Essential Research: leadership ratings, foreign and industrial relations

Some gloss comes off Scott Morrison’s still impressive personal ratings, and respondents prove broadly favourable to the government’s handling of disputes with China.

The latest fortnightly Essential Research poll, which is presumably the last of the year, features the pollster’s monthly-or-so leadership ratings: Scott Morrison is down four on approval to 62%, his weakest result since April, and up three on disapproval to 28%; Anthony Albanese is up three on approval to 43% and down four on disapproval to 29%; and Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister is at 50-24, narrowing from 53-24.

As it does at the end of every year, the pollster asked respondents if they felt it had been a good or a bad year for various actors, which produces appropriately extraordinary results, particularly so for the Australian economy (a net rating of minus 47%), small business (minus 43%) and “the average Australian” (minus 32%). However, the minus 7% result for “Australian politics in general” was quite a lot better than any recorded over the previous seven years.

Respondents were also asked if Australia’s relationships with various foreign players should become more or less closer, or remain the same. This produces a notably negative result for China, with 49% wanting a less close relationship, 15% more close and 20% the same. Closer relationships are generally desired with, in descending order, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Sixty-two per cent considered Australia “the innocent victim of Chinese assertion in restricting trade on certain products, but a non-trivial 38% felt Australia had “made itself a target by publicly criticising the Chinese government”. Fifty-six per cent felt Scott Morrison was right to demand an apology from the Chinese government over the recent Twitter spat, leaving 44% of respondents (the smart ones) favouring the alternative that he “should have let the issue be handled
through diplomatic channels”.

A question on the federal government’s proposed workplace relations reforms finds 52% expecting they will favour employers and businesses, 17% that they will favour employees, and 31% that they will strike a balance between the two. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1071.

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.

844 comments on “Essential Research: leadership ratings, foreign and industrial relations”

Comments Page 12 of 17
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  3. Late Riser @ #544 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 2:49 pm

    Interesting development for those who want to see Trump behind bars.

    New York Attorney General Tish James has a message for Trump: “I wrote a letter to the White House today to remind the Trump administration that it must preserve and maintain all presidential records. By law, every bit of this information belongs to the American people, and this president and the White House cannot deprive them of it.”

    Palmer goes on to say this is about leverage over WH staff and Trump and his kid’s actions in the WH.

    https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/new-york-attorney-general-targets-donald-trump-for-his-white-house-crimes/34851/

    Do you think there would be a way that she would know they were destroying evidence of crimes or anything else she might be interested in?

  4. Socrates @ #542 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 2:17 pm

    I agree with SK. If all the Pacific Highway upgrade was about was safety a Swedish style 3 lane with with wire rope barriers would have done the job for a quarter of the cost, and years sooner (saving more lives). The project was cul-de-saced years ago and led down the path of assisting coastal subdividers. The traffic volume does not warrant four lanes except within coastal cities, north of Tweed Heads, and south of Newcastle.

    I’d love to see somebody publish a post-hoc BCR analysis of the project outcomes. Neither side would want to.

    I know a lot of engineers who have worked on these (and this) job who agree with both of us.

    As always, when spending this much money, it ends up being a political decision. I remember as a kid there was huge public demand to ‘fix’ that highway. Well, it got gold plated. And a lot of unspoilt areas got the toxic tailings.

  6. SK its entirely possible that the virus has passed through multiple intermediate hosts. In other words, we’re not testing enough. Every day you see NSW Health on social media pleading for more people to test. This doesn’t work.

    If you want higher rates of testing then you need to make rapid do-it-yourself tests available widely. Its not just me saying this – its now a growing number of epidemiologists. There’s 3 such tests approved in Australia.

    We also need to take the inconvenience out of the standard PCR test. Have a “we’ll come to your door” service. Also, there’s absolutely nothing wrong in bribing people – give them a lottery ticket for their effort.

    Without testing, no contact tracing can ever work.

  7. Cud Chewer
    I would be more confident that NSW had no underlying community transmission if testing had been carried out routinely for transport workers and health staff. Both cohorts are in public facing jobs and if the virus is circulating it would show up.
    Contract tracing is great if you have positive tests to follow up but that’s like addressing the symptom not the disease.

  10. Jim Chalmers MP
    @JEChalmers
    ·
    18m
    Any recovery in the budget and the economy is welcome but today’s mid-year update contains no new measures to tackle the jobs crisis, build for the future or help struggling families and small businesses. #auspol

  11. CC,

    I would be surprised if we don’t have a routine testing regime for office workers, shops staff, etc brought in soon.

    By doing periodic sweeps you can then jump on clusters before they get too big…

  13. Socrates

    Fraid I disagree with you..

    I agree with SK. If all the Pacific Highway upgrade was about was safety a Swedish style 3 lane with with wire rope barriers would have done the job for a quarter of the cost, and years sooner (saving more lives). The project was cul-de-saced years ago and led down the path of assisting coastal subdividers. The traffic volume does not warrant four lanes except within coastal cities, north of Tweed Heads, and south of Newcastle.

    I’ve been driven on Swedish roads. Nowhere did I see a “3 lane”. What I did see are modern, motorway standard roads of 4 lanes or more, constructed at half the cost we do it in Australia by a country with half our population. A large part of the problem here in Australia is that we just don’t build infrastructure a a high enough rate. Instead we dole out the funds in dribs and drabs and quite understandably this is factored into the cost structures of the major contractors.

  15. lizzie @ #559 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 3:01 pm

    Jim Chalmers MP
    @JEChalmers
    ·
    18m
    Any recovery in the budget and the economy is welcome but today’s mid-year update contains no new measures to tackle the jobs crisis, build for the future or help struggling families and small businesses. #auspol

    Perhaps Jim could get a few tips on those issues from Rupert at the next soirée…

  16. The origins of the NSW outbreak will be interesting.

    This will then put the NZ bubble back a few months as well.

    WA and Qld will close borders if necessary so NSW will need to have this under control otherwise Xmas might be a bit disappointing for some.

  17. Yep, that Pete Buttigieg fella, useless! 🙄

    His transportation expertise pales in comparison to other candidates passed over for the job, like David Kim, John Porcari or Sarah Feinberg, all of whom have years of transportation experience both at DOT and elsewhere, and are also savvy Beltway operators.

    But that lack of experience did not stop Buttigieg from making grand plans on the campaign trail in 2020. He was one of the first presidential primary candidates to put out an infrastructure plan, a detailed proposal which touted a vehicle miles traveled fee and road safety — subjects usually reserved for policy wonks.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/15/biden-cabinet-pete-buttigieg-transportation-secretary-445515

    What an upstart that young man is! How unqualified that Harvard and Oxford graduate and Rhodes Scholar with experience at McKinsey & Co. planning infrastructure projects and running the ruler over them!

  18. Yep, just a ‘political appointment’ 🙄 :

    Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg unveiled a plan to pour more than $1 trillion into creating millions of jobs and updating U.S. infrastructure with an eye toward fending off the effects of climate change.

    The 17-page plan calls for working with states, cities and local governments to build sustainable infrastructure that also builds “opportunity, equity, and empowerment.”

    “When our infrastructure works well, we hardly notice,” the Buttigieg plan said. “These days, we notice our infrastructure a lot.”

    What would the plan do?
    The proposal promises to create 6 million jobs with “strong labor protections;” ensure access to clean drinking water while lowering water bills across the U.S. and protecting against lead in paint and water; repair roads and bridges in poor condition by 2030; and invest in sustainable infrastructure that enables 50 percent of the country to grow over the next 10 years.

    How would it work?
    Buttigieg’s plan says it would prioritize connecting people with jobs and resources. He would double the Transportation Department’s BUILD grant program, which funds a wide variety of infrastructure projects, to $2 billion a year.

    The plan would boost transit, passenger rail and electric vehicles, and it promises to cut the backlog of road repairs in half over 10 years while repairing half of the nation’s structurally deficient bridges in the country by 2030 — both massive, expensive undertakings.

    His approach to the revitalizing the shrinking Highway Trust Fund calls for the federal government to “inject” $165 billion to keep it afloat through 2029, while requiring DOT to propose a new user fee system such as a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fee to replace the gas tax. Where that holdover money would come from isn’t addressed in the plan, although in the past Congress has transferred funds from the general treasury to the fund to maintain its solvency.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/10/pete-buttigieg-2020-infrastructure-plan-096976

  19. As mentioned earlier

    Dr Chant says she is relatively confident this is a new outbreak, and not an ongoing outbreak that has only been caught now.

    She referred to sewage surveillance from 10 December, saying it had come back negative, giving her confidence this is a new outbreak.

    2h ago 13:15

  20. If not already posted a quite good article on Trump the symptom rather than the cause.

    Today, to be an aspiring Republican politician in good standing, one must espouse a set of core beliefs that are either entirely baseless or provably untrue: the climate crisis isn’t real; gun safety laws don’t reduce gun violence; masks don’t reduce the spread of Covid-19. To many observers, embracing a conspiracy theory about corrupted voting machines or late-night “ballot dumps” would represent a break with reality. But for much of the Republican elite, that’s not a problem. They broke with reality long ago.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/16/donald-trump-republican-enablers-mitch-mcconnell

  21. WASHINGTON — The coronavirus vaccine made by Moderna is highly protective, according to new data released on Tuesday, setting the stage for its emergency authorization this week by federal regulators and the start of its distribution across the country.

    The Food and Drug Administration intends to authorize emergency use of the vaccine on Friday, people familiar with the agency’s plans said. The decision would give millions of Americans access to a second coronavirus vaccine beginning as early as Monday. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, cleared last week, was the first to be authorized.

    “This is great news, as this now brings us to two products with high levels of efficacy,” said Rupali Limaye, an associate scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

    The review by the F.D.A. confirms Moderna’s earlier assessment that its vaccine had an efficacy rate of 94.1 percent in a trial of 30,000 people. Side effects — including fever, headache and fatigue — were common and unpleasant, but not dangerous, the agency found.

    The F.D.A. said its analysis “supported a favorable safety profile, with no specific safety concerns identified that would preclude issuance of an emergency use authorization.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/health/covid-moderna-vaccine.html

  22. Oh no! Horrors! My tax file number has been suspended and…sob…wail…I can’t take it…how could they do such a horrible thing? I can never go out in public again without a paper bag over my head. The social stigma, the pain…oh…oh…

  23. Victoria

    I’ve no idea what Kerry Chant means by ‘new’.

    It must come from somewhere.

    Either its the result of ongoing infection with a chain of transmission going back over a month. Or it comes from one of the two recent border cases.

    I’d rather the latter. But either way the click resets.

  26. C@tmomma @ #552 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 1:56 pm

    Do you think there would be a way that she would know they were destroying evidence of crimes or anything else she might be interested in?

    I interpret this as a warning primarily to the record keepers, though I would not be surprised if there were leaks in the WH. I expect that record keeping at this level would have metadata for the metadata with redundant backups and who knows what else. Clearing all traces of an inexplicitly vanished document would be near to impossible and the attempt would be noticed, which would land someone in hot water.

    The warning is meant to make it easier to go after Trump and his offspring, rather than get bogged down with the record keepers. (Just a guess of course.)

  27. Cud Chewer @ #562 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 2:32 pm

    Socrates

    Fraid I disagree with you..

    I agree with SK. If all the Pacific Highway upgrade was about was safety a Swedish style 3 lane with with wire rope barriers would have done the job for a quarter of the cost, and years sooner (saving more lives). The project was cul-de-saced years ago and led down the path of assisting coastal subdividers. The traffic volume does not warrant four lanes except within coastal cities, north of Tweed Heads, and south of Newcastle.

    I’ve been driven on Swedish roads. Nowhere did I see a “3 lane”. What I did see are modern, motorway standard roads of 4 lanes or more, constructed at half the cost we do it in Australia by a country with half our population. A large part of the problem here in Australia is that we just don’t build infrastructure a a high enough rate. Instead we dole out the funds in dribs and drabs and quite understandably this is factored into the cost structures of the major contractors.

    Stick a freight rail line alongside.

    And a gondola above.

    No! A monorail!

  28. Cud Chewer @ #580 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 2:53 pm

    rhwombat
    Here’s a guessing competition for you.
    Does the current outbreak spring from one of the recent quarantine outbreaks? Or does it trace back to cases that were logged over a month ago (and therefore multiple intermediaries)?
    Unfortunately my money is on “we’ll never know”.

    I’ll wait for the genomics of the current cluster – which should be pretty determinitive . I agree about the possibility of occult asymptomatic persistence in NSW, given what we now know about asymptomatic shedding and the relative insensitivity of PCR in low testing environments, but the episodic nature and geographic linkage of the current outbreak suggests reintroduction, not persistence. Broad (and repeated) direct antibody testing of sufficient “sentinel” populations (like aircrew, other transport workers – and possibly some HCW) would be more useful that the current fear & loathing driven voluntary testing, but probably difficult to organise & fund in the current politico-economic environment in NSW.

    What I don’t know is why the index couple were tested. Were they symptomatic or did they have other reason to PCR test – like end of quarantine testing? Given the dynamics of airborne droplets in air-conditioned RSLs, my bet is on the muso (was he a singer or a brass player?) as the source and the other detected cases as secondaries – in which case, where did he acquire it?

  29. Kronomex

    “Oh no! Horrors! My tax file number has been suspended and…sob…wail…I can’t take it…how could they do such a horrible thing? I can never go out in public again without a paper bag over my head. The social stigma, the pain…oh…oh…”

    Get that one on a regular basis and that the Federal Police are on my case.

    Find it very difficult to get to sleep each night after these calls (not).

    That aside, it is scaring some people, namely the elderly and less educated.

    These grubs need to be caught, exposed and hit with max jail time.

  30. Late Riser @ #575 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 2:27 pm

    C@tmomma @ #552 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 1:56 pm

    Do you think there would be a way that she would know they were destroying evidence of crimes or anything else she might be interested in?

    I interpret this as a warning primarily to the record keepers, though I would not be surprised if there were leaks in the WH. I expect that record keeping at this level would have metadata for the metadata with redundant backups and who knows what else. Clearing all traces of an inexplicitly vanished document would be near to impossible and the attempt would be noticed, which would land someone in hot water.

    The warning is meant to make it easier to go after Trump and his offspring, rather than get bogged down with the record keepers. (Just a guess of course.)

    Where this might get interesting is if Trump pardons a senior record keeper to muddy things.

  31. When post-lockdown Centrelink queues snaked for blocks, for example, Albanese was complaining about his exclusion from national cabinet. On the day the industrial relations omnibus was introduced, Labor spent the day promoting a childcare savings calculator. Why Albanese chose 2020 – 2020! – to pursue a “national driver’s licence” scheme as a policy priority is unfathomable.

    This wilful disconnect from the current conversation is the most distressing habit of Albanese’s Labor. The party’s insistence on spending weeks talking about cancer when Australians were desperate to talk about jobs was the kind of deranged strategic choice that cost them the last election.

    Yes, the advice in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is to never to be drawn into fighting an enemy on their own territory, but it’s actually possible to talk about beef, barley, wine, coal and other exports stockpiled on Australian docks without getting drawn into arguments about trade. It’s by standing with the Australians this is hurting, pointing a finger straight at a disaster Morrison owns and demanding he do something – anything – about it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/17/without-a-reboot-in-2021-can-anthony-albanese-win-the-next-election

    We need to see a different Albo next year.

  35. rhw

    The chain of infection does’nt have to be asymptomatic. There are far too many who won’t get tested, even with symptoms. “It can’t be covid. Not me’.

  36. CNN is reporting that although Trump’s in a very foul mood, he’s nonetheless considering a flurry of pardons, quite a number of which are tied to his wheeling & dealing, the imperative being that if he pardons them, they won’t turn on him in order to get a reduced sentence. I don’t think that he should be too worried about Federal offences; it’s his alleged offending in New York that should weigh heavily on his mind.

  38. https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/12/16/essential-research-leadership-ratings-foreign-and-industrial-relations/comment-page-12/#comment-3527131

    Sweden does have divided 3-lane roads, known as 2+1 roads:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2%2B1_road

    Sweden also had a higher population density than much of Australia, with no deserts separating major population centres.

    Sweden is part of the EU`s free movement of goods. people and services, making for a much more competitive infrastructure market, unlike far from almost anywhere and functionally independent (except from NZ) Australia.

    Sweden also has neighbours generating through traffic through Sweden.

  40. Rex Douglas @ #586 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 4:14 pm

    Player One @ #583 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 4:09 pm

    Rex Douglas @ #580 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 3:58 pm

    We need to see a different Albo next year.

    We need to see a new Labor leader next year. Albo has entirely wasted the last 12 months. There isn’t that much time left before the next election.

    even if the alternative is Chalmers ..??

    Even if the alternative is Rex the Wonder Dog.

  41. Player One @ #589 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 4:20 pm

    Rex Douglas @ #586 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 4:14 pm

    Player One @ #583 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 4:09 pm

    Rex Douglas @ #580 Thursday, December 17th, 2020 – 3:58 pm

    We need to see a different Albo next year.

    We need to see a new Labor leader next year. Albo has entirely wasted the last 12 months. There isn’t that much time left before the next election.

    even if the alternative is Chalmers ..??

    Even if the alternative is Rex the Wonder Dog.

    plenty of bark ..AND bite ..!

  42. All this talk about the Pacific Highway being ‘finished’…I went on it last month, and it still goes right through the middle of Coffs Harbour, including lots of traffic lights. Didnt look finished to me????

  43. Tom

    Sweden does have 2+1 roads. As the wiki article points out, this happens because the existing 1+1 road was built to a sufficient standard (width) and converted.

    The old Pacific Highway here wasn’t built to sufficient standard. It had to be rebuilt. Once you get to that point, there’s not a lot of cost difference in simply building a 4 lane road.

    The real problem here in Oz is the limited ecosystem in road builders and the patchy nature of funding. In other words, a cottage industry.

    Rail is even worse.

  44. Can anyone point to any articles where Labor MPs have cast doubt on Albo continuing as leader.
    The media are stoking this but where is the evidence .

  45. Assantdj

    I haven’t.
    And it really amazes me how everyone keeps pointing the finger at the leader. The real problem is the organisation and its culture.

  46. Ol’ Pa “Moscow” Mitch has finally come to his senses, confirming Biden’s election win, and is on the cusp of agreeing to a C.19 stimulus package. As for the first, Trump’s rumoured to be in meltdown mode.

  49. Assantdj:

    Thursday, December 17, 2020 at 4:29 pm

    [‘Can anyone point to any articles where Labor MPs have cast doubt on Albo continuing as leader.’]

    I’m not sure that’s the point. Do you know of anyone who has come out and supported Albanese against the backdrop of media-driven leadership speculation? I think his support in the party is at best lukewarm. I hope he comes good next year but he’ll need to lift his game.

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