Essential Research leadership ratings, ACT poll, Eden-Monaro wash-up

Poll respondents continue to rate incumbents generously in their response to COVID-19; an ACT poll points to a status quo result at the election there in October; and the preference distribution is finalised from the Eden-Monaro by-election.

The Guardian reports the latest fortnightly Essential Research poll includes its monthly leadership ratings, showing further improvement in Scott Morrison’s standing. He is up three points on approval to 66% and down four on disapproval to 23%, while Anthony Albanese is respectively steady at 44% and up two to 30%, and his lead as preferred prime minister is at 52-22, out from 50-27.

The small-sample breakdowns on state government performance finds the Victorian government still holding up reasonably well, with 49% rating it good (down four on a week ago, but well down on a 75% peak in mid-June), while the New South Wales government’s good rating is down a point to 61% and Queensland’s up a point to 68%. Results for the federal goverment are not provided, but will presumably be in the full report when it is published later today.

Fifty per cent now rate themselves very concerned about COVID-19, which is up seven points on a fortnight ago and has been progressively rising from a low of 25% in mid-June. Fifty-six per cent of respondents said they would seek a vaccine straight away, 35% less immediately and 8% not at all. Twenty per cent believed that “hydroxychloroquine has been shown to be a safe and effective treatment”.

UPDATE: Full report here. The federal government’s good rating on handling COVID-19 is down a point to 63%, and its poor rating is steady at 16%.

Other news:

• We had a rare opinion poll for the Australian Capital Territory, which holds its election on October 17, conducted by uComms for the Australia Institute. It offered no indication that the Liberals are about to break free of their status as a permanent opposition, with Labor on 37.6%, Liberal on 38.2% and the Greens on 14.6%, compared with 2016 election results of 38.4%, 36.7% and 10.3%. This would almost certainly result in a continuation of the present state of affairs in which the Greens hold the balance of the power. The poll also found overwhelming support for “truth in political advertising” laws, with 88.5% supportive and 4.9% opposed. The poll was conducted on July 20 from a sample of 1049.

• The preference distribution from the July 4 Eden-Monaro by-election has been published, offering some insight into how much Labor’s narrow victory was owed to a Shooters Fishers and Farmers preference recommendation and a higher than usual rate of leakage from the Nationals. The former was likely decisive: when Shooters were excluded at the final count, 5341 (56.61%) went to Labor and 4093 (43.39%) went to Liberal, which includes 5066 first preference Shooters votes and another 4368 they picked up during the preference distribution (including 1222 from the Nationals). When the Nationals were excluded earlier in the count, 4399 votes (63.76%) went to the Liberals, the aforementioned 1222 (17.71%) to Shooters, 995 (14.42%) to Labor and 283 (4.10%) to the Greens. This includes 6052 first preference votes for the Nationals and another 847 they picked up as preferences earlier in the distribution. That would be consistent with maybe 20% of Nationals votes ending up with Labor compared with 13% at the 2019 election, which would not quite account for Labor’s winning margin. At some point in the future, two-candidate preferred preference flow figures will tell us precisely how each candidate’s votes split between Labor and Liberal.

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.

2,756 comments on “Essential Research leadership ratings, ACT poll, Eden-Monaro wash-up”

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  1. Confessions @ #2433 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 12:57 pm

    I didn’t realise that the problems with nursing homes all began under ScoMo. I had thought that, in setting up what appears to be a highly incisive and effective Royal Commission, he was perhaps the first Federal leader in a couple of generations to try to do something to fix it (arguably since Menzies, who took the Commonwealth into the area because the State-run homes were so utterly dreadful).

    When you’re the govt and you’re running the show, the buck stops with you. The federal government is responsible for residential aged care facilities, and so therefore the ultimate responsibility for what happens in them lies with the federal government.

    ‘I didn’t realise that the problems with nursing homes all began under ScoMo.’ nor does the average voter.
    Hey, here’s an idea, why doesn’t Labor tell them. Over and over again.

  3. Player One @ #2432 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 12:54 pm

    Simon Katich @ #2428 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 12:36 pm

    Fitzgibbon did worse in 2019 than the QLD ALP electorates despite the fact that stopping Adani etc was actually going to be good for coalmining in his electorate.

    It is a shame if he goes. There is (should be) scope for alternate views in a party and certainly scope for someone wanting to stand up for the future of coalmining areas and making sure any transition was fair. But he seemed determined to blame everyone but himself for the disaster of his 2019 result – aligning himself further with the extremes of coal lobbying is just dumb at a time when even BHP is moving away from them.

    There should indeed be room for alternative views within Labor, but not for alternative messages.

    This is a rookie mistake that Labor makes all the time, and which the Tories simply don’t seem to make very often, if at all. They seem to know instinctively that when you are trying to dupe the electorate, the most important thing is to be consistent.

    ‘This is a rookie mistake that Labor makes all the time’

    Beggars belief.
    Australia’s oldest political party still making ‘rookie’ mistakes.

  5. Outside Left

    I hope you’re right re Fitzgibbon. I’m hoping he is challenged for preselection.
    At least we’re in the ‘cleaner’ part of his electorate but the people in the heavy mining areas are crying out for cleaner air. Singleton is taking up the fight but we hear nothing from Fitzgibbon about helping them.

    Simon K – Labor does need alternative voices but in the right direction. Fitzgibbon, instead of fighting hard to improve the quality of life for the Hunter, is siding with Canavan and Craig Kelly!!
    One of his media advisers rang me a few months ago and it was all ‘but we need more coal forever’ sort of talk. Renewables were far too futuristic for him. And Fitzgibbon is the hardest working pollie in the Party!! Gawd help me!!

    BTW Good luck with the coffee deprivation.

  10. I have always assumed that people appointed to be judges are all-wise, experienced members of the community, perhaps sometimes a little dried-up and emotionless, but capable of objective judgements. Certainly not with psychological problems that should disqualify them.

    It seems I am wrong. As in any profession, those at the top of the tree can get away with bad behaviour because they are considered more ‘believable’ than their victims.

    The case casts a shadow over Harrison’s rise to the District Court bench, where he ruled on cases involving domestic violence.

    And it fuels growing calls for new watchdogs, at state and federal levels, that can hold the justice system’s most powerful players to account when they face serious allegations.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-15/queensland-judge-brian-harrison-domestic-violence-allegations/12545204

  13. Relying on the 4 week ‘election campaign’ is an admission of political weakness and ultimately a losing strategy for an Opposition.

    Yes, people tune in to the campaign for headlines and optics but they don’t take in the substance.

    To sell a policy and a policy framework you need to start early and repeat repeat repeat so the substance is absorbed.

    Lazy, unskilled and inept politicians obviously prefer to avoid that.

  14. zoomster @ #2442 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 1:09 pm

    People argue contradictory positions – they want politicians to consult on policies, and they want there to be policies on everything all the time. You can’t have both. If you consult when you’ve already decided, then it’s not true consultation.

    There is no contradiction here. Consulting but not announcing is just as bad as announcing but not consulting. Possibly worse, as I have already pointed out.

    The policy development process should consult, develop and announce with minimum delays between these steps. And time needs to be allowed after the announcement for the policies to be examined, understood, and (if necessary) criticized and corrected. Leaving this to the last minute is asking for trouble.

    Labor’s post-election review highlighted problems with the policy development process, and said the timing of policy development and release should be up to the shadow ministries and leadership teams – but this does not mean simply delaying everything till the election campaign. I don’t believe this is what they meant at all, since they also decided that the National Conference be held before the end of this year.

  15. Another police union endorses Trump. You’d think they’d be in favour of a president who doesn’t fan flames and create riots.

    Bloomberg QuickTake@QuickTake
    ·
    4h
    The New York Police Benevolent Association (@NYCPBA) endorses Trump, a first for the union which represents over 50,000 active and retired New York City police officers

  16. Fess
    I lurk as much as I can – usually late at night. OH battling on. Definitely a determined fella but we are in lockdown again and starting to feel the pinch at not having the family around for dinner.
    Life was starting to look a little normal when Newcastle suddenly had a few virus outbreaks so the Drs are being cautious for him.
    We’re lucky that we are best mates and enjoy each other’s company so all good for us but it must be so hard for those who find isolation cloying,

    OH torments himself with watching Morrison lying like a pig in muck but I reckon it’s keeping him going. He’s determined to outlive the Morrison Govt!!

    Yesterday’s presser wasn’t befitting of a Prime Minister and Leader. I felt in despair afterwards. So many people are expendable to ScottMorrison but obviously he feels his back is covered by compliant media. Here’s looking at you Phil Coorey for starters. Well done Andrew Probyn for trying.

  18. BH:

    Thanks for that, I think some of the residents have taken to me because I’m a fresh face and therefore someone new and different.

    Best wishes to you both, esp OH.

  19. There should indeed be room for alternative views within Labor, but not for alternative messages.
    This is a rookie mistake that Labor makes all the time, and which the Tories simply don’t seem to make very often, if at all.

    Nah.
    They do it all the time – only it is a careful, deliberate two face strategy. It happens also in the US where party allegiance isnt (wasnt) as strong as it is here. The Dems even have an affiliated farmers party – a successful one at that. Blue senators often get elected in Red states and vice versa. They walk a fine line. Mostly toe the party line – but acknowledge who their voters are.

    There is nothing wrong with Fitzgibbon standing up for the coalminers and associated businesses in his electorate. Nothing wrong with him openly canvassing alternate policies (at this stage – does the ALP even have one yet?). But hanging with Canavan…. jeepers. And encouraging the opening up of the Galilee Basin? How the f does that help the Hunter?

  25. Confessions @ #2465 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 1:42 pm

    Another police union endorses Trump. You’d think they’d be in favour of a president who doesn’t fan flames and create riots.

    Bloomberg QuickTake@QuickTake
    ·
    4h
    The New York Police Benevolent Association (@NYCPBA) endorses Trump, a first for the union which represents over 50,000 active and retired New York City police officers

    The inference that all cops don’t want riots dabbles with the naive. But, more seriously, there is the meme that Dems mean to defund the police, and Harris and the police don’t have the best of relationships after she (as a DA) eschewed the death penalty for a police killer. She is vehemently opposed to the death penalty, although there is some debate about how absolute that is.

    As a reduction, what does it say about a country that one of the major weaknesses of a candidate for high office is opposition to the death penalty.

  26. zoomster @ #2445 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 1:12 pm

    That the policies have been developed – and their general thrust – isn’t a secret, because (for starters) there’s already been debate amongst the membership via Conference and motions passed. It’s the fine details which are then thrashed out.

    This is just nit-picking. We are not talking “fine detail” here. There isn’t much fine detail in your average policy announcement from any political party. In fact, I agree with Bowen that Labor suffered from too much fine detail:

    In a frank and wide-ranging interview on Guardian Australia’s politics podcast, Bowen, the senior New South Wales rightwinger and shadow health minister, says Labor failed at the last federal election because it tried to “boil the ocean” from opposition.

    …

    He says Labor should build on that lesson by going into the next election campaign with a “small bunch of national priorities”

    I accept his premise, but not his proposed solution. The problem with Labor was not that they had too many policies, it is that the policies they had were contradictory, ad-hoc, catered to too many “vested interests” and had little internal consistency or unifying ideology.

  27. lizzie @ #2644 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 11:40 am

    Andrews

    Surgical nurses who have moved into aged care have had extra counselling so they can deal with circumstances they aren’t used to.

    Surgery is a very limited and structured part of Medicine, which, in turn, is a very limited part of health. The real heroes are the everyday ones who turn up, and do the critical but utterly undervalued “maternal” things, like helping with feeding, bathing & reducing anxiety – not the “life-saving” stuff.

  29. P1

    ‘..it is that the policies they had were contradictory, ad-hoc, catered to too many “vested interests” and had little internal consistency or unifying ideology.’

    Which suggests they should have spent more time developing them, and thus released them later.

  30. On Morrison and the no one could have anticipated ‘this’ schtick – yes they could, yes they should, and yes, the used to.

    It was and still is called pandemic planning.

    This old April ABC article unpicks a few facts, or factoids, but the essence is: “Australia has not run a large-scale national pandemic exercise since 2008: Kevin Rudd was serving his first year as prime minister and the first iPhone entered the market and changed the way people communicate.”

    The Govt is speaking out both sides of its lying mouth – Morrison on the one hand claiming being caught unawares, which may be the case, but with no one to blame but himself, and on the other hand, Jane (children overboard) Halton saying we’ve done very well (compared to other, let’s say, low bar countries) because we were well prepared.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-20/coronavirus-australia-ran-its-last-pandemic-exercise-in-2008/12157916

  33. Four Australian men have been caught trying to dodge state border restrictions by sailing a houseboat from New South Wales to their home in Cairns, Queensland.

    AAP reports that the men were intercepted in Gold Coast waters on Friday after leaving the NSW north coast town of Coffs Harbour on Wednesday.

    The four men on board the 14-metre catamaran were allegedly trying to make the journey home to Cairns, a journey of over 2000km.

  35. ItzaDream @ #2475 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 12:08 pm

    Confessions @ #2465 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 1:42 pm

    Another police union endorses Trump. You’d think they’d be in favour of a president who doesn’t fan flames and create riots.

    Bloomberg QuickTake@QuickTake
    ·
    4h
    The New York Police Benevolent Association (@NYCPBA) endorses Trump, a first for the union which represents over 50,000 active and retired New York City police officers

    The inference that all cops don’t want riots dabbles with the naive. But, more seriously, there is the meme that Dems mean to defund the police, and Harris and the police don’t have the best of relationships after she (as a DA) eschewed the death penalty for a police killer. She is vehemently opposed to the death penalty, although there is some debate about how absolute that is.

    As a reduction, what does it say about a country that one of the major weaknesses of a candidate for high office is opposition to the death penalty.

    Great to see you again, Itza! Hope you’ve been well.

    Yep, what indeed does it say! Although I’m fond of pointing out the hypocrisy of those who are opposed to abortion (right to life!), yet are in favour of the death penalty.

  36. The Saturday Paper
    @SatPaper
    ·
    55s
    Now unlocked: The same week Sussan Ley refused to give protection to the Djab Wurrung trees, she gave special heritage status to the Parkes radio telescope. This is how culture is preserved in Australia.

  37. P1

    Well, policy development starts basically the day after an election is lost, so unless they go into an election assuming they’re going to lose, they can’t begin sooner than they do.

  39. I see the little Green ponies are unhappy they don’t have stuff from Labor to attack. Here is an idea, develop some of you own policies. Have a system a little up market than a bunch of people developing Labor attack lines in backrooms.

  40. zoomster @ #2487 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 2:33 pm

    P1

    Well, policy development starts basically the day after an election is lost, so unless they go into an election assuming they’re going to lose, they can’t begin sooner than they do.

    Labor’s problem last election was that they went in assuming they would win, so they cut corners on their own policy development process, ignored the contradictions inherent in their policies, added new policies late, and announced them without adequate preparation of either the electorate or even their own team.

    Add to that the arrogance of Shorten telling people he was going to be the next PM and Bowen telling people not to vote Labor, and we begin to see how Labor lost the unloseable election.

    Labor’s response to their shock loss has been to dump their existing policies, appoint a leader incapable of taking a fight to the government (which, whatever you think of him, was not one of Shorten’s failings) and instead try a ridiculous approach of appeasement with the government, which was always going to just ignore him. And so here we are with possibly less than a year till the next election, and Labor have apparently not even started to address the main policy rift within the party.

    I mean – what could possibly go wrong?

  41. Danama Papers says:
    Saturday, August 15, 2020 at 10:33 am
    Non @ #2341 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 8:20 am

    We can always rely on The Guardian to adopt a Greenist position if it affords them the chance to deride Labor. They are to the leftist perspective as News Corp is to the rightist.

    Same/same….Guardian/Murdoch….
    Fuck off you complete and utter idiot.

    A bit of literary criticism is usually a good thing. I make no apology for it.

  43. zoomster says:
    Saturday, August 15, 2020 at 11:11 am
    P1

    ‘So you support the Bowen “small target” approach?’

    Which bit of ‘not defending, explaining’ didn’t you understand?

    Labor is not and should not become answerable to the Greenists of either the pink or blue persuasion. They are hostile to workers, hostile to Labor and hostile to democracy and hostile to reform in general.

  44. frednk @ #2489 Saturday, August 15th, 2020 – 2:50 pm

    I see the little Green ponies are unhappy they don’t have stuff from Labor to attack. Here is an idea, develop some of you own policies. Have a system a little up market than a bunch of people developing Labor attack lines in backrooms.

    Some of us actually want Labor to win. People like you and Briefly just want the Greens to lose.

    The two are not the same.

  46. The Democrats are ready to fight Dotard’s stunts with those of their own…

    ‘Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) on Friday suggested that officials create a presidential crimes commission after President Trump leaves office to investigate his actions while serving as commander in chief.

    “I don’t say this lightly: when we escape this Trump hell, America needs a Presidential Crimes Commission. It should be made up of independent prosecutors who look at those who enabled a corrupt president. Example 1: Sabotaging the mail to win an election. #SaveThePostOffice,” Swalwell tweeted.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/512140-swalwell-calls-for-creation-of-presidential-crimes-commission-to-investigate

  47. frednk

    The Greens seem to think it’s a virtue to keep the same policies basically forever. Times change and policies need to change with them.

  48. Some of us actually want Labor to win. People like you and Briefly just want the Greens to lose.

    The two are not the same.

    Sadly, Labor cannot win as long as the Greenists succeed in their campaigns. This is not a matter of Labor or the Greens. It is a matter of Labor or not. The Greens have destroyed the Labor plurality. Green dysfunction implies a very high probability that the LNP will remain in power forever.

  49. P1

    ‘Labor’s problem last election was that they went in assuming they would win, so they cut corners on their own policy development process, ignored the contradictions inherent in their policies, …’

    In other words, they should have spent more time on policy development, rather than releasing policies early. As I said.

    ‘…, added new policies late’

    No, announced them later than others.

    ‘…and announced them without adequate preparation of either the electorate or even their own team.”

    Again, so they should have spent more time on policy development so that this didn’t happen.

    You seem to be arguing the case for delayed policy announcements more than I am.

  50. Sprocket
    Is tormenting Trump with and GOP with a Presidential Crimes Commission counter-productive atm? I’d love it to happen but is it dangerous?

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