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not right now; a mixed bag of outlooks on the trade union movement; and concern that coronavirus support is being withdrawn too early.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. Guytaur, I am with you on this. If this current expose results in a federal ICAC equivalent with adequate funding and protection from political interference then, arguably, it makes up for the last election.

    But we shall see who is willing to have their laundry inspected. How will it pass the House of Reps? The LNP has been able to push this into the Never Never up until now.

  2. Griff

    Yes it would be a great improvement.
    I don’t expect Labor to be able to do more than get its anti-corruption message out there in a serious way. At present.

  3. Kayjay:

    “Mars Attack” now showing on free to air. Have our leaders been hornswoogled again and seen previews leading to talk of cyber attacks?

    The Hornswoggling/Hornswaggling Appreciation Society (H2AS) Appreciates your ongoing efforts to promote the world’s most underappreciated word.

    There are of course two camps regarding spelling (this has something to do with ridiculous American pronunciation making it impossible to be definitive) and members are free to choose their preferred alternative, or even to invent their own.

    The membership thus far is:

    Bushfire Bill (2014) – Hornswagglator
    https://www.pollbludger.net/2014/07/12/seat-of-the-week-lyons/comment-page-11/

    KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN (2016) – Hornswagglator
    https://www.pollbludger.net/2016/02/11/bludgertrack-53-1-46-9-to-coalition-2/comment-page-1/
    NB: KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN ishere quoting (or arguably misquoting “Blazing Saddles”, and video thereof is:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5Mr5eCF2U

    KayJay (2018) – Hornswogglator
    Late Riser (2018) – Hornswogglator
    C@tMomma (2018) – Hornswogglatrix
    https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/06/03/reachtel-52-48-labor-54-46-liberal-braddon-52-48-lnp-longman/comment-page-13/

    Johnny Come Lately (2019) – Hornswagglator
    https://www.pollbludger.net/2019/06/19/senate-entrails-examined/comment-page-22/

    That made three Hornswagglarati and likewise three Hornswogglarati – a tie.

    However, by your post today you implicitly defected to the Hornswooglarati – you Hornswooglator and SPLITTER – leaving three righteous Hornswagglarati, two misguided Hornswogglarati and yourself, alone …

  4. I presume the Sam Newman thing will lead to more PC gone mad op eds. And more stories about how uni arts departments are a waste of money.

    Not that that things are related, but you know, the vibe.

  5. Steve777:

    Friday, June 19, 2020 at 9:04 pm

    I don’t know whether you’re referring to my post supra, but my point is the question of how the last great flu pandemic was incorrectly posited.

  6. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #1955 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 9:17 pm

    The only amazing thing here is he lasted this long.

    I don’t think people will be shedding too many tears.

    Sam Newman resigns from Channel Nine after comments about George Floyd

    Former player and host of the Footy Show was roundly condemned by colleagues, players and in a widely shared petition

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/19/sam-newman-resigns-from-channel-nine-after-comments-about-george-floyd

    Who’s going to pay for Sam’s Botox now!?!

  7. E. G. Theodore:

    [‘Friday, June 19, 2020 at 9:18 pm’]

    I’ve been in therapy for nigh on fifty years.

    And it’s good night from him!

  8. Blobbit @ #1872 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 6:03 pm

    We’re getting worked up about sweary texts? FFS.

    More like why, if ‘I hate X, he/she is a complete fucking moron’ is de rigueur “factional invective”, should doing the same thing but “darker” be any sort of concern?

    You either expect respectful discourse from your party operatives at all times (kinda like how businesses expect their employees to not do/say/post things that may bring the business into disrepute, even outside of business hours and in private), or you don’t. Or at least, that would be a simpler position than ‘sweary and mean is fine, but sweary, mean, and dark? now that’s just straight out of bounds’.

  9. Jeez, EGT, you back to a post I made in 2014 to declare me a hornswoogler?

    Have you no pity? No forgiveness?

  10. Mundo

    I want to study history, I have an aptitude for it, I’m deeply interested in it, I really want to read history at uni…..but wait! maths degrees are really cheap! I’ll do that instead…..said no one ever.

    I am weird, but this was my choice about a career: My favourite subjects, in which I excelled at School Certificate level, were maths and history. So, I tried to work out which I wanted to do. it took me 10 years after leaving school and trying a few different things to realise that physics gave the scope for both, and so here I am.

    Will the costs push people towards one or another? No, I was weird. I grew up in a humanities-based family, and only discovered my propensity for science later – no one at my school even bothered to tell my that coming top in maths (and history) at my school in year 10 meant I should consider some science for the senior years.

    My guess (hope) is that people will still study history, and just hope that the debt can be paid back at some stage.

    One thing I am scratching my head about: Scott Morrison is penalising the very degree he studies at UNSW – a BSc in economic geography.

    Geography is generally classified under the humanities*, but even with this, economics degrees are hard hit in the new funding formula.

    Morrison thinks his degree was a waste of time?

    *Note: UNSW does classify it as science, and their degree is rigorous and evidence based.

    Just because I can, a link from Thurunka: https://tharunka.arc.unsw.edu.au/5-reasons-why-unsw-should-not-claim-scomo-as-an-alumn/

  11. Bushfire Bill:

    Jeez, EGT, you back to a post I made in 2014 to declare me a hornswoogler?

    I believe the voices of all posts need deserve to be heard!

    PS. I see what you did there and the count is now 2, 2 and 2 – SPLITTER

  12. Blobbit @ #1958 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 9:25 pm

    I presume the Sam Newman thing will lead to more PC gone mad op eds. And more stories about how uni arts departments are a waste of money.

    Not that that things are related, but you know, the vibe.

    I’m thinking not. You don’t want to be tarred with the Sam Newman brush. Australia has thankfully come too far down the road of the acknowledgement of past and present wrongs to our Indigenous First Nation’s Peoples to try and call respect for their rights, ‘political correctness gone mad’.

    There’s a long way to go down the road but I do not believe Australia is for turning back. Nor turning a blind eye to behaviour like that after a concerted campaign from the Old White Man’s Media.

  13. So is Dan Tehan throwing the metaphorical dead cat on the dining room table? Taking one for the team? A distraction from the economy and the public response? A distraction from how the Government has responded to the the risk to Australia’s second highest export?

    Oh those happy times when Deloitte and others would cavort and play: https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/research-papers/Documents/ValueInternationalEd.pdf

    If only there was something black and physically present that Morrison could bring to Parliament.

  14. D & M:

    It would seem Minister Tehan has let his virtue signalling get ahead of his brain, and the policy likely has an effect opposed to the signalled intention

  15. “You either expect respectful discourse from your party operatives at all times”

    IDK. I’ve certainly sent the occasional text about some of my previous bosses that used “ripe” language.

  16. Steve 777: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. A—————-
    I always like it when we’re past the solstice. A friend from Tassie told me the locals used to say of the time immediately after the winter solstice- the days get longer and the cold grows stronger. In Victoria it continues to settle into the deepest cold till mid-July. Then in mid-August you start noticing days when the sun has a real kick to it. And then you feel that lovely balmy waft of early Spring in the air.

  17. “More like why, if ‘I hate X, he/she is a complete fucking moron’ is de rigueur “factional invective”, should doing the same thing but “darker” be any sort of concern?”

    Politics is a passionate sport and I think that’s a lot of its appeal for many people. I mean if you think Scotty from marketing is a complete fucking idiot, I don’t know you wouldn’t be allowed to also say to your factional buddy that the other Scotty, from the Footscray Left group, is also a complete fucking tool.

    So what you have is a spectrum of invective, from Paul Keating’s vicious wit and interpersonal heckling, to cruder ‘X is a useless idiot’, to ‘I will cut his head off and piss on his corpse’.

    As for ‘respectful behaviour’ and codes of conduct, how desiccated do you want party politics to be? Would the rip snorting NSW ALP Conferences of the 80s pass? They weren’t harmful to the ALPs electoral prospects, they were fun, just ask Albo.

    But there is a line to be crossed, that’s for sure.

  18. “I’m thinking not. You don’t want to be tarred with the Sam Newman brush. Australia has thankfully come too far down the road of the acknowledgement of past…”

    Maybe. There’s still a robust industry in manufacturing outrage on the right. I predict there’ll be at least one “I don’t necessarily agree with Sam, but he should be free to speak his mind” or some such bull twaddle.

  19. Cat

    I agree with you on the not turning back.
    We in that regard are in the same boat as the USA.
    We have marched a long way to equality freedom and independence to turn back now.

    This is the problem for the right. The UK won’t be far behind us. Europe despite the grim times for a few countries has mainly stayed on track.

    The world is not going to go back to authoritarian government at least not now.

  20. Blobbit @ #1973 Friday, June 19th, 2020 – 10:02 pm

    “I’m thinking not. You don’t want to be tarred with the Sam Newman brush. Australia has thankfully come too far down the road of the acknowledgement of past…”

    Maybe. There’s still a robust industry in manufacturing outrage on the right. I predict there’ll be at least one “I don’t necessarily agree with Sam, but he should be free to speak his mind” or some such bull twaddle.

    Well, I didn’t say all of us have made the journey and ended up at the same place. Some people have bills to pay.

    In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Right wheeled out their ‘paleface’ Indigenous Woman commentator, Josephine Cashman, to defend Slammin’ Sam the Sleazy Bigot. She’ll do just about anything to get on.

  21. “Well, I didn’t say all of us have made the journey and ended up at the same place. Some people have bills to pay.”

    Yeah. I was probably unclear. The PC outrage I’m expecting is from the professional pundit op ed class, not real people.

  22. Change is hard and slow.

    Except if you’re an Autocratic government and then you just go hell for leather until the mob comes for you with the pitchforks.

  23. Hornswoggle? I’ve only come across that word in old Westerns and not in recent decades – “I dun bin hornswoggled!”

  24. lizzie

    Wow! So there is no incentive for STEM subjects other than maths. I think maths is great – one of my favourite things ever – but, as I found, to really follow your love of maths, you are led to physics and other sciences, including computing.

    So do these Philistines want to train a bunch of actuaries?

  25. nath

    C@t, I’ll have you know I have a good fan base here on PB. So much so that WB is wary of attracting my wrath. I’ll have everyone know that after he called me a douchebag I won’t be doing any further research projects with him, that’s for sure. He just lost any possibility of a DECRA. So there.

    I hope this ironic humour on your part.

    Our esteemed lord should be a no brainer for a DECRA.

  26. Rex D

    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

    Thanks for posting this comment Rex. I am glad that Michael West, who is following events far more closely that I am able to, has come to the same conclusion that I have.

    Also, I will remember to subscribe to his blog – has been on my list for ages.

  27. Kon Karapanagiotidis
    ·
    5h
    More than 1/3 of
    @ScottMorrisonMP
    Ministry holds an Arts degree:

    Porter
    Payne
    Tudge
    Hunt
    Fletcher
    Tehan
    Cash
    Roberts

    Apparently Arts degrees do not lead to the jobs of the future however.

  28. Same here?

    “NotATweeter16
    @NotATweeter16
    ·
    5m
    Replying to
    @TheRickWilson

    What will it take to get the media to snap out of its denial & report on what Trump hasn’t stopped doing since before he even took office?:

    -lying ceaselessly
    -encouraging police brutality
    -embracing authoritarianism (eg: siccing cops on peaceful protesters & the free press)“

  29. @Mavis:

    “ 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.”

    _______

    Were this an academic journal of record, or some such, then I’d reference my deliberate parsing. As it’s a blog, I thought I’d leave up to the clever chappies to spot the reference.

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