Essential Research: robodebt, protests and coronavirus latest

The weekly Essential poll finds considerable displeasure at the government’s handling of the robodebt affair, even as Newspoll finds the electoral damage to be limited at best.

Together with the usual suite of questions on coronavirus, the latest weekly Essential Research survey offers findings on the government’s robodebt the recent disturbances in the United States. The former make grim reading for the government, or might do if Newspoll hadn’t suggested the debacle had made no difference on voting intention: 74% say the government should apologise to those negatively impacted, with only 11% disagreeing; 66% support interest and damages for those who wrongly repaid money, with 13% disagreeing; 55% supported a royal commission, with 23% disagreeing; and only 32% agreed the automated notifications were a good idea “even if it was poorly implemented”, with 43% disagreeing.

Regarding the protests in the United States, the propositions that “protesters are right to demand better protection and treatment of African Americans in society” and that “the protesters want to loot and cause property damage, more than they want social change” both received majority support, though far more emphatically in the former case, with 80% agreeing and 11% disagreeing, compared with 54% and 33% for the latter. There were likewise large majorities in favour of the notions that “authorities in America have been unwilling to deal with institutional racism” (78% to 10%) and that the death of George Floyd pointed to “wider discrimination against minority cultures in society” (72% to 16%), while only 33% considered Floyd’s death isolated and not illustrative of institutional police racism, compared with 54% who disagreed.

As for coronavirus, the number who are “very concerned” maintains a steady decline, down five to 27%, with quite concerned down one to 48%, not that concerned up six to 21% and not at all concerned up one to 5%. Approval of the government’s handling of the matter is little changed, with 70% rating it good (up two) and 12% poor (steady). Small-sample state breakdowns provide a further increment of support for the notion that the Western Australian government has done best out of the crisis, with the good rating at 84% and poor at 6%, with other states ranging from 67% to 79% on good and 8% to 13% on poor. Queensland respondents were most likely to say their government was moving too slowly in easing restrictions, although even here the result was only 23% compared with 63% for “about the right speed”. The poll was conducted online from Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1073.

Elsewhere, yesterday’s declaration of candidates and ballot paper draw for the July 4 Eden-Monaro by-election revealed a field of 14 candidates. Along with Labor candidate Kristy McBain and Liberal candidate Fiona Kotvojs, there are starters for the Nationals (Trevor Hicks, who won a preselection vote on Saturday), the Greens, Shooters Fishers and Farmers, the Liberal Democrats, the Christian Democrats, Help End Marijuana Prohibition, the Science Party, Sustainable Australia, something called the Australian Federation Party and three independents.

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.

2,555 comments on “Essential Research: robodebt, protests and coronavirus latest”

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  4. In the local Medical Centre this afternoon I heard the Centre Manager warning all the doctors to look out for anyone who had been to the BLM protest, because of the one positive.

  5. Player One @ #325 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 3:41 pm

    mundo @ #300 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 3:04 pm

    ‘So I think labor should be calling SSO’s every day’
    It worked for Monkey.

    Labor are not hungry enough to use such aggressive tactics. Especially Albo.

    It shows in everything they do – or rather, everything they fail to do.

    ‘not hungry enough’…it’s pretty obvious too.
    t’s like they’ve written off ’22 (’21?) and said ok, let Scrotty have that one as well, then we’ll try our little hearts out for ’25….maybe Paul Howes will be available then?

  6. phoenixRED @ #350 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 4:10 pm

    C@tmommasays: Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 4:01 pm

    It is, no wonder Labor are going at it tooth and nail, really hammering the message.

    And they have to keep hammering it every damn day, like the Coalition did with Pink Batts, from now until the next election!

    ******************************************************************

    This is a very hard message to get up to public exposure in an almost totally controlled Murdoch Media …..

    A point I try and make here regularly to the mundos of the world. 😐

  7. When newspapers of a bigone age had some honesty and integrity and was not Murdoch controlled :

    E. K. Hornbeck/H L Menken : it is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

  8. Grrrrr, Morrison is a sneaky bastard. He said that people shouldn’t go to protests because they will put Indigenous lives at risk. He’s got a very skilled spinning team behind him.

  9. Yabba says:
    Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 4:03 pm

    I’m unclear how an Atheist can blaspheme but you’re telling the story.

  10. phoenixRED @ #350 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 4:10 pm

    C@tmommasays: Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 4:01 pm

    It is, no wonder Labor are going at it tooth and nail, really hammering the message.

    And they have to keep hammering it every damn day, like the Coalition did with Pink Batts, from now until the next election!

    ******************************************************************

    This is a very hard message to get up to public exposure in an almost totally controlled Murdoch Media …..

    Here we go…totally controlled Murdoch Media….for crisakes that’s just an excuse. There are other ways Labor can push it’s message. For a start they could hammer the message, day in day out. That in itself would be novel enough for mainstream media to take notice.
    Australia’s oldest political party, and most effective party of government must have learnt something about politics in 120 odd years. No?

  14. I found this statement from SK’s The Economist link instructive:

    Piketty closes the book by recommending that governments step in now, by adopting a global tax on wealth, to prevent soaring inequality contributing to economic or political instability down the road.

    It caused me to reflect that this is part of the basis for the BLM protests.

  16. Bucephalus

    Overnight, NewsRadio switches to taking the BBC and ABC TV is a mix of repeated TVNews and European. Probably doesn’t cost much.

  17. meher baba @ #333 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 3:54 pm

    WWP: “Mutual obligations should just go, they are simply cruel and even more so in the recession and likely following depression.”

    OK, so we just say to people in their early 20s “that’s it, you can have welfare payments for life, don’t worry about getting trained, don’t worry about trying to find work, just give up and stay on the susso for the rest of your life.”

    Add that to the idea of basically giving up on policing the places where Indigenous people live and we are heading towards a wonderful society, with a growing underclass with an incredibly low rates of upward mobility.

    Our forthcoming Chinese overlords will be laughing their heads off at our self-destructive decadence.

    Geez you’re a right punisher and straightener aren’t you.

  18. The ‘ensuring integrity’ union busting bill is officially dead (for now) – the government consented to Labor’s motion to have it removed from the notice paper

  19. meher baba @ #333 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 1:54 pm

    WWP: “Mutual obligations should just go, they are simply cruel and even more so in the recession and likely following depression.”

    OK, so we just say to people in their early 20s “that’s it, you can have welfare payments for life, don’t worry about getting trained, don’t worry about trying to find work, just give up and stay on the susso for the rest of your life.”

    Add that to the idea of basically giving up on policing the places where Indigenous people live and we are heading towards a wonderful society, with a growing underclass with an incredibly low rates of upward mobility.

    Our forthcoming Chinese overlords will be laughing their heads off at our self-destructive decadence.

    Yeah we can because studies have shown, including studies into UBI, that not all humans, in fact very few if any, have the laziness and lack of ambition you are your fellow right wing journeymen project onto them.

    In fact human nature is quite ambitious and tenacious.

    I’m not sure if you lot are really lazy and that is what you’d do, or if you think you are just so much better than other people and while you would never do it, you assume they will.

    Either way it is really wrong, a really stupid way to think, and when that idiocy is applied to policy leads to all kinds of unnecessary expense and cruelty. Like robodebt.

    And that underclass thing, oh the irony, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t understand.

  20. An adequate apology would be something like,

    We apologise for implementing such a flawed scheme and allowing it to continue for so long after it’s flaws were brought to our attention.

    We especially apologise to everyone who was caught up in it and unreservedly apologise for the hardship and distress that it may have caused.

  21. Barney

    Was it Scout who said that the gov does know the numbers of distressed suicides from Robodebt. It needs to be made public for certainty. To hear some MPs you’d think it is just made up.

  23. “KayJay says:
    Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 4:25 pm
    Bucephalus @ #363 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 4:22 pm

    lizzie says:
    Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 4:01 pm

    There’s no need for supposed 24 hour TV and Radio news channels.
    Particularly during bushfires, floods, war, locusts, frog, virus plagues.“

    Kayjay

    Emergency information relating to those things are adequately communicated over the standard ABC Radio and TV channels just as they were before the standalone news channels were created.

  24. lizzie @ #372 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 2:32 pm

    Barney

    Was it Scout who said that the gov does know the numbers of distressed suicides from Robodebt. It needs to be made public for certainty. To hear some MPs you’d think it is just made up.

    I’d imagine Senate Estimates would be the only chance of retrieving such data if it exists.

  25. Bucephalus @ #373 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 4:33 pm

    Emergency information relating to those things are adequately communicated over the standard ABC Radio and TV channels just as they were before the standalone news channels were created.

    When we didn’t have 24×7 catastrophes, we probably didn’t need a dedicated 24×7 emergency news service.

    But now we do.

  27. Abbott was able to raise SSOs because he was enabled by the House crossbench, including the Greens.

    This was apparently good for democracy.

    He abused it superbly.

  28. Just to expand on the mutual obligation topic and responding to something Meher said some time ago.

    In relation to payments to and programs for indigenous people it is offensive to require any “mutual obligations” from them.

    They had a whole continent stolen from them without compensation. If anything, the mutual obligation would be on the rest of us.

    Or if you look at it from the point of view of the “right to enjoy the benefits passed on to you by your ancestors in terms of property” which always seems to be one of the demands of the right, the case is even stronger.

  29. I was in the car earlier listening to Senate QT and the screeching harridan Michaelia Cash kept on referring to the disease as CLOVID -19. What a shocker she is!

  30. mundosays: Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 4:18 pm

    phoenixRED @ #350 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 4:10 pm

    This is a very hard message to get up to public exposure in an almost totally controlled Murdoch Media …..

    Here we go…totally controlled Murdoch Media….for crisakes that’s just an excuse.

    **************************************************

    Mundo – Could you therefore please enlighten me – can you please be very specific and tell me :

    – which newspaper to read,
    – radio station to listen to and
    – TV station to watch

    which is NOT Murdoch controlled or failing that, are openly sympathetic to the Labor cause ????

  31. Player One says:
    Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 4:39 pm

    “When we didn’t have 24×7 catastrophes, we probably didn’t need a dedicated 24×7 emergency news service.

    But now we do.“

    Utter rot.

  33. On the topic of Mutual Obligation – I would like to see it removed for over 60s maybe even over 55s. People at that point are mostly doing volunteering anyway which many would continue to do if they felt valued and enjoyed what they were doing.
    Particularly at present what employer is going to hire someone over 60, unless they had some exceptional skills that mutual obligation etc would not enhance anyway.

  34. Dickhead Americans:
    Coronavirus cases have risen by double-digit percentages in 16 U.S. states that have loosened restrictions since Memorial Day

  35. On apologies.

    In my world, you apologise for something you have done that has caused damage to a person or property.

    You do not apologise for “the damage caused”

    The passive voice does not work in an apology

  37. laughtong @ #383 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 4:50 pm

    On the topic of Mutual Obligation – I would like to see it removed for over 60s maybe even over 55s. People at that point are mostly doing volunteering anyway which many would continue to do if they felt valued and enjoyed what they were doing.
    Particularly at present what employer is going to hire someone over 60, unless they had some exceptional skills that mutual obligation etc would not enhance anyway.

    Mutual obligation is unmitigated bullshit.

    If a person needs income support they need income support – give it to them.

    If they have other issues they need help with, do that as part of a completely separate program.

    Review in 10 years to see if you have created a legion of bludgers. Spoiler – you will find that you haven’t.

  39. Bucephalus (AnonBlock)
    Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 4:48 pm
    Comment #381

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-01-22/24-hour-news-is-well-within-the-abc-charter/1218542

    The ABC Charter – found in Section 6 of the ABC Act – is one of those documents that is often more cited than read.

    This might explain why critics of the ABC’s new 24 hour news channel have referred to the Charter as if it might somehow exclude the ABC from providing such a service. In fact, the opposite is true.

    The Charter sets out precisely why the ABC Board has endorsed this new venture.

    It states that the ABC must provide innovative and comprehensive media services. We have an obligation to broadcast programs, within Australia and internationally, that inform, entertain and educate. Programs of wide appeal. Specialist services as well.

    And while we are to take account of the broadcasting services offered commercially, nationally, and publicly, nowhere in the ABC Charter is it suggested that the ABC should not provide a service simply because some commercial organisation might want to provide a related service.

    Appears to be an old argument. Argue for or against if you will. There appears to be on line discussion to the effect that a dumbing down occurs.

  40. I predict that there will be no substantive changes to JobKeeper until after the Eden Monaro by-election, due to be held on 4 July.

  41. ajm @ #378 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 2:41 pm

    Just to expand on the mutual obligation topic and responding to something Meher said some time ago.

    In relation to payments to and programs for indigenous people it is offensive to require any “mutual obligations” from them.

    They had a whole continent stolen from them without compensation. If anything, the mutual obligation would be on the rest of us.

    Or if you look at it from the point of view of the “right to enjoy the benefits passed on to you by your ancestors in terms of property” which always seems to be one of the demands of the right, the case is even stronger.

    The rules start just after we stole everything, obvs.

  42. boerwar

    Good call.

    ***

    Cheryl Kernot
    @cheryl_kernot
    ·
    6m
    Missed it first time. In replay of Mitchell interview heard Morrison slip in his reference to the “quiet Australians” (who didn’t choose to attend #BlackLivesMatter rally.) Marketing everything, always. #auspol

  43. KayJay says:
    Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 5:03 pm

    I don’t care if it’s within the Charter or not – it’s not needed. Just as TV 22 is unnecessary as is most of the Internet based services which all replicate commercially available content on either Free to Air or Pay TV and the Internet.

  44. Bucephalus @ #394 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 3:13 pm

    KayJay says:
    Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 5:03 pm

    I don’t care if it’s within the Charter or not – it’s not needed. Just as TV 22 is unnecessary as is most of the Internet based services which all replicate commercially available content on either Free to Air or Pay TV and the Internet.

    So that’s your opinion, many would disagree.

  46. MB and BL I think you are mistaken about the $1.6m limit on the pension phase and it being taxed.

    1. The initial deposit into a pension account cannot exceed $1.6m.
    2. If the minimum withdrawal from this account is less than the money the account earns, the amount in the account will exceed $1.6m. This is allowed.
    3. Even though the pension account goes over $1.6m, all the earnings in this account will NOT be taxed.
    4. If you start your pension account with $1.6m and have some left over in your accumulation account, the earnings in the accumulation account is taxed at 15%.
    5. If you start your pension account with $1.6m, and the the value drops below $1.6m (say, because you have invested in shares and they drop in value), you cannot top your pension account up to $1.6m again (actually it is called a refresh because you cannot deposit money into pension account so you have to create a new pension account). This is because you have only ‘one time in your life’ opportunity to deposit $1.6m into a pension account. For those thinking to start a pension account with a limit of $1.6m, now is not a bad time to do it as the share market is low. As the shares increases in value so does the balance in your pension account.

  47. Bucephalus @ #393 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 3:13 pm

    KayJay says:
    Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 5:03 pm

    I don’t care if it’s within the Charter or not – it’s not needed. Just as TV 22 is unnecessary as is most of the Internet based services which all replicate commercially available content on either Free to Air or Pay TV and the Internet.

    When even a thoroughly compromised / centrist / scared / right media organisation is too close to reality for your faith.

  50. https://www.abc.net.au/news/about/backstory/2020-06-04/tiger-webb-abc-pronunciation-guide-indigenous-languages/12317822

    Given the ABC has made serious, strong commitments to highlight the use of Indigenous place and nation names in its content, as well as our participation in wider community initiatives like Walking Together and the UN International Year of Indigenous Languages, this seems a critical oversight.

    Luckily, it is one that can be fixed.

    Here are some examples of the sounds we might add.

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