Essential Research: protests, union power and coronavirus policies

Support for anti-racism protests, though perhaps not right now; a mixed bag of outlooks on the trade union movement; and concern that coronavirus support is being withdrawn too early.

As reported by The Guardian, this week’s Essential Research survey focuses on black lives matter protests, union power and the government’s coronavirus policies, producing a mixed bag of results on each:

• Sixty-two per cent felt protesters were “justified in their demands for authorities to address the issue of Indigenous deaths in custody”, but 61% felt “the situation in America is very different to Australia and has no relevance”, and 84% felt protests amid the pandemic put the community at risk.

• Sixty per cent rated unions as very important or quite important for working people, and 74% felt they provided essential services, but 62% thought them too politically biased and 58% agreed that “union protection makes it difficult for employers to discipline, terminate or even promote employees”.

• Sixty-four per cent expressed concern about how the withdrawal of Jobkeeper subsidies “would sit with any second wave of the pandemic”, 53% considered the government had broken a promise by withdrawing payments for childcare workers, 55% thought it too soon to remove support and 43% supported extending free childcare (up seven points on a month ago), but 57% thought the government needed to withdraw help from “some industries”.

The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1087; a full report will be published later today.

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.

1,991 comments on “Essential Research: protests, union power and coronavirus policies”

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  1. China the new ISIS. Morrison and corporate media allies are demonising China now to distract. Media has completely lost it running stories with zero evidence straight from Canberra Bubble #auspol https://t.co/wkDSyzKDlt— Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) June 19, 2020

    Yes, I’d be taking anything that comes out of this Govt and their spin doctors with a large grain of salt

  5. From Bucephalus, this gem:

    Oh FFS. This has nothing to do with overseas students. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
    …
    {Fairly typical Bukey rant}
    …
    I suggest you stop making yourself look stupid.

    I don’t object so much to the sentiment expressed in the post, nor do I endorse it, but WHY do supposedly intelligent commenters still resort to that tired old “Zero. Zilch. Nada” cliché?

    Stop making yourself look unimaginative, Bukey Boy.

    If you’re going to write pontificating drivel at least make decent use of the language available.

  7. C2tMomma:

    Won’t you get rat-arsed if you sit on the toilet seat and that happens!?!

    I think arse-ratted is more conventionally grammatical!

  8. Bukey (adj).Of or resembling the style of the posts and commentary written by the conservative commentator who goes by the name “Bucephalus”.

  9. ”China has rejected suggestions it is responsible for a large-scale cyber attack on Australian government departments.— ABC News”

    I see it’s been officially denied…

  11. Steve777 @ #1901 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 7:02 pm

    ”China has rejected suggestions it is responsible for a large-scale cyber attack on Australian government departments.— ABC News”

    I see it’s been officially denied…

    I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of some good old fashioned race baiting from Scotty from Marketing.

    I also wouldn’t rule out JWH’s fingerprints on the ‘announcement’ this morning.

  12. Kay Jay
    Should we all start singing “Indian Love Call”? Sorry for the spoiler if you haven’t seen the end of “Mars Attacks”

  13. ABC TV News doing the full toadie on the government’s preferred Cyber Hack! line, followed by a chapter-and-verse “Labor branch stack” recitation.

    If ever there was an excuse needed for the coming Trade War with China, this is it: China backs down on the hacking… We won. China punishes us by boycottingvtrade… That’s our excuse.

  14. Rex ”I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of some good old fashioned race baiting from Scotty from Marketing.“

    Nor would I. That being said, assuming that the “State based actor” part is based upon genuine expert advice, it would seem likely.

  15. Oakeshott Country @ #1912 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 7:10 pm

    Kay Jay
    Should we all start singing “Indian Love Call”? Sorry for the spoiler if you haven’t seen the end of “Mars Attacks”

    I assume that you come in peace. Slim Whitman was extremely popular when I was a youth. Great voice. We’ll see how the cyber nooze continues over the next day or so.

  16. Danama Papers says:
    Friday, June 19, 2020 at 7:04 pm
    C@tmomma @ #1888 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 4:28 pm

    Won’t you get rat-arsed if you sit on the toilet seat and that happens!?!
    It’d cure your constipation, that’s for sure.

    Then there’s always the redback on the toilet seat:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDAiq2-xeU

  17. Just a random article off topic, but touches on the whole idea of virtue-signalling and “tribal identity”:

    ”Republicans are republicans because they are left wing, and republicanism is a token of that tribe, just like conservatives are monarchical because that’s a token of the other tribe.“

    https://www.quora.com/Do-Spanish-want-to-retain-their-monarchy

    Monarchism is a token of our conservative tribe, as are climate denial, devotion to the military, devotion to colonial monuments (actually that includes the Monarchy), disdain for “political correctness” (the language of inclusion), tough-talking on law and order, terrorism and “security”, never mind that it is ineffective, plus displays of religiosity.

  18. The G

    Australian Associate Press is reporting that Queensland police have successfully applied to a court to limit the size of a protest in support of asylum seekers detained in a Brisbane hotel.

    Police have clamped down on protesters blockading a Brisbane hotel in support of asylum seekers detained in the building.

    The protest organisers planned to hold a large rally for most of Sunday in front of the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel, where about 120 men are being held.

    But police successfully applied to Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday to have the gathering limited to two hours on two side streets.
    ———–

    Refugees detained in Brisbane deny claims activists have endangered their safety

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/19/refugees-detained-in-brisbane-deny-claims-activists-have-endangered-their-safety

    But refugees detained in the Kangaroo Point hotel told Guardian Australia the protests had improved their morale and had not prevented them from receiving meals or medical attention.
    :::
    “I think the government should understand that they keep us for a long time in detention and that’s more damaging than other things that they mention at this point,” Obeiszadeh said.

    About 100 men are detained at the Brisbane hotel, which has been in use as an alternative place of detention or Apod, for at least a year. They were all sent to Australia for medical treatment, including as part of the medevac law. Many, like Obeiszadeh, have been detained for a year or longer and are yet to receive their treatment.

    The protest movement has become increasingly visible in inner-city Brisbane as the coronavirus pandemic has worsened conditions of detention.

    The government ignored calls, including from infectious diseases experts, to release detainees to reduce the risk of an outbreak.
    :::
    Obeiszadeh said he was glad the protests were growing because it meant that Australians would know what the government was doing.

    “They hid us inside the hotel and detention and no one was aware of what is happening here,” he said.

  21. With China denying any responsibility for the cyber attacks, that poses the question,

    Who is it?

    Remember Morrison said State based,

    so I’m wondering whether it is secessionist elements in Western Australia.

  22. Spoils of office : This week’s branch-stacking revelations highlight the sharp decline in philosophical differences among Labor’s factions

    https://insidestory.org.au/spoils-of-office/

    Revealingly, in all of Somyurek’s colourful observations, there was nary a mention of policy or ideology: the agenda was completely about the acquisition and maintenance of power and control. The cliché about concern with “power for power’s sake” is no less true for being a cliché.

    This should serve as a useful reminder that factional labels are not what they used to be. The days when left and right represented competing political philosophies and policies, to be accommodated within a broad church, are largely gone. Only senior citizens can recall battles within the party over communism and foreign policy, and those with memories of the passionate debate over uranium mining are no longer young either. Today, the nearest thing to an ideological breach is over asylum seekers.
    :::
    Preselection (for federal and state elections) will be a key issue in the administration period and a likely source of conflict. History tells us that an interregnum like this often favours the status quo, with sitting members re-endorsed. The obvious proviso is that any who are implicated in criminal activity might need to seek alternative employment.

    Bracks and Macklin are not running a political science seminar, but it might be useful if they considered the realistic and desirable role of party branches and party members in the twenty-first century. A subset of that issue is the role of factions. The fit-for-purpose question looms large over this exercise. Finally, the role of electorate and ministerial staff also warrants consideration, perhaps more so given that they are publicly funded. An interesting three years beckon.

  23. Andrew_Earlwood:

    [‘The Liberals are nothing but a party of small minded shop keepers…’]

    I trust you’re not into plagiarism? But I guess almost everything’s derivative.

  27. Pegasus still wetting her pants over the ALP branch stacking story I see. Though it’s true, there’ll never be a branch stacking story about The Greens. You couldn’t pay people enough to join! 😆

  29. Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
    Friday, June 19, 2020 at 7:53 pm
    Bill @ #1924 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 5:49 pm

    so I’m wondering whether it is secessionist elements in Western Australia.
    Lot of people working underground…
    Are you suggesting South Australia?

    Maybe it’s a training exercise for the cyber spooks in Canberra???

  31. The commuters of Sydney should be thankful another transport body was hacked and not Sydney Trains.
    Pens and photocopies. Lots of photocopies. No phones.
    Backups. What are they?

  33. C@t.
    Being from NSW you do not seem to realise how big the labor branch stacking story is down here. It will quieten down a bit over the next week or so, but it will be bubbling away in the background for the next 18 months or so.

  34. With media frenzy at a fever pitch over “Labor branch stacking”, would that coincide with a Newspoll this weekend?

    Not to mention the “Great China cyber attack”?

  35. citizen @ #1936 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 6:23 pm

    With media frenzy at a fever pitch over “Labor branch stacking”, would that coincide with a Newspoll this weekend?

    Not to mention the “Great China cyber attack”?

    Maybe it’s all linked to the China – Vic Government Belt and Road Initiative?

  37. Taylormade @ #1933 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 8:22 pm

    C@t.
    Being from NSW you do not seem to realise how big the labor branch stacking story is down here. It will quieten down a bit over the next week or so, but it will be bubbling away in the background for the next 18 months or so.

    We’ve got one up here too (strangely not about the Liberals but we all know why that is 😀 ), however most people are ‘Meh!’

    Now, here’s your golf junkie fix for the day. My Dad was one of Kerry Packer’s golfing buddies. 🙂

  39. The winter solstice occurs this weekend at 7:43am EST on Sunday, marking the moment the Earth’s southern hemisphere reaches its furthest tilt away from the sun. From 7:44 AM we begin the long climb back to Summer. Bring it on. And if you want to sacrifice a goat to the Sun god to celebrate, it’s time to get your goat ready.

  41. An observation of the “Spanish Flu”: it was so named due to it – Spain – being the only European nation that freely reported on it – the rest of the warring nations were far more concerned with morale. Germane to the second wave, it mutated into a much worse virulent form. I do hope Trump’s Tulsa rally goes well.


  42. Taylormade says:
    Friday, June 19, 2020 at 8:22 pm

    C@t.
    Being from NSW you do not seem to realise how big the labor branch stacking story is down here. It will quieten down a bit over the next week or so, but it will be bubbling away in the background for the next 18 months or so.

    Last election you had red shorts and black gangs. Next election it’s going to be branch stacking.

    Should be easy to relate to peoples lives I suppose.

  44. The winter solstice occurs this weekend at 7:43am EST on Sunday, marking the moment the Earth’s southern hemisphere reaches its furthest tilt away from the sun. From 7:44 AM we begin the long climb back to Summer. Bring it on. And if you want to sacrifice a goat to the Sun god to celebrate, it’s time to get your goat ready.

    I was musing along similar lines earlier today… and then I remembered we were about the only area up these ways that didn’t burn last summer.

    Despite HI now occupying the position of Secretary (designate) of the local RFS branch – and organizing it along professional, accountable lines – I still worry that it may be our turn this season.

    So longer days and gradually warming days fill me with a certain amount of dread.

  45. It appears that Minitrue has been working hard to finesse Dan Tehan’s announcement. The government is funding more university places, resulting in a lower proportion of funding. Stop! That is crimethink!

    The best bit is the pull up the drawbridge approach to educating future politicians. More Scientists! Doubleplusgood! Does climate science count? Welcome to room 101…

  46. Mavis

    I believe the “Spanish” flu most likely came from Kansas. Trump would agree that it should have been called the US Flu.

  47. FredNK

    It’s the word corruption that’s being bandied about that’s damaging regarding the Branch Stacking story.

    It’s rightly seen as a crisis in Labor.

    I agree thanks to Labors actions in response it’s not going to amount to much by next Election Day.

    As I have said repeatedly Labor should go on the front foot and join the Crossbench in calling for a Federal ICAC.

    The horror show for the LNP.

    Next election in Victoria and Federally will be very different.
    Economics will have changed. Labor will be strong on the environment. (Adani will be in the past) most likely Biden will be President.

    It’s not going to be happy times for the right. 🙂

  49. Taylormade says:

    Friday, June 19, 2020 at 8:22 pm

    [‘Being from NSW you do not seem to realise how big the labor branch stacking story is down here. It will quieten down a bit over the next week or so, but it will be bubbling away in the background for the next 18 months or so’]

    In your dreams, the public more or less accepting the argy-bargy of political intrigue. It’ll be fush and chups in a month -nice try, though

  50. There are several theories regarding the origin of the “Spanish“ flu – Kansas, China or possibly the trenches of the Western Front. The latter seems plausible – millions of stressed men cramped in unsanitary conditions for years.

    That pandemic seems to have ended through “herd immunity” – after killing about 1-2% of the World’s population, in some countries5%+.

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