there was no breach of the code of conduct.
    The Lib’s nasty out-of-touch view of the world crashes yet again.

  32. Maude Lynne : precisely. as i understand her position, k.k. favo(u)rs settler migration but she opposes worker migration that’s used to bust unions & erode conditions of australian workers. -a.v.

  33. does anyone know what’s going on in QLD? Do they have a cluster? Or is there higher testing picking up a few more cases?

  34. Bluebottle,

    The flight prices now are based on limited flights. It is pure economics, they have a captive market. You don’t need to travel now as per government requirements so prices are higher.

    Once, the borders start coming down and people are happy to travel, flight nos. will increase and the prices will reflect this.

    I did a check of flights from Adelaide to Melbourne each way in say early September – prices are $120 each way. Not any different to what it was pre-Covid19.

  36. Diogenes @ #111 Tuesday, May 5th, 2020 – 11:24 am

    Surprisingly reports of domestic violence have reduced by 50% in SA.

    If you think about this it’s probably not surprising. Husbands and wives and the kids not needing to get up at sparrow’s fart in the morning to rush off to a job via a traffic jam and then home again the same way, as well as wrangling kids to go where they need to go, instead having the time to stop and smell the flowers together as a family.
    Makes sense to me.

  37. I probably won’t have the courage to listen to his rubbish, but I wonder which excuses Frydenberg will use to explain his failures today.

    Guardian

    And it is only predicted to rise.
    A reminder that the government assistance has a sunset clause of 24 September.

    Shane Wright
    @swrighteconomy
    If the ABS payroll data is spot on, the loss of about one million jobs since mid-March has taken the unemployment rate to almost 12.5%. Or about 7.4pp.

  39. lizzie @ #137 Tuesday, May 5th, 2020 – 11:59 am

    I probably won’t have the courage to listen to his rubbish, but I wonder which excuses Frydenberg will use to explain his failures today.

    Guardian

    And it is only predicted to rise.
    A reminder that the government assistance has a sunset clause of 24 September.

    Shane Wright
    @swrighteconomy
    If the ABS payroll data is spot on, the loss of about one million jobs since mid-March has taken the unemployment rate to almost 12.5%. Or about 7.4pp.

    Hmm. How about, ‘overseas headwinds bringing the Coronavirus to Australia’? 🙂

  40. Qld figures

    FIVE new cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Queensland overnight as the state continues to flatten the curve.

    Among the five cases, there were three from interstate that will be added to Queensland’s tally, as well as one from the Gold Coast and another in Brisbane who contracted the virus through their household.

    Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said authorities were still tracking down how the Gold Coast case contracted the virus.

  42. Apologies, this may well have been already noted, but Sydney’s Carriageworks, incorporating the old Redfern railways yards and work shops, and which has hosted a huge range of events – Sydney Festival, Writer’s Festival, Sydney Chamber Opera, Food Markets, Art and Fashion – in its uniquely fabulous bold setting, has gone into voluntary administration.

    Not a peep from the NSW Govt that I have heard of.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/05/carriageworks-goes-into-voluntary-administration-citing-irreparable-loss-of-income-due-to-coronavirus

  46. caf @ #127 Tuesday, May 5th, 2020 – 11:49 am

    Taking on debt to cover capital investments, where you can reasonably expect to make a higher return on those investments than the servicing cost of the debt, makes perfect sense.

    Too generous by half. It makes strictly less sense than doing exactly the same thing except without using debt to pay for it.

    Put your own capital to work, not someone else’s. Then it doesn’t matter if you can’t fly your planes for a few months; you don’t need to fly them because they’re your planes rather than the bank’s planes.

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