Resolve Strategic, Essential Research and more

A new federal poll from Resolve Strategic plus a data dump from Essential Research equals a lot to discuss.

First up, the Age/Herald bring us the forth instalment in its monthly Resolve Strategic poll series, which has so far come along reliably in the small hours of the third Wednesday each month, with either New South Wales or Victorian state numbers following the next day (this month is the turn of New South Wales – note that half the surveying in the poll due tomorrow will have been conducted pre-lockdown). The voting intention numbers have not changed significantly on last month, with the Coalition down two to 38%, Labor down one to 35%, the Greens up two to 12% and One Nation up one to 4%. This series seeks to make a virtue out of not publishing two-party preferred results, but applying 2019 election flows gives Labor a lead of around 51.5-48.5, out from 50.5-49.5 last time.

There seems to be a fair bit of noise in the state sub-samples, with Queensland recording no improvement for Labor on the 2019 election along with an unlikely surge for One Nation, which is at odds with both the recent Newspoll quarterly breakdowns and the previous two Resolve Strategic results. From slightly more robust sub-sample sizes, New South Wales and Victoria both record swings to Labor of around 2.5%; at the other end of the reliability scale, the swing to Labor in Western Australia is in double digits for the second month in a row, whereas Newspoll had it approaching 9%.

Scott Morrison records net neutral personal ratings, with approval and disapproval both at 46%, which is his worst result from any pollster since March last year. Anthony Albanese is down one on approval to 30% and up two on disapproval to 46%. Both leaders consistently perform worse in this series than they do in Newspoll and Essential Research, perhaps because respondents are asked to rate the leaders’ performances “in recent weeks”. Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister is at 45-24, little changed from 46-23 last time. Labor’s weakness in the Queensland voting intention result is reflected in Albanese’s ratings from that state (in which he happened to spend most of last week) of 22% approval and 53% disapproval.

The poll continues to find only modest gender gaps on voting intention and prime ministerial approval, but suddenly has rather a wide one for Albanese’s personal ratings, with Albanese down five on approval among men to 28% and up six on disapproval to 51%, while respectively increasing by two to 31% and falling by two to 41% among women. The full display of results is available here; it includes 12 hand-picked qualitative assessments from respondents to the poll, of which four mention the vaccine rollout and two mention Barnaby Joyce. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1607.

Also out today was the usual fortnightly Essential Research poll, which less usually included one of its occasional dumps of voting intention data, in this case for 12 polls going back to February. Its “2PP+” measure, which includes an undecided component that consistently comes in at 7% or 8%, has credited Labor with leads of two to four points for the last six fortnights. The most recent result has it at 47-45, from primary votes that come in at Coalition 40%, Labor 39%, Greens 11% and One Nation 4% if the 8% undecided are excluded. If previous election preferences are applied to these numbers, Labor’s two-party lead comes in at upwards of 52-48.

All of this provides a lot of new grist for the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, but it’s done very little to change either its recent trajectory or its current reading, which has Labor leading 52-48 on two-party preferred. The Resolve Strategic leadership ratings add further emphasis to established trends, which saw Morrison taking a hit when sexual misconduct stories hit the news in April, briefly recovering and then heading south again as the politics of the pandemic turned against him, while Albanese has maintained a slower and steadier decline.

The Essential poll also includes its occasional question on leaders attributes, although it seems to have dropped its practice of extending this to the Opposition Leader and has become less consistent in the attributes it includes. The biggest move since mid-March is a 15% drop in “good in a crisis” to 49%; on other measures, relating to honesty, vision, being in touch, accepting responsibility and being in control of his team, Morrison has deteriorated by six to nine points. A new result for “plays politics” yields an unflattering result of 73%, but there’s no way of knowing at this point how unusual this is for a political leader.

The poll also finds approval of the government’s handling of COVID-19 has not deteriorated further since the slump recorded a fortnight ago, with its good rating up two to 46% and poor up one to 31%. State government ratings are also fairly stable this time: over three surveys, the New South Wales government’s good rating has gone from 69% to 57% to 54%; Victoria’s has gone from 48% to 50% to 49%; and Queensland’s has gone from 65% to 61% to 62%. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1100.

In a similar vein, the Australia Institute has released polling tracking how the federal and state tiers are perceived to have handled COVID-19 since last August, which records a steadily growing gap in the states’ favour that has reached 42% to 24% in the latest survey. Breakdowns for the four largest states find Western Australia to be the big outlier at 61% to 11% in favour of the state government, with Victoria recording the narrowest gap at 34% to 25%. Fully 77% of respondents supported state border closures with only 18% opposed.

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.

1,799 comments on “Resolve Strategic, Essential Research and more”

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  1. ItzaDream (Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 4:48 pm):

    Socrates @ #1497 Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 – 4:41 pm

    Holdenhillbilly:
    Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 3:39 pm

    “GladysB has been saying that community transmission cases need to be near zero.”

    Correct me if I am wrong (and I agree Gladys makes it hard to check her numbers) but community infections per day are still going up in NSW. We have no idea when they will stabilise and head down.

    You’re not wrong, on both counts.

    I think today’s correct number is 87 (They’re all Cricketers). This is the highest it’s been. Medical things seem often to sawtooth on the way up for some reason*, and COVID does this (Victoria second wave did it and this gave false hope, which was nearly disastrous). Anyway, the sawtoothing stops at some point and IF one assumes that current sawtoothing episode is the last in this outbeak, then one can make a (conditional) prediction of peak, and 29 August sounds about right.

    Of course if there’s another sawtooth, then the peak will be later…

    * Dunno what Dandy Murray thinks, but I’d hypothesize in the COVID case it’s got something to do with the interaction between variations in testing rate and detections.

  2. citizen @ #1676 Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 – 9:59 pm

    According to Murdoch’s Oz:

    Young flocking to take up AZ
    People aged under 40 are rushing to doctors to discuss and receive the jab.

    Murdoch rhetoric to make Morrison look good or can this be verified using vaccination statistics?

    No mention of the 44 year old who ‘rushed to get the AZ vaccine’. And died?

    Of course not. They placed their age parameters very deliberately and carefully, it looks like to me.

  3. The politics is this:

    Labor: – This is terrible vaccine disastrous roll-out etc, Morrison had one job etc etc.

    Peeps: Fatigue about covid , lockdowns etc.

    This is all fair enough. The only problem is as rates of vaccination goes up/ it works less well as an issue.

  4. “Yes I used the health.gov website stats – tell me again how they are lies.”

    You did nothing of the sort. Stats aren’t dates and that’s what you claimed. It’s been pointed out to you twice. You are lying again. Right here. Right now. In front of everyone.

    You and the other imbecile who is actually suggesting that Morrison lie – not that he needs any help from anyone in that regard – because “It’s politics”. Of course, it would stay politics until he is picked up on the lie and then he would do what he always does. Blame someone else.

  5. Naff naff, you have never been in the Arena, battling for workers. Trying to balance competing interests for the greater good. You are prepared to accept the lies told by enemies. it has nothing to do with Shorten’s tenure as AWU national secretary. Its as pitiful, and purile as a suburban Melbourne grudge held because Shorten now barracks for your team, despite not being born into it. Admit it. It all boils down to that, doesn’t it?

    And you prefer ScoMo over HIM.

  6. Poor Roy Orbison – it seems your M.O for 10 years has been its lies, all lies ….

    Roy Orbison says:
    Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 1:07 pm
    Dovif,
    “If u live in Sydney, you would know that the Olympic stadium and a lot of the stadium was build and completes in 1996. that means the planning and construction was being done way before the 1995 election.”

    Stop lying. The first big event in the main stadium was the 1999 NRL Grand Final,although there may have been a Wallabies-All Blacks match a few months earlier. I was at the main stadium site the day Princess Di was killed in 1997 and it was barely out of the ground. The extended grandstand for the swimming stadium was not completed until a few months into 2000. The vast majority of sites came on line between 1997 and 2000.
    The games themselves were not awarded until the second half of 1993 and the Libs were kicked out in March 1995. Yes, they started the planning process and did a pretty good job of it in the eighteen months or so when they had a say. They were then basically sidelined for over five and a half years.
    All you need to do is to accept the proven facts and stop re-writing history – history that is easily proved one way or the other by a little thing called facts. I notice you didn’t care to nominate the rail projects completed by the Libs (excepting the airport line disaster). For you to do that would have meant making up a bit more history.
    Also still waiting for you to show how many deficits versus surpluses there have been in the life of this government. I would say you are either too lazy or too embarrassed. However, I will spell it out for you:
    1996 – deficit (first full budget)
    1997 – surplus
    1998 – surplus
    1999 – surplus
    2000 – surplus
    2001 – surplus
    2002 – surplus
    2003 – surplus
    2004 – surplus
    2005 – surplus
    2006 – surplus
    2007 – deficit
    2008 – deficit
    2009 – surplus
    2010 – surpuls
    2011 – projected surplus
    2012 – projected surplus
    2013 – projected surplus
    See? It’s just not that hard. While there have been a fair few idiots in this government, the basic performance has been pretty good. But then again, it’s just as easy to take ones instructions from Uncle Alan and either lie or make it up, as you have done constantly.

  7. Lars
    You’re pointing out the obvious. People move on. Arguing over whether it’s a problem or not is a weird way to frame things. It happens with all issues in politics.

    However, the damage has already been self inflicted, and the perception that ScoMo is a shirker will take some effort to shake. He has a lower base to work up from than he did before, and lower than he might have had otherwise (if he’d managed the vaccine rollout better).

  8. AE. Whatever you think of me, the fact is that I’ve never said a bad word about Albo, and think he’ll be a fine PM and intend to vote for him. So, imagine how difficult a time you’d have it if there actually were supporters of Scomo here? I think you’d all go insane.

  9. I remember when the carbon tax was gonna wreck the economy, according to conservatives but it never did.
    But hey Labor had to go anyway.
    These days people are literally having their livelihood ruined by the lock downs. But some people apparently think the great masses will forget this, and give dear Scotty another go… well that would be extraordinary indeed.
    By all the measures that the Liberals put on former Labor governments, well this current government has been a complete failure.

  10. DisplayName says:
    Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 10:11 pm
    Lars
    You’re pointing out the obvious. People move on. Arguing over whether it’s a problem or not is a weird way to frame things. It happens with all issues in politics.

    However, the damage has already been self inflicted, and the perception that ScoMo is a shirker will take some effort to shake. He has a lower base to work up from than he did before, and lower than he might have had otherwise (if he’d managed the vaccine rollout better).
    _____________
    True that. Agree with your post.

  11. “ The only problem is as rates of vaccination goes up/ it works less well as an issue.”

    You are betting the house on ‘it will all blow over in the end’ and tax cuts, strong employment etc etc will keep folk in the LNP camp at the next election.

    Perhaps you are right. I’m. Certainly not prepared to ‘call it’ for labor just quite yet.

    However, there is a tremendous amount of accumulated lead in the LNP saddle bags at this point of time in the political cycle. As bad as the vaccine roll out has been, and continues to be, it is but emblematic of a greater malaise with this government generally, and with ScoMo personally. This is an old government already. one without ideas except bribes and corruption. I’m not sure the ‘it will blow over’ phenomenon is likely to hold this time around in the circumstances.

    I’m also not sure there is much capital to be had over tax policy for the government either, given the green light that Albo and Chalmers have signalled. So, I’m not sure that ‘tax scares’ are going to get much traction this time around. I’m not sure that ‘Green scares’ will either (although I’d like to see Albo walk up and shoot Adam Bandt in the face with a derringer to seal the deal. Metaphorically of course, dear guytaur, metaphorically).

    I think Albo just needs to project a vague aura of hope and simple competence to get this done, but we shall see, wont we?

  12. Sceptic and Griff

    One thing I suspect isn’t being modelled is the brittleness of the track and trace. The model probably assumes infinite resources. In reality once the limit of track and trace’s resources are used, it falls over, quickly.

    The sudden rise on cases that were still infectious in the community and more concerningly the number of cases for which their presence or absence in the community hadn’t been fully investigated suggest we are very close to the track and trace system reaching its limit.

    When it does, its effect on R quickly goes away.

  13. lizzie (Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 5:49 pm):

    “I have no indication that she was offended in any way”. John Coates.

    Women have had a lifetime’s training in not showing that they are angry with powerful men. Did you expect that she’d slap your face in front of the world media?

    One of the things I like about C@t is she doesn’t conform to her “training”.

    Then there is this:

    Apparently the dude got onto tenure track, still cites her, and she now him.

  14. I think Lars is having a bit of a breakdown. Bringing up a post from over 10 years ago that pointed out and proved that someone was lying about something or other at the time. Is there a helpline or something for this sort of thing? Seems a little obsessive and more than a little like stalking. Maybe there’s a file out on me. Probably a fat file.

    It would seem that pointing out lies is not fair play. Straight out of the George Costanza – “it’s not a lie if you believe it” – playbook. OK. If someone wants to spread bullshit, they should be able to do that and no one should either question it. Who am I to point out facts if it spoils the fun of a troll?

    Go to bed, Lars. Perhaps a drink. Or probably one more than the several you look like you’ve already had. Go to confession. Run around the block a couple of times. Kick the dog. Book a session with a shrink. What about a massage? I think Nath has some time on his hands. But whatever you do, stop making a fool of yourself.

    Best – and good night
    Roy

  15. In Coates’ defence, it may be that they have the sort of close working relationship where that is just how they joke around with each other, and he didn’t consider how his comments would come across to those without the context.

    Not saying that is what happened, just playing devil’s advocate.

    I was livid when I saw the video. But after reading John Coates explanation I’m starting to think its what really happen. Annastacia Palaszczuk got a lot of heat for going and there was even a petition from the Right that she shouldn’t make the trip. Probably fearing more heat and it being seen as a politicians junket by attending the opening ceremony she decided not to go and stay in her hotel. Coates then telling her she has to go was seen as an a attempt to let her go so she couldn’t be blamed as it was his decision. Probably also the fact he was was in jovial mood and feeling like she shouldn’t miss out he decided to try and get her off the hook.

    However, the execution was clumsy and it came across as he was berating her like a school principle. I am a male and I thought it was shocking when I saw it. But after reading his explanation it did kind of put the whole thing in context.

  16. “In 2019, around 19.28 percent of Australia’s population was between 0 and 14 years old”

    This says something about the urgency of including children in the vaccination rollout.

    So what is this useless imposter PM and his even more useless Health Minister doing?

  17. I think data from the UK suggests that there is a ~1 : 78,000 chance of clotting after receiving the first dose of AZ and ~1 : 450,000 chance of death after the first dose.

    After the second dose the chance of clotting is ~1 : 600,000 and chance of death is ~ 1: 1,800,000.

    Those living in regional areas of Australia would most likely have a ~1 : 150,000 to ~1 : 225,000 chance of dying after their first dose of AZ due to inadequate heath outcomes.

  18. Cud chewer

    They have been too busy not procuring vaccines in a timely manner or having purpose built quarantine facilities in each state
    It would have been a heck of a lot cheaper than these shutdowns.

    And what irks me even more is that Gladys agreed with Morrison that NSW didn’t need quarantine facility
    And here we are.

    How much is this latest shit show costing the country.

  19. “And what irks me even more is that Gladys agreed with Morrison that NSW didn’t need quarantine facility”

    It irks me even more that Gladys started off down that track and then flipped – probably under pressure from Morrison and Brendan. I hope that the current rift between Hazard and Scomo leads to NSW reconsidering.

  20. Can someone please explain to me under what authority John Coates has the power to order the Premier of Queensland to do something she
    doesn’t want to do?

  21. Sorry to intrude with a personal story. A dear friend of mine, aged 52, died as a result of the AZ vaccine.

    She’s the one that caused the advice to be kicked down from 60 to 50.

    I’m forty and never had any vaccine hesitancy before this horrible experience. I understand data, but it’s personal. This person touched so many people in my community and as a result of her connections, everyone is petrified. I have my Pfizer booked in next month, which was bloody hard to find.

    The reason I mention all of this is because I’m posting to a politics group. Most of my friends have no idea what’s happening in politics, other than what’s going on their very curated news feed or The Project.

    Now they are very angry and looking for someone to blame. ‘Those in charge’, Morrison and Berejiklian, are getting heat. I kinda think that’s why Morrison has made himself scare for so long. All anecdotal, I know. However, you can’t juggle forever.

  22. Gareth

    Thanks for sharing that.

    I think that when comparing the risk of a vaccine versus the risk of not getting a vaccine, it isn’t as simple as basic comparison of odds. There’s a difference between making a decision to do something and therefore committing to the risk of doing so and alternately the risk of things outside of your control. So, philosophically, vaccines must demonstrate a far higher level of safety than basic comparisons might suggest.

  23. Reconsays (Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 8:12 pm):

    He says he had discussed the exchange with Palaszczuk because she was feeling pressure from sections of the media to not attend.

    “We walked out of there [the media conference] and she thanked me,” Coates said. “The media in Brisbane have been giving her a hard time, saying she shouldn’t go to the opening ceremony, but she had to go.

    “The plan was I was going to fix it. I fixed it. I was taking the heat off her. We all came back and had a drink all night in my room to celebrate. I wasn’t having a go at her at all.

    “The Premier and I have a longstanding and very successful relationship and we both know the spirit of my remarks. She has given no indication to me that she was offended in any way.”

    https://www.watoday.com.au/sport/she-thanked-me-john-coates-defends-bizarre-media-conference-20210722-p58c2h.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

    wherein it says:

    We all came back and had a drink all night in my room to celebrate. I wasn’t having a go at her at all.

    “A drink all night in my room to celebrate”, what should one make of this…

    I’d call it chain yanking, myself.

  24. “For the Love of God, Stop Letting Elon Musk Near Public Transit!”

    For those unfamiliar, the Hyperloop is a proposed underground vacuum-tube system that would theoretically shuttle passengers at supersonic speeds, connecting distant cities in mere minutes. If that sounds a little too good to be true, well…there are still some details to be worked out. Like, decades of details.

    Spaceflight for the masses, without the spaceflight. “Spam in a can.”

  25. “Can someone please explain to me under what authority John Coates has the power to order the Premier of Queensland to do something she doesn’t want to do?”

    Hubris.

  26. Political Nightwatchman @ 10:28 pm:

    I haven’t seen the video, but my gut feeling was pretty much this.

    “You’ve just won the Games. Stop worrying about state politics – you’re on the international stage now!” Also: “Not attending the opening ceremony – especially after winning the 2032 games – would be deeply offensive to the current hosts (Japan).”

    (Also also: “If you don’t go, Scotty will be here in a flash.”)

  27. Pressurized tin cans full of people traveling through evacuated tubes at supersonic speeds; what could possibly go wrong? It’s not like nature finds vacuums abhorrent, or anything.

  28. Pressurized tin cans full of people traveling through evacuated tubes at supersonic speeds; what could possibly go wrong? It’s not like nature finds vacuums abhorrent, or anything.

    Depressurisation or sudden deceleration are equally “bad”.

    I had hoped that “Spam in a can” was an actual quote, but I liked “The Right Stuff”:

    “Spam in a can” is heard in the movie version of Tom Wolfe’s non-fiction book, The Right Stuff.

    Although test pilots at Edwards AFB mock the Mercury program for sending “spam in a can” into space, they recognize that they are no longer the fastest men on Earth, and Yeager states that, “It takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially when it’s on national TV.”

  29. You mean passengers need oxygen to live, and unaerodynamic objects designed to move at high speed through a vacuum tend to respond poorly when suddenly encountering a bunch of air in their way? Nobody could have foreseen these things.

  30. You mean passengers need oxygen to live, and unaerodynamic objects designed to move at high speed through a vacuum tend to respond poorly when suddenly encountering a bunch of air in their way? Nobody could have foreseen these things.

    “Real men” use ballistic trajectories…

    If the can only contains enough oxygen for a nominal trip, there won’t be any complaints about delays!

  31. Thanks guys for the laughs (honestly) regarding hyperloop 🙂

    Hyperloop (and other vacuum-based transportation systems) suck.

  32. Lars Von Trier says:
    Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 10:11 pm

    Howard raised a lot of tax….much more than either his predecessor or successor. The Howard/Costello government was a high-taxing/low-output regime. Surpluses are not a measure of anything other than the transfer of income from the private estate to the public estate. This might be good. Or it might not. It’s not an end in itself.

  33. Good Morning

    William

    On your troubles with the blog. I know some here don’t like twitter.
    If you instituted block into the site yourself I think it would make a world of difference. The same with dislike and likes on comments.

    I am suggesting this as it’s the decision made by multinational companies with greater resources than most of us have here. This even though I don’t use the block function myself.

    Like and dislikes on comments does influence behaviour. Lurkers would have a chance to participate without saying a word.

    It might make your aims for the blog easier to rely on what’s called the wisdom of the crowd.

    Of course as this is unsolicited advice I won’t get upset if you just ignore this post. 🙂

  34. Zerlo @ #904 Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 – 8:50 pm

    Mexicanbeemersays:
    Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 10:47 pm

    Attempting to sell Public Transport in NSW.

    lizzie @ #1071 Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 – 7:36 am

    Anyone else increasingly irritated by demands “How did we do?”, not only from online stores, but from AusPost.
    You delivered. Thanks for doing your job. If you lose my parcel, you’ll hear from me.

    Yep, and its really pissing me off. The demands have been incessant and repetitive from a number of well known brands.

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