Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor

Essential Research at long last emerges from the voting intention wilderness, although its results going forward will be carefully rationed.

Another pollster returns from the naughty corner today to chance its arm at voting intention, which now makes three if you count the erratically published Roy Morgan series (which I incline not to myself). That pollster is Essential Research, which has remained prodigious with attitudinal polling since the May 2019 federal election, and has maintained its monthly leadership ratings, while offering no clue as to its voting intention numbers beyond the inclusion of raw figures in reporting its sub-samples.

Unhappily for we salivating dogs in the psephoblogosphere, these figures will only be published on a quarterly basis. This appears to mean that every sixth or seventh fortnightly Essential Research release will provide the fortnightly voting intention results of the preceding period. This, the pollster says, will “mitigate the tendency to report on minor movements as some sort of political horse race”. This latest release confuses the issue by providing weekly numbers through June, but I believe this is an artefact of a temporary move to weekly polling to track reactions to COVID-19.

Essential will also make a point of not excluding the undecided from its headline results, arguing the conventional practice entails a “lack of nuance”, though no doubt rivals will accuse the pollster of hedging its bets. The pollster still follows the conventional practice of prodding the initially undecided with a follow-up that asks who they are leaning towards. A proportion of these persist in declining a response, but remain in the sample with responses included for the other survey questions.

The latest primary vote numbers show the Coalition on 38% (up one), Labor on 35% (up one), the Greens on 9% (down one), One Nation on 4% (steady) and others on 6% (steady). If the undecided were excluded, the results would be Coalition 41.3%, Labor 38.0%, Greens 9.8% and One Nation 4.3%, and 51-49 to Labor on two-party preferred (for the sake of consistency with other pollsters, it’s the latter figure that I will continue to use in my headlines). Compared with the 2019 election result, this leaves Labor up nearly five points but the Coalition hardly changed, with the slack taken up from smaller parties and independents.

Labor with 47% of the decided two-party vote (up one on a fortnight ago) to the Coalition’s 45% (steady), leaving an outstanding 8% potentially to be called on to fill the gap between the reported numbers and an actual result. The pollster’s two-party numbers look to be consistent with a 2019 election preferences allocation, although the report is not specific as to whether this method or respondent allocation was used. In his piece in The Guardian, Peter Lewis of Essential Research explains: “We will now be asking participants who vote for a minor party to indicate a preferred major party. Only when they do not provide a preference will we allocate based on previous flows.“

These results are obviously a lot better for Labor than what has come through from Newspoll and Morgan, and are clearly an established peculiarity of the series. Where headline results over the past two months have shown Labor matching or exceeding their primary vote at the election despite the inclusion of a 7% to 9% undecided component, the Coalition have been coming in two to four points lower. The Greens are reckoned to be about where they were and the election and One Nation a little higher, though the latter is complicated by their tendency to only run in selected seats.

Also featured in the latest poll:

• The federal government’s ratings for COVID-19 response are unchanged at 64% good and 16% poor, and the combined response for state governments has shifted only negligibly, with good and poor both up a point to 65% to 18% respectively.

• The small-sample results for individual state governments show the Victorian government up four points on both good and poor, to 53% and 30% respectively. This still leaves it with the weakest figures out of the mainland state governments, with the Western Australian government recovering its title of strongest performer (up five to 82%) from South Australia (down three to 76%).

• On JobKeeper and JobSeeker, 69% supported businesses being retested for eligibility, with 9% opposed; 66% supported continuing payments for six months, with 12% opposed; 54% supported reducing the amount of the payments, with 21% opposed; but only 29% supported excluding casual workers, with 40% opposed.

• Forty-three per cent rated themselves very concerned about COVID-19, up seven on a fortnight ago, with quite concerned down four to 44%, not that concerned down three to 9% and not at all concerned up one to 4%.

• Fifty-six per cent favour a “suppression strategy” and 44% an “elimination strategy”.

• Sixty-eight per cent support mandatory face masks. with 13% opposed; 19% believe them very effective, 46% quite effective, 20% not that effective and 5% not effective at all.

The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1058.

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.

1,645 thoughts on “Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor”

Comments Page 2 of 33
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  1. citizen @ #44 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 10:03 pm

    Is 3rd time a Charm ? of Going Jail and not pass go and do not collect $200 dollars?

  2. Seems that others conclude that Fred Trump wasn’t much of a slum lord. Sprocket, you been sniffing glue again?

    Trump is wealthy today because of government housing subsidies. While still a young man, he inherited his father Fred’s real-estate empire, worth tens of millions of dollars. The senior Trump made his fortune by building middle-class housing financed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). In the 1930s, Fred Trump built single-family homes for middle class families in Queens and Brooklyn, using mortgage subsidies from the newly created FHA in order to obtain construction loans.

    https://prospect.org/economy/trump-s-housing-hypocrisy/

  4. steve davis says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 9:14 pm

    “Morrison is nowhere near as popular as Ardern is in NZ.”

    Genius.

    Who knew?

  5. a r:

    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 9:00 pm

    ‘It’s an outlier. Burn it!’

    I’d wrap it in gold; some evidence emerging that Albanese is playing his cards well.

  6. nath, you are right about Fred Trump sr, mostly racist activities – denying blacks leases in his condos, and being arrested at a KKK rally.

    I must have been thinking about Jared Kushner’s career before becoming Senior Adviser to Dotard..

    ‘Current and former tenants at numerous units said JK Westminster’s property-management arm, Westminster Management, was neglectful in its upkeep. Complaints about black mold, leaks, mice infestations, and even maggots were often ignored for weeks or months before the company did anything, according to the report. In some cases, tenants forced to move out by unsanitary living conditions were later sued for breaking their leases, the report said. Though Kushner stepped down from Kushner Cos. in January, he remains a stakeholder, and he played a central role in the company’s activities when the Baltimore properties were purchased in 2012.’

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/05/24/report-jared-kushner-described-as-litigious-slumlord-by-former-tenants

  7. sprocket_says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 10:14 pm
    nath, you are right about Fred Trump sr, mostly racist activities – denying blacks leases in his condos, and being arrested at a KKK rally.

    I must have been thinking about Jared Kushner career before becoming Senior Adviser to Dotard..
    _____________________
    Yes Kushner has some form there. There is an episode of Dirty Money on Netflix which details his operations around Baltimore. Nasty stuff.

  9. You might have been right about Fred Trump, but you are very wrong about Dan Andrews.

    He is displaying the type of leadership in difficult times which is inspiring and comforting for most people. You are lucky to have him in Victoria.

  10. Well it’s important to get these things right. Fred Trump has been incorrectly labelled as a slum lord and I have been insulted as well by allegations that I would quite enjoy being a slum lord. I would not.

  12. sprocket_ @ #59 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 10:21 pm

    You might have been right about Fred Trump, but you are very wrong about Dan Andrews.

    He is displaying the type of leadership in difficult times which is inspiring and comforting for most people. You are lucky to have him in Victoria.

    Exactly. Some people confuse ‘leadership’ with what Scott Morrison does, when it’s just political kabuki.

  13. nath @ #60 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 10:22 pm

    Well it’s important to get these things right. Fred Trump has been incorrectly labelled as a slum lord and I have been insulted as well by allegations that I would quite enjoy being a slum lord. I would not.

    Allright, I take it back. Even though I didn’t say that you’d like it.

  14. sprocket_says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 10:21 pm
    You might have been right about Fred Trump, but you are very wrong about Dan Andrews.

    He is displaying the type of leadership in difficult times which is inspiring and comforting for most people. You are lucky to have him in Victoria.
    __________________
    COVID 19 is very lucky to have him as Premier at any rate. Andrews’ virus incubators worked well, and their dissemination to the wider community via security guards working uber shifts was inspired work. Well done Dan.

  15. Nath, ‘Andrews’ virus incubators worked well, and their dissemination to the wider community via security guards working uber shifts was inspired work. Well done Dan.’

    But there is an upside. You are losing money.

  16. PeeBeesays:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 10:28 pm

    But there is an upside. You are losing money.
    ______________
    Don’t take pleasure in other peoples misfortune PeeBee.

    schadenfreude is an ugly trait, but one that has been around for a while:

    ‘It is pleasant, when the sea is high and the winds are dashing the waves about, to watch from the shores the struggles of another’

    Titus Livius, 64/59 BC – AD 12/17), known as Livy

  17. Victoria has averaged 364 new Covid cases per day for the last 14 days. With a lot of jumping around, the trend is upwards, from about 300 new cases a day 10 days ago to 400 now. Not exponential but not good.

  18. nath, you’re the one taking malicious pleasure in Dan Andrews’ misfortunes. Physician, heal thyself!

    Maybe a dose of David Crowe rational reporting will cure you?

    The federal government is responsible for private aged care facilities and was meant to regulate the sector to learn the lessons from the first wave of the pandemic, when 19 died at the Newmarch House aged care home in western Sydney.

    Yet the Victorian crisis has revealed the same problems as the earlier outbreak: underpaid workers, on casual rates, turning up for work with the infection and then moving between aged care centres.

    Morrison was asked as far back as April to fund paid pandemic leave to encourage workers on low incomes to stay home when sick, but the debate over this has run for months.

    Only on July 19 did the federal government offer a $1500 payment for aged care workers who had to quarantine. It also said it would do more to stop workers being “shared” across multiple centres. But this came too late.

    Even now, after the Fair Work Commission has ordered paid pandemic leave, it is not clear whether the federal government will help carry the cost.

    The original Victorian failure, the breakdown in hotel quarantine, now has a spiralling cost and a clear culprit: the security guards and the state agencies that put them in place.

    It will take an inquiry to uncover everything that has gone wrong in aged care.

    Those who support Morrison or Andrews have an easy but simplistic answer that loads the responsibility onto one leader or another.

    The reality is more complex. The dangers in Victorian nursing homes are spreading faster because the lessons from NSW were not learnt in time. Andrews and Morrison have to share that result. And they both have to find the solution.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/blame-game-won-t-help-find-a-fix-for-the-aged-care-corona-crisis-20200728-p55gap.html

    You’re just engaging in the blame game. Are you not mature enough in your outlook to see past it?

  19. No doubt the Federal Government could have done more to protect the Aged Care homes in Victoria once it was obvious the virus was spreading throughout Melbourne.

  21. I’m just putting this out there, not for any malicious reason but to say that I am concerned. So I caught up with a little bit of The Drum tonight during ad breaks for Australian Ninja and I saw John Hewson was on the panel in the studio. He did not look well. He looked as if he had lost weight, had aged almost overnight and he was barely suppressing a cough. I hope he’s ok.

  23. Tony Abbott in 2015 gave almost $1 billion for Aged care early in that year, and then cut funding in December of that same year.

    IN 2014 Tony Abbott did the following:

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/tony-abbotts-sister-opposes-governments-approval-of-middle-head-aged-care-20141023-11apwx.html

    “The plan required the approval of both the board of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust and Environment Minister Greg Hunt or his delegate. Both approvals were announced in tandem on Thursday by Mr Hunt’s parliamentary secretary, Simon Birmingham.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/tony-abbott-faces-liberal-revolt-over-middle-head-aged-care-home-20141107-11ism7.html

    “High-end aged care facilities elsewhere on Sydney’s lower north shore are charging upfront bonds of up to $2.6 million per unit to join.”

    Aged Care facilities in Australia -are ripping of the elderly.

    The only people who are playing political, are liberals and their donors.

  25. Zerlo says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 10:48 pm
    nath

    The no action prime minister of marketing is a failure, period.
    ____________________________________
    Your no zerlo ,zerlo you are so STRONG !

  26. C@tmommasays:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 10:43 pm
    nath @ #70 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 10:42 pm

    So could have the state government.

    They did, for the Aged Care Homes that they have purview over.
    ________________
    I wasn’t aware the the state government have no responsibility for delivering health services to private aged care homes in a pandemic. How many nurses are in the Commonwealth Health Department? There would be more accountants surely.

  27. Tony Abbot back in 2010:

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-08-01/professionals-slam-abbotts-aged-care-plan/927802

    The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) has slammed Tony Abbott’s aged care announcement, saying it will create a “crisis in care”.

    Mr Abbott today announced a Coalition government would spend $335 million to get 3,000 beds for high-care patients operational during its first term.

    But ANF spokeswoman Yvonne Chaperon says freeing up the beds without providing additional funding for nursing staff will only escalate issues already facing the sector.

    “Nurses are already leaving aged care. They are underpaid by up to $300 per week when compared to nurses in the public sector, and often have to work long and difficult shifts,” she said in a statement.

    Nath – would you like to go on?

  28. Zerlosays:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 10:55 pm
    Tony Abbot back in 2010:

    Nath – would you like to go on?
    _____________
    Knock yourself out. Pay and conditions for aged care workers are pretty bad. Except for when Labor was in power, then they drove Ferraris and wore copious amounts of bling.

  29. OK I will go on.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-17/millane-ageing-population-abbott-ministry/4963116

    Ageing and aged care are now silent in the portfolio mix, subsumed under ‘Social Services’. This says to incoming minister Kevin Andrews and assistant minister Mitch Fifield that these areas are only part of his job, not his primary focus. This says to key stakeholders in aged care that their sector is going to have to fight for a seat at the table, rather than being guaranteed one. Most importantly, this says to older Australians that their wellbeing is not a priority for the Government. If something is a priority you name it as a priority.

    The decision to bury ageing and aged care in ‘Social Services’ is bad for all Australians, not just older Australians.

  30. nath

    Labor is for the ordinary people, not for 10 digit incomes, who make the richer, richer, like it has during the pandemic.

    Tories.
    Bories.
    Trumpies.
    Dumpies
    Markies
    Dumpies.

    All for the rich and for the fascism.

  31. Lars Von Trier @ #75 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 10:51 pm

    Zerlo says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 10:48 pm
    nath

    The no action prime minister of marketing is a failure, period.
    ____________________________________
    Your no zerlo ,zerlo you are so STRONG !

    What do you get out of trying to demean people here all the time? Does it satisfy some sort of personal feeling of inadequacy or something?

  32. C@tmomma says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:06 pm
    Lars Von Trier @ #75 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 10:51 pm

    Zerlo says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 10:48 pm
    nath

    The no action prime minister of marketing is a failure, period.
    ____________________________________
    Your no zerlo ,zerlo you are so STRONG !
    What do you get out of trying to demean people here all the time? Does it satisfy some sort of personal feeling of inadequacy or something?
    ____________________________________
    How is my comment demeaning? Zerlo always takes up his p.o.v, he is STRONG !

  33. Lars Von Trier @ #82 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 11:08 pm

    C@tmomma says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:06 pm
    Lars Von Trier @ #75 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 10:51 pm

    Zerlo says:
    Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 10:48 pm
    nath

    The no action prime minister of marketing is a failure, period.
    ____________________________________
    Your no zerlo ,zerlo you are so STRONG !
    What do you get out of trying to demean people here all the time? Does it satisfy some sort of personal feeling of inadequacy or something?
    ____________________________________
    How is my comment demeaning? Zerlo always takes up his p.o.v, he is STRONG !

    You’re not going to fool me. The tone was derisory and you know it. Even if you may wish to back and fill now.

  35. Lars Von Trier @ #20 Tuesday, July 28th, 2020 – 9:33 pm

    Labor should be ahead 60-40 like NZ Labor. Suggests fundamental problems with Australian Labor that they’ve flatlined in vote terms in the middle of the worst economic (in 90 years) and health (in 100 years) crisis.

    Still repeating this shit after last night.

    NZ Labour are the Government, Aust Labor are the Opposition.

    By your logic the fact that the Coalition Government aren’t ahead 60-40 suggests that they are shit ones in this equation.

  38. I think Albanese should just keep his mouth shut for now, let Morrison be popular for a little while who cares? The election is 2 years away
    By then there will be massive loads of debt as there is now, but people will notice it then…
    Look at how popular Rudd was when he was spending money, he didn’t even make it to the next election…

  41. This is what it means to have an economy in which most workers are employed in services sectors:

    Having a services-dominated economy is empowering. It means we have a lot of options about how we deploy our resources. We can choose to prioritise jobs that care for people, care for communities, and care for the environment. We can prioritize the arts, the humanities, the sciences, culture, recreation, civilisation.

    Warren Mosler, a founder of the MMT school of thought in macroeconomics, added this point:

    “And we can remove the incentives that create and support a parasitic financial sector that operates counter to public purpose.”

    I agree with Warren that we need to eradicate the parasitic elements of the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sectors.

    In addition we need to have rules that prevent exploitation of workers.

    Decent pay.

    Secure and stable working conditions.

    Healthy work-life balance.

    Non-inflationary full employment at all times (so that workers and job-seekers have lots of bargaining power).

    Multiple suitable job vacancies for every job-seeker.

  42. Nicholas
    I agree with Warren that we need to eradicate the parasitic elements of the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sectors.

    ————————————-
    Nicholas
    This is offensive language coming from a person that benefits from people with disabilities. The FIRE sector provides some of the best paying jobs in the economy and can be just has important to the functioning of society as nurses and teachers are. Just because you do not like those industrie doesn’t make them parasitic and is little different than righties whom unfairly dismiss public servants as waste and useless.

  43. Nicholas
    Multiple suitable job vacancies for every job-seeker.
    —————-
    That will leave you short of your full employment objective because for full employment to occur you basically need there to be only one job per suitable job seeker.

  45. Hunt is playing politics 101, he knows it is systemic issue. Aged care staff have long been underpaid and undervalued – this is Federal responsibility.

    Having a go at Andrews re individual staff is deflection of responsibility.

  46. Latest Rick Wilson podcast. The first 6-7 mins are about polling, in particular in Florida. Rick says he won’t rest easy with polls in Florida until he sees Biden consistently polling 15-17 points above Trump. Until then we should just expect that Florida will be won by Trump, as Florida is not the purple state commentators paint it as – it’s a red state.

    https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/pretty-close-to-a-hundred-new-epstein-accusers/id1508202790?i=1000486357932

  47. Scout,
    Greg the Lying Hunt always plays politics. He has no scruples. He abandoned the thesis he wrote on Climate Change so he could advance in politics and he is surrounded by goons who intimidate little old ladies. I despise the unprincipled, pencil-necked living and breathing chum bucket!

  50. @lynlinking
    ·
    7m
    CBD Melbourne: No hotel iso for returning ministers
    Canberra sources tell us that Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds will both be exempted from compulsory hotel quarantine when they return to Australia

    I just want them to keep well away from me, thanks.

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