Essential Research leadership and COVID polling

The shine continues to come off Scott Morrison’s COVID-boosted personal ratings, plus new evidence of a softening in support for the Coalition among women.

The fortnightly Essential Research poll includes the pollster’s monthly leadership ratings, which gives Scott Morrison his weakest results since the onset of COVID-19 – down six on approval to 51% and up four on disapproval to 40%, with his lead as preferred prime minister narrowing slightly from 48-28 to 46-28. Anthony Albanese is up two on approval to 41% and down one on disapproval to 35%. These numbers have been fed into the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, sharpening Morrison’s established downward trend.

Approval of the federal government’s response to COVID-19 has also deteriorated, with a nine point drop in the good rating since last month to 44% and a six point increase in poor to 30%. Among respondents in New South Wales, the good rating for the federal government has slumped from 62% to 44%, and that for the state government is down from 69% to 57%. A range of other questions are featured on matters relating to COVID-19, including findings that 36% would be willing to get the Pfizer vaccine but not AstraZeneca (5% said vice-versa); that 40% believe the vaccine rollout is being down efficiently, down from 43% a month ago (and 68% earlier in the year); and that 64% believe it is being done safely, down from 67%.

The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1099; full results can be viewed here.

Elsewhere, the Age/Herald yesterday published results aggregated from the three monthly Resolve Strategic polls which compared current voting intention with how respondents recalled having voted in 2019, and found women were more likely to have shifted away from the Coalition (down four points to 37%) than men (down one to 41%). On the subject of Resolve Strategic, Macquarie University academic Murray Goot casts a critical eye over its (and to a lesser extent Essential Research’s) attitudinal polling in Inside Story and takes aim at its refusal to join the Australian Polling Council and adhere to its transparency standards.

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.

3,546 comments on “Essential Research leadership and COVID polling”

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  1. Judging by social media, the latest ad has done a good job of reminding under 40s they can’t get vaccinated anytime soon. Morrison in the reminding everybody he’s a useless incompetent stage of crisis management, as he demonstrated during the bushfires.

  2. Cud chewer

    NSW will do what is required with or without Gladys in charge. They dont have a choice.
    Sick and dying loved ones is not negotiable.

  3. Asha Leu @ #3497 Sunday, July 11th, 2021 – 9:50 pm

    Cud:

    And as much as I don’t like Gladys I’m scared of what would happen if she were knifed.

    Agreed. She deserves the heat she’s copping for this mess, but I genuinely hope she makes it through any spills that may happen in coming weeks. If Perrottet gets his way, things could become very grim indeed.

    Wouldn’t this mess show up Perrottet and the ‘let-‘er -rip’ malcontents as patently wrong on what’s in
    business’s best interests and actually consolidate her position?

  4. C@tmomma says (Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 7:14 pm):

    EGT,
    Those suggestions are admirable, except do you know how virtually impossible it is to search this blog!?! I’ve tried on various occasions and unless you know exactly when something was said and on which thread, you will waste countless hours trying to find it again.

    And, as for hierarchical tree blogs, well, what about you don’t know something is relevant to a current discussion at the time it is said so it never gets attached to a tree?

    Many people here (including myself) would benefit from responding slightly less quickly

    If one is responding to something said by another, then there is a tree, as it is a reply
    If not, then there is no quote (liable to be misattributed, misunderstood or otherwise mishandled)

    The main problem with a tree is that it makes it more difficult to “read everything” or “keep up”, so it’s better to stay flat, but support proper quoting.

  5. Asha Leu says:
    Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 10:06 pm

    53-47 to Labor in WA strikes me as rather significant. That’s a 7% swing from 2019.
    _____
    Huge, if it’s accurate and it holds. Qld still holding out though. Albo needs to do better there. He’s trying though. Even if he gets to 49-51 in Qld it would be a good achievement.

  6. Henry says:
    Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 9:44 pm
    Sussan Ley added an extra S to her name for much the same reason that Siimon Reynolds did. Ie no reason based in science, fact or reason.
    She’s only the environment minister..

    Siimon may have been following the advice of his Yoga Guru

  7. Victoria

    “NSW will do what is required with or without Gladys in charge. They dont have a choice.
    Sick and dying loved ones is not negotiable.”

    Sorry, but I think that Hazard/Perotet are capable of doing the unthinkable.

  8. Huge, if it’s accurate and holds.

    Of course. That’s always the caveat, especially after the 2019 debacle. Though I would note that polling for all the state elections post-2019 has been pretty much on the money, as opposed to the noticeable failures we saw in Vic and NSW beforehand.

    Qld still holding out though.

    53-47 to the Coalition still represents a 5% swing to Labor – unfortunately, with very few LNP marginals left in Queensland (it’s just Longman and Leichhardt, IIRC), they’ll need to do better if they want to pick up many seats here.

    On the upside, I doubt we will see One Nation or Palmer do nearly as well this time around, and that’s where most of the swing against Labor went in 2019 (the LNP primary barely changed from 2016.) I suspect a lot of those votes have gone back home.

  9. a r @ #2749 Sunday, July 11th, 2021 – 6:18 pm

    guytaur @ #3293 Sunday, July 11th, 2021 – 6:02 pm

    @sonialf tweets

    My ICU and respiratory colleagues would not let someone suffer like that before they intervened. #COVID19nsw #medtwitter.

    For your discussion

    Once the situation gets past a certain point, that person and their ICU and respiratory colleagues won’t have a choice in the matter. Only so many beds, only so many ventilators, only so many staff members available.

    We’ve seen covid overrun healthcare systems enough times. No hospital worker, however well-intentioned, can stop every patient from suffering and dying like that once the deluge starts.

    Sonia Fullerton is a Palliative Care Physician at Peter Mac. She was involved in some of the proposed protocols for triage of ICU support if Australian hospital systems became overwhelmed during last year. Fortunately that was not needed in Melbourne.

  10. Oh, actually, I was wrong, both Dickson and Brisbane are under 5% too, though the Greens will be in play in the latter too.

  11. The northern Tas seats are obviously key. Given Albo’s penchant for infrastructure I wonder if he’s thought of backing a rail project to connect Hobart to Launceston and then Devonport. There used to be such a service and I think it would not only be an election winner but a huge boost to Tasmania. Visitors from Melbourne could get off at Devonport and catch a train to Hobart. Massive for tourism.

  12. “https://www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-retirement/downsizing-to-top-up-super-a-viable-option-20210708-p5880p.html”

    I wish I had problems like this.

    I feel this article from the SMH is just a nose rub to all of us who couldn’t accumulate such a portfolio.

    Come on you plebs, what are you doing wrong?

  13. “Visitors from Melbourne could get off at Devonport and catch a train to Hobart. Massive for tourism.”

    The train would have to decisively compete with car travel. About 1hr45m to compete with the typical car trip of 2hr 15m. Hence the train would need to average 115 km/hr so a design speed of 160 km/hr.

    Terrain wise, its not all smooth sailing. Especially the Hobart end. My guess is about $14 billion worth. I doubt its going to pass muster. Bottom line is that its competing with a well established highway and that highway isn’t going to face congestion any time soon.

  14. https://www.pollbludger.net/2021/07/07/essential-research-leadership-and-covid-polling/comment-page-71/#comment-3649546

    Apparently almost everybody who used the Spirit of Tasmania is doing so to move their car, with people travelling without a car using planes (which take a fraction of the time).

    The railway between Devonport and Hobart does not go via Launceston and is not designed for speed.

    The section of railway between Bridgeport and Hobart has been closed.

    https://www.tasrail.com.au/map

  15. William Bowesays:
    Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 9:58 pm
    On top of anything else, Lars von Trier hasn’t said one single thing about Grimace.
    ********
    I must have missed something. It may well be me who is slow on the uptake. Who cares what LvT thinks of me?

    What does this have to do with anything?

  16. C@t

    Yep, its on my list of places to go to 🙂

    I visited the original Farm Sanctuary in upstate New York back in 1994, when they were getting started. That sparked a bunch of other similar places in the US.

    I had a friend in New Jersey with a rescued herd and I got to meet them back in 2003. Gosh they were so much fun. Her big boys (two Holstein steers) weighed a tonne each and thus her truck had dings and dents from the boys using it as a plaything – pushing it around the field. They were as gentle as puppies btw, and very playful 🙂

  17. Cud Chewer says:
    Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 10:59 pm

    “Visitors from Melbourne could get off at Devonport and catch a train to Hobart. Massive for tourism.”

    The train would have to decisively compete with car travel. About 1hr45m to compete with the typical car trip of 2hr 15m. Hence the train would need to average 115 km/hr so a design speed of 160 km/hr.

    Terrain wise, its not all smooth sailing. Especially the Hobart end. My guess is about $14 billion worth. I doubt its going to pass muster. Bottom line is that its competing with a well established highway and that highway isn’t going to face congestion any time soon.
    ___________
    That much huh? Shame. I guess it all depends how many extra tourists they can pull from Melbourne. Seems to me that Tasmania’s biggest resource is in being linked to a big city. I wonder how many extra dollars it could bring in? Add an AFL team in Tasmania? That might help.

    So much better to land and then get on a train to Launceston. Stay the night and a few days and then get on the train to Hobart for a few days before heading back, with linked bus services to see the natural wonders.

  18. The guardian is putting our 9 million doses, as of today, at 4.7 million behind schedule.

    Of course THAT schedule is the piss weak ScoMo schedule he set at the end of last year, after the UQ vaccine was a bust and he was effectively NOT engaging with any of the rMNA providers (except for an initial and belated 10 million doses in the latter half of this year).

    Imagine if he engaged directly with Pfizer’s CEO – like other country’s heads of government did. Even as late as November. Imagine if the ly’n Hunt actually put his shoulder to the wheel TNEN.

    Surely, we’d be past 25 million does by now? I mean, adjusting for population size, if we went as hard as the UK, we’d be at around 32 million. So adjusting further for the extra caution we are taking with AZ the question must remain. … Why. The. fuck. Aren’t. We. Past. 25 Million. Doses. Already?

  19. As a Sydney resident, I am expecting ice cream trucks dispensing financial largess, no contact, forthwith. If Morrison loses Sydney, Queensland wont save him.

  20. Comparing Israel’s vaccine rollout versus ours.
    Note that their data starts at Feb 19 and ours doesn’t start till Feb 22. Also the vertical scale is different.

    This where we’d be if we had a competent government capable of making a phone call. Instead we get an incompetent Prime Minister incapable of realising when his incompetent Health Department is giving him bad advice.

  21. After a very shakey start and having been down 5-2, Berretinni
    wins the first set in a tie break, which is lucky for him for if the Joker had won the first set, given his record, it would’ve probably been over for the Italian.

  22. The Joker wins in four 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3. Can’t access the stats but it will tell the story of Berrettini not getting enough first serves in and too many unforced errors relative to the quarters and semis. Djokovic now has the chance of a calendar grand slam if he wins at Flushing Meadow, and a “Golden” slam if takes gold in Tokyo. Can’t wait for the soccer at 4 am, the 2nd Rugby test on Tuesday, the 3rd State of Origin on Wednesday at Metricon on the Goldie – a sports’ smorgasbord.

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