Essential Research: coronavirus restrictions and conspiracy theories

A poll suggests a significant proportion of the population believes coronavirus was engineered in a Chinese laboratory, but other conspiracy theories remain consigned to the fringe.

Courtesy of The Guardian, some headline results of another weekly Essential Research poll on coronavirus, the full report of which should be published later today. This includes regular questions on federal and state governments’ handling with the crisis, of which we are only told that respondents remain highly positive, and on easing restrictions, for which we are told only 25% now consider it too soon, which is down two on last time and has been consistently declining over five surveys.

Beyond that, the survey gauged response to a number of what might be described as conspiracy theories concerning the virus. By far the most popular was the notion that the virus “was engineered and released from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan”, which has received a certain amount of encouragement from the Daily Telegraph but is starkly at odds with the scientific consensus. Agreement and disagreement with this proposition was tied on 39%.

Thirteen per cent subscribed to a theory that Bill Gates was involved in the creation and spread of the virus, with 71% disagreeing; 13% agreed the virus was not dangerous and was being used to force people to get vaccines, with 79% disagreeing; 12% thought the 5G network was being used to spread the virus, with 75% disagreeing; and 20% agreed the number of deaths was being exaggerated, with “more than 70%” disagreeing. The poll also found 77% agreed that the outbreak in China was worse than the official statistics showed.

The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1073.

UPDATE: Full report here.

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.

3,318 comments on “Essential Research: coronavirus restrictions and conspiracy theories”

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  1. WWP:

    It goes back to Malcolm going on his own out in front of 5-eyes and banning Huawei from 5G in Australia. The US didn’t even go that far, the UK literally used Huawei. Malcolm saw a way to suck up to Murdoch and domestic political advantage in being an idiot, and it has just got worse since there.

    That’s rather ahistorical.

    Things that have been done to counter the CCP:
    – Mr Rudd’s criticism of China
    – Hauwei banned from NBN by the Gillard government
    – USMC invited to Darwin by the Gillard government
    – Development of the original TTP security partnership (with the key parties being Australia, Japan, USA and Vietnam) by Gillard, Rudd and Abbott governments
    – Freedom of Navigation in South China Sea by Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments
    – Lights-out submarines in the South China sea by all AUS governments since China became powerful

    All of the above involved reliable US partners: the USN, USMC and (prior to Mr Trump) the US Administration.

    Stuff ups:
    – Darwin port sale. This was driven by combination of random stupidity and fiscal imbalance – NT needed/wanted the money…
    – South Pacific / PNG. This seems to have been bipartisan neglect and in the case of PNG poor execution at Manus. Apart from the pun, AUS could simply have built and run a high grade teaching hospital with free service to the region for much lower cost than what was done. NZ would have assisted in-kind. USN likewise. PNG would have been very happy with this, (particularly in the Manus area)
    – Tasmania, Victoria, WA, NT, QLD? taking Chinese money. Driven by fiscal imbalance, and in the case of Victoria the running dispute over the Commonwealth contribution to infrastructure
    – The current noise. Driven by? But in any event undermined by the completely obvious fact that the current US Administration is thoroughly unreliable and therefore what has happened was bound to happen – in fact to the extent he thinks at all, Mr Trump probably thinks it’s a genius move on his part to sacrifice AUS in order to poke China in the eye. It will be very interesting to discover what representations USGOVT made to AUS before Mr Morrison spoke: I think it’s quite likely that Trump (yet again) betrayiong a long term ally will become a domestic political issue in the USA.

  3. will Morrison and his cronies be held to honour the $60 billion which they promised on top of the $70 billion = total $130 billion

    or will the $60 billion be returned to the foreign media tycoon Murdoch for Newsltd paying the libs/nats 2019 federal election campaign

  5. frednk @ #2636 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 6:45 pm


    davidwh says:
    Friday, May 22, 2020 at 6:40 pm

    CI yes why do the Libs insist on ensuring state Labor governments get ready-elected.

    I believe the black gangs nonsense really help Labor in the last Victorian election. The average Victorian was not impressed with the effort to pull the state apart. I think the The current open boarder campaign us helping Labor is WA and Queensland.

    I just thought that if that Tim Smith galah challenges Michael O’Brien for the Victorian state Liberal leadership, Daniel Andrews can probably turn his attention to Bolte’s record. 😀

  7. Hauwei banned from NBN by the Gillard government

    I like to be honest about blind spots and I had completely forgotten / didn’t even notice at the time this Nat Sec decision.

    Interesting the following comments from a delimiter article:

    The Financial Review, which broke the news, this morning wrote that the Government’s decision “reeks of Cold War conspiracy theories”, while a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson reportedly said the country hoped Australia would provide “a level and indiscriminate market environment for Chinese companies instead of wearing coloured glasses and obstructing Chinese companies’ normal operations in Australia in the name of security”.

    NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell also slammed the move yesterday, saying it was a “huge insult” to Huawei.

    This doesn’t change what Malcolm did and how Malcolm did the 5G ban which was deliberately and excessively aggressive, primarily for domestic purposes and fiscally and technology dumb. I’ve listened to a lot of US nat sec stuff on Hauwei and 5G and it is pretty clear this was a commercial / political issue not a pure nat sec issue.

  8. Couple of good lines from Aldo (sorry if already posted – haven’t had time to read back)

    This is a mistake you could have seen from space.

    This is a government that couldn’t run a bath

  9. From the G….destruction of wages….consumption to fall…

    Any potential lifting of restrictions going into June is likely to facilitate a slight return to retail activity, though the impact of lockdown throughout April and May means the picture for Q2 as a whole is entirely negative. Our forecasts estimate household consumption to fall by 19.5% over the course of the current quarter, before picking up from Q3 onwards.

    Consumer activity is expected to remain suppressed for much longer than this, however, with lingering fears over the virus, the continued need for social distancing, and wider economic uncertainty all serving to restrict spending. In a stark illustration of the economic impacts of coronavirus, we do not expect household consumption to reach pre-crisis levels until the mid-2020s.

    With restrictive measures as we currently know them highly unlikely to remain in place for this sort of timescale, this forecast highlights the longer-term effects of the current crisis on consumer spending, showing that the economic consequences will not solely be confined to the lockdown period.

  11. PVO speaking a lot of sense

    You know either you are way f*cked up or the whole world is if PvO comes close to making any sense at all.

  12. All I can say is that heads will roll at the ATO as the whizz-kids in Treasury do not like to be shown up; their political masters even less.

  13. WeWantPaul @ #2640 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 6:46 pm

    When you look at this site there are very few vocal anti labor types that are Green supporters or for that matter Liberals supporters.

    I think your error here is the ‘anti-Labor’ characterization. I’m a member because i expect great things, I judge my side harshly, what the other sides do wrong really isn’t that important to me, so I’m 100% pro labor but opposed to Labor doing things I think are stupid and detrimental to the Labor cause, which of late has been most things we do. But hey that isn’t anti-Labor it is just anti-weak and stupid, I don’t want the next 25 years to pass, like the last 25 years, with us only winning one election and even that election being down to the LNP handing it to us.

    So how long do Labor have to be no good for you to drop your membership ?

  14. CI please don’t tell anyone but I have developed an irrational respect for Anastasia.

    She is pretty much an LNP premier so of course you lust after her.

  17. boerwar says:
    Friday, May 22, 2020 at 7:01 pm
    Oh well. Morrison should not have offered a public view about anything to do with China. That’s the main thing. Democracy is being killed. From Australia’s Far Left champions of human rights and democracy?

    Silence.

    Having made quite stupid remarks about the pandemic and been suitably rebuked by China, Morrison has lost his tongue on HK.

    This is not a failing of the Left. It is a fuck up by LibNat leadership. They have failed us and they are failing our dear friends in HK.

  18. So how long do Labor have to be no good for you to drop your membership ?

    I dropped it for a period in the last decade but that was largely personal / their not being a local branch in my now liberal held seat and a bit of ‘disgruntled failed preselection candidate’.

    There would need to be a better alternative. I’m very much a ‘history is made by people who show up’ person. One of my family members and I have discussed a switch to the join the greens party, but decided to stay with Labor.

  19. WeWantPaul says:
    Friday, May 22, 2020 at 7:08 pm
    CI please don’t tell anyone but I have developed an irrational respect for Anastasia.
    She is pretty much an LNP premier so of course you lust after her.

    Bollocks. She has a tough gig. She’s not a patsy for the Libkin. I like her.

  20. Casey Briggs, the ABC’s COVID-19 data guy, makes a lot of sense here:

    casey briggs
    @CaseyBriggs
    More than 728,000 businesses signed up for JobKeeper.

    1,000 companies made this error.

    Which means the government had data suggesting 0.14% of registered businesses would claim 46% of the money.

    And no one noticed.

    Here’s my attempt at explaining what happened:

    1) The original forecast for the scheme cost was $130 billion.
    2) Businesses registered and in doing so, many made an error and overstated the # of eligible employees
    3) That data was seemingly never checked by the ATO

    1/5

    4) Because of the wrong data, the ATO believed something like $130 billion would be the scheme’s cost (this wasn’t explicitly stated but it’s the only way I can see this whole saga makes sense)
    5) Payments were made to eligible participants (not the estimated ones)

    2/5

    5) The ATO didn’t notice the massive underspend on expectations in the first fortnight
    6) The ATO noticed the massive underspend when the second fortnight’s worth of JobKeeper payments were made, and investigated.
    7) The ATO then found the overestimate of participants

    3/5

    So:

    It seems this was *both* an error in forecasting (which makes sense given the economic situation) *and* a reporting error.

    And the reporting error delayed the discovery of the forecasting error by at least a month, probably more.

    4/5

    If the ATO had done some checks on the registration information, they would’ve been able to more accurately estimate the cost of JobKeeper a long time ago.

    If we’d known this then, would the administration of JobKeeper or policy decisions of the govt be different?

  21. WeWantPaul @ #2664 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 7:08 pm

    CI please don’t tell anyone but I have developed an irrational respect for Anastasia.

    She is pretty much an LNP premier so of course you lust after her.

    What rubbish.

    Halted privatisation, decriminalised abortion, rebuilding TAFE, process to decide on VAD, Human Rights Act, government owned renewables generator, restored heath funding etc, etc

    No chance of any of this from LNP.

  22. On the $60B cockup seen from space……

    Pointed out on Karvelases show today that the $130B was being quoted when the program was announced…BEFORE any businesses had applied.

    So, how can this error be due to businesses filling out forms incorrectly??

  23. Anastasia is not my type lustwise. The last politician who met my lustwise requirements was a Labor politician from SA.

  25. One thing I don’t get about the whole border issue is what’s in it for Gladys in making a fuss about it in the first place? It doesn’t survive the self interest test.

    In terms of dollars, the majority of domestic tourism isn’t interstate. Its far more localised. Interstate tourism is surely not an economic priority.

    Having to keep hundreds of thousands of people out of Sydney because there is no safe way to transport them. Now that’s a real issue.

  26. All I can say is that heads will roll at the ATO as the whizz-kids in Treasury do not like to be shown up; their political masters even less.

    There are ZERO whizz-kids left in Treasury, they all left long ago. The ATO upper levels are all very political KPMG refugees whose first and main skill is arse covering. They will be fine.

  31. Cud Chewer @ #2674 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 7:15 pm

    One thing I don’t get about the whole border issue is what’s in it for Gladys in making a fuss about it in the first place? It doesn’t survive the self interest test.

    In terms of dollars, the majority of domestic tourism isn’t interstate. Its far more localised. Interstate tourism is surely not an economic priority.

    Having to keep hundreds of thousands of people out of Sydney because there is no safe way to transport htem. Now that’s a real issue.

    Helping a fellow LNP person (Frecklington, Morrison), divertin attention form her own government’s stuffups. Pretty simple really.

  32. mundo says:
    Friday, May 22, 2020 at 7:16 pm
    davidwh @ #2667 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 7:15 pm

    Anastasia is not my type lustwise. The last politician who met my lustwise requirements was a Labor politician from SA.
    Jay?
    _____________
    Penny?

  34. WeWantPaul says:
    Friday, May 22, 2020 at 7:11 pm
    So how long do Labor have to be no good for you to drop your membership ?
    I dropped it for a period in the last decade but that was largely personal / their not being a local branch in my now liberal held seat and a bit of ‘disgruntled failed preselection candidate’.

    There would need to be a better alternative. I’m very much a ‘history is made by people who show up’ person. One of my family members and I have discussed a switch to the join the greens party, but decided to stay with Labor.
    _______________
    Its never too late to come to the light.

  35. Lars Von Trier @ #2681 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 7:19 pm

    mundo says:
    Friday, May 22, 2020 at 7:16 pm
    davidwh @ #2667 Friday, May 22nd, 2020 – 7:15 pm

    Anastasia is not my type lustwise. The last politician who met my lustwise requirements was a Labor politician from SA.
    Jay?
    _____________
    Penny?

    Kate Ellis.

  38. Incidentally the community transmission yesterday was someone with a home address in Lindfield.
    Mind you that’s the home address. It doesn’t tell you where he/she might have been infected (but is almost certainly in Sydney)

  41. I carry no brief for Clive Palmer but on the merits he must surely win his case as there are no health reasons whatsoever to stop him entering WA.
    QLD has virtually no cases.
    The better option would have been someone from the NT trying to cross.
    If they were refused and FIFOs allowed in from states with higher rates it just proves what a farce his controls are.

  43. There’s apparently no end to the ability of Hanson and Palmer to attract support from the gullible.

  45. “I carry no brief for Clive Palmer but on the merits he must surely win his case as there are no health reasons whatsoever to stop him entering WA.
    QLD has virtually no cases.”

    This isn’t quite true. Queensland hasn’t spent long enough with zero community transmissions.
    Stick a swab in him, make him wait a week, swab him again and fine with me.

  46. The essence of the WA legal position is that the rules will be valid as long as they are applied in a non-discriminatory way. Unless Palmer can show he’s been discriminated against he has no chance.

  48. Morrison and his cronies still spreading the lie

    https://treasury.gov.au/coronavirus/jobkeeper

    The Government’s $130 billion JobKeeper Payment will help keep more Australians in jobs and support businesses affected by the significant economic impact of the coronavirus.
    Under the JobKeeper Payment, an estimated six million workers will receive a fortnightly payment of $1,500 (before tax) through their employer.

  49. “Lars, I had a very deranged friend who was in love with Pauline, Poor Bastard”

    Friend of my ex had a story about that. Was in Canberra for work, out at pub in the evening.
    Admiring the back end of a redhead up at the bar. Redhead turns around and its Poorline.

    He says he felt quite ill and disturbed. 🙂

  50. “Unless Palmer can show he’s been discriminated against he has no chance.”

    Yup, FIFO miners cant work from home, Big Clive can.

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