The latest fortnightly Essential Research poll includes the regular monthly leadership ratings, their principal item of interest in between their quarterly dumps of voting intention numbers. The pollster included a bonus result for Scott Morrison’s leadership ratings in the last fortnightly poll by way of discerning any emergent gender gap in light of recent events. The results chart a steady decline for Scott Morrison, from 62% a month ago to 57% a fortnight ago to 54% now, and a corresponding rise in disapproval from 29% to 35% to 37%. While he remains well in positive territory, a distinct downturn can be observed in the BludgerTrack polling trend. The gender gap that opened a fortnight ago, which you can read about here, has neither narrowed nor widened.
Anthony Albanese records his weakest personal ratings in a while, with approval down two to 39% and disapproval up two to 34%. GhostWhoVotes, who monitors these things, points out that breakdowns by voting intention have him down five on approval among Labor voters to 55% and up six on disapproval to 22% – this is from a sub-sample of 483 and a margin of error of about 4.5%, so make of it what you will. In any case, he has taken a reasonable bite out of Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister, which narrows from 52-26 to 47-28.
The remainder of the survey is mostly about COVID-19 and the vaccine rollout, including the regular question on the quality of the federal and state governments’ responses. The federal government’s good rating is down eight points to 62% and its poor rating is up five to 17%, though this isn’t a whole lot different to the situation before the government’s numbers surged in mid-November for whatever reason. The ratings for the five mainland state governments are down as well, by two in the case of New South Wales to 73%, four for Victoria to 58%, three for Queensland to 72%, seven for Western Australia to 84% and ten for South Australia to 75% (with progressively increasing caution required for small sub-sample sizes). As with the federal results though, these numbers don’t look that remarkable when compared with their form over the longer term.
Respondents were also asked how confident they would have been about COVID-19 management “if a Labor government under Anthony Albanese had been in power”, with an uninspiring 44% rating themselves confident and 37% not so. Fifty-two per cent felt the vaccine rollout was proceeding too slowly, with 19% happy with the situation and 20% signing on to the seemingly odd proposition that it was happening too fast. For those in the former category, 42% held the federal government mostly responsible, 7% state governments, 24% international supply chains and 18% “unavoidable delays in the production of vaccines”.
There are a whole bunch of further questions on the vaccine rollout, interstate travel and the end of the JobKeeper and JobSeeker supplements, plus one on paid parental leave, which you can read about in the full release.
When Labor first asked the questions re the watches what was their aim. Was it to generate outrage at the waste of taxpayer money or to hope that Morrison would go off half cocked and open the door to a wider discussion about AP.
How much knowledge did Labor have about the report into privatising AP and that Holgate as CEO had fought against it.
Has Morrisons outrage and bullying of Holgate created problems for him in that he now has what might be a more sympathetic CEO to push the privatisation but the public knowledge that this is his aim will make it politically unwise.
Anyone who has paid any attention to Morrisons treatment of women would have been quietly confident that the opportunity for Morrison to use Holgate as a means to showing he was tough on the wastage of public funds would be irresistible .
shellbell
But does it address the rate of policing?
boerwar @ #998 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:02 pm
So you blame people who primarily want to see better environmental policies for not supporting major parties that refuse to offer them better environmental policies?
Isn’t that like saying if someone walks into a shop looking to buy an OLED tv and all they have are 30-year-old CRT’s lining the shelves then it’s the customer’s fault when the shop finally goes bankrupt due to no one buying their obsolete products?
boerwar @ #1000 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:02 pm
Labor is desperately hoping there are no votes in environmental issues.
Even though it doesn’t matter who wins, because a pro-coal politician is going to get the seat, I hope the Hunter by-election demonstrates otherwise.
Assantdj @ #995 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:04 pm
I reckon Labor just wanted to score a few political cheap political points re the Cartiers and didn’t realise Morrison would use it to bully Holgate out so he could privatise AP.
Remember that Morrison is all transactional.
Shellbell
My account once got some really cracking and binding advice from a deputy commissioner at the ATO which, he told me, would “solve” my tax situation for ever.
Thank God I didn’t take it, as it was alleged that someone had given the deputy commissioner a “bonus” (and not a watch) and the binding ruling wasn’t so binding after all.
OC
The Cranston kids and others’ tax rip off trial must be on soon.
One of the person charged with trying to extort the fraudsters was at school with me. We were trying to find him for our reunion and there he was on page one of the SMH.
BW
I will have a look
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-13/labor-candidate-jeff-drayton-says-he-will-defend-miners/100065134
Lazy effort from McKay.
Should have demanded an AMWU aligned candidate.
‘a r says:
Friday, April 16, 2021 at 4:09 pm
boerwar @ #998 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:02 pm
Locked but not loaded, they spend election after election making no difference to the environment.
So you blame people who primarily want to see better environmental policies for not supporting major parties that refuse to offer them better environmental policies?’
Goodness me, why would I ‘blame’ people for wasting their votes with such ethical certitude? There is a saying, which I am sure is subject to Godwin’s Law, about doing the same thing again and again and again and expecting a different result. 30 years of it!
My advice to the Greens environment voters would be to keep doing it until the Reef is dead and the world is at 2 degrees plus. You know it makes sense!
Alternatively, the environment voters could (a) switch their vote from election to election, thereby becoming that most valuable of voters – swinging voters or (b) infiltrating a major party with a view to ensuring that the environment gets proper priority.
But really, why should I blame the Greens’ environment voters for being dudded by the revolutionary zealots for which the Greens act as a Front Organization?
boerwar @ #1008 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:18 pm
Also, how does someone “waste their vote” in a preferential/2PP voting system?
Good messaging from Albanese. He’s playing Morrison on the break.
shellbell
Thank you. It has probably changed but I did see something about the WA rate of policing that came out with an Indigenous youth being something like 16 times more policed than a non-Indigenous youth. Many of the adults I worked with (including many who would routinely have passed for inoffensive middle class law cleavers had they been white) had been policed numerous times.
‘a r says:
Friday, April 16, 2021 at 4:21 pm
boerwar @ #1008 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:18 pm
Goodness me, why would I ‘blame’ people for wasting their votes with such ethical certitude?
Also, how does someone “waste their vote” in a preferential/2PP voting system?’
1. Back the wedge, the populist stunt and silly policies.
2. Bleed 20% of the primary vote.
3. Encourage the trots to force Labor to allocate scarce resources to their heartlands.
I see DimTim is still pushing the dud E/W link deal that returns only 45c for every dollar invested into it.
You just can’t trust the Vic Libs with ANYTHING.
boerwar @ #1012 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:24 pm
A Labor/Greens coalition agreement would fix that third one right up (and probably the second, too). 🙂
vvv
a r @ #1016 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:31 pm
The Labor right will back a Lib govt EVERY TIME before aligning with Greens. Fact ..!
Seems USA has a daily massacre now.
BW
NT would be interesting.
I acted for an indigenous boy in a stolen car which was doing doughnuts on a primary school oval during drop off. The vehicle was pursed to a petrol station where the boy attempted to flee and was tasered in the back (very bad) near a petrol bowser (could have been for disaster).
Bit of everything there.
‘shellbell says:
Friday, April 16, 2021 at 4:39 pm
BW
NT would be interesting.
I acted for an indigenous boy in a stolen car which was doing doughnuts on a primary school oval during drop off. The vehicle was pursed to a petrol station where the boy attempted to flee and was tasered in the back (very bad) near a petrol bowser (could have been for disaster).
Bit of everything there.’
—————–
I really don’t see the basics changing until we have a truth and justice commission, a voice, a treaty and just compensation.
Rex Douglas @ #1016 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:35 pm
Somehow I don’t think that’s helping.
lizzie
It’s because they have not got enough people carrying guns. Apparently the trick is to have lots of ‘good people with a gun’ as they will stop the ‘bad guys with a gun’. Or so I keep seeing argued by gun nut Mercans
‘a r says:
Friday, April 16, 2021 at 4:31 pm
boerwar @ #1012 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:24 pm
1. Back the wedge, the populist stunt and silly policies.
2. Bleed 20% of the primary vote.
3. Encourage the trots to force Labor to allocate scarce resources to their heartlands.
A Labor/Greens coalition agreement would fix that third one right up (and probably the second, too). ‘
The Trots, correctly, see Labor as the true ideological impediment to the Revolution.
‘shellbell says:
Friday, April 16, 2021 at 4:39 pm
BW
NT would be interesting.
I acted for an indigenous boy in a stolen car which was doing doughnuts on a primary school oval during drop off. The vehicle was pursed to a petrol station where the boy attempted to flee and was tasered in the back (very bad) near a petrol bowser (could have been for disaster).
Bit of everything there.’
I believe the worst job in Australia would be that of a police person in many parts of the NT.
Morrison: “Australia is standing with the people of Kalbarri today.”
And that’s about all they’ll end up getting from Morrison to rebuild their shattered lives.
Morrison will stand by and stand back from the people of Kalbarri.
Looks like the Kalbarries are fucked.
Morrison has announced that he has their backs.
poroti
I have been puzzling for a few weeks now over why the USA is said to lead the world.
a r @ #1022 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:44 pm
Yes, such simplistic nonsense is unhelpful.
I had a second problem with the Greens point out to me yesterday. To survive a party needs new talent. Progressive young talent now have two options the Greens or Labor left, if they chose the Greens they are locked away, never to contribute to the changes that we now desperately need.
Scott Morrison speaking in Kalbarri.
“We’ve seen too many disasters in this country in recent years,” he says.
Should someone tell him that there may be a connection with Global Warming?
Had lunch with a former colleague yesterday.
Used to be an ALP member, worked in labor ministers’ offices etc but for some reason switched to greens.
We dont really talk politics much but the recent WA election came up. He was working to support a family member who was a Greens upper house candidate and hinted he had become disillusioned with the in-fighting he encountered.
We have read plenty about the green factions in Victoria and NSW but it seems the WA mob has its problems.
The only WA Green MP, Fremantle mayor Brad Pettit, is less than universally admired, it would seem.
But I guess in a party room by himself that won’t matter.
Scotty is very good at standing with people. Not that he does anything to help but just standing there doing nothing he has down pat.
The CPC has apparently been manipulating China’s birth rate figures:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/china-population-crisis.html
‘Rossmcg says:
Friday, April 16, 2021 at 4:51 pm
Had lunch with a former colleague yesterday.
Used to be an ALP member, worked in labor ministers’ offices etc but for some reason switched to greens.
We dont really talk politics much but the recent WA election came up. He was working to support a family member who was a Greens upper house candidate and hinted he had become disillusioned with the in-fighting he encountered.
We have read plenty about the green factions in Victoria and NSW but it seems the WA mob has its problems.
The only WA Green MP, Fremantle mayor Brad Pettit, is less than universally admired, it would seem.
But I guess in a party room by himself that won’t matter.’
Thanks. Interesting post.
I hope the people of Kalbarri have started an audit group to see how much money they actually get from the empty suit from Canberra.
lizzie
If the US were a person their friends and family would have staged an intervention ages ago and made them get psychiatric treatment re gun violence.
lizzie @ #1036 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:54 pm
I’ve actually seen a Hi Vis vest that a Prime Minister or Premier gets to wear. It’s like a suit coat on the inside made with the finest quality material.
Or, in other words, it’s all a sham display of wearing the working man’s attire.
If Labor weeded out all the right faction dingbats the Greens would essentially dissolve before our eyes.
Baseball cap wearers should note: the tips of the ears are very popular locations for skin cancers.
Rossmcg @ #1032 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:51 pm
The WA Greens have probably had problems going back to Christabel Chamarette and Jo Valentine. 😀
Certainly Adele Carles wasn’t the happiest Greens WA camper.
Rex Douglas @ #1040 Friday, April 16th, 2021 – 4:58 pm
As would Labor’s vote. Just like The Greens’.
Given Albo’s response at the time. “Untenable”!
And the feeble attempt to walk it back the other day, I’m going to go with point scoring.
I doubt Morrison’s tantrum provoked much thought at the time other than to furiously do a me too.
It isnt right to compare disasters, we should be sympathetic to the difficulties people are undergoing regardless. Which is why I am going to compare disasters because there was one a few years ago in South Australia where 7 tornadoes ripped through several areas – winds in excess of 250km/h which far exceeded that of Kalbarri. Yes, more residential buildings were damaged in Kalbarri (70% of them damaged according to reports!). But the main difference between the disasters…. the Coalition decided to make political profit from one and show sympathy for the other.
Interesting. Many Kalbarri buildings built with Asbestos sheeting. Could add up to a big bill to clean it all up.
Albanese just saying what everyone is thinking – which shows how relatable Albo is.
Simple messaging like this highlights the contrast between the styles of Albanese and Morrison.
Albo is playing him on a break.
boerwar says:
Friday, April 16, 2021 at 4:52 pm
The CPC has apparently been manipulating China’s birth rate figures:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/17/world/asia/china-population-crisis.html
It is not news, I have been banging on about declining population as much as you have about CPC’s desire to take over the world.
It is why Australia spending a billion dollars a year to keep people away is unmitigated nonsense. The opportunity to deal with declining birth rates using immigration is fast passing.
As for China:
1) China runs the risk of declining population before it becomes wealthy enough to afford it.
2) You can’t run a war without cannon fodder.
3) As for locking up sections of your populations, how fcking stupid can you get.
https://www.themonthly.com.au/today/rachel-withers/2021/16/2021/1618552443/stretching-point
I think it’s high time that those remaining loyalist Shorten devotees fall into line behind Albanese.