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.
60 infectious cases spent some time in NSW community
It’s worth noting it isn’t just 43 cases that were infectious in the community. Berejiklian doesn’t read out the number that were in the community for part of their infectious period, which today is 17.
That means a total of 60 cases spent some time in the community while infectious, and 13 cases are still under investigation.
The green shoots are noxious weeds – like the Delta strain.
And here’s Glad with her “we’ve done so well to avoid thousands and thousands of cases, so well done everyone” schtick.
So what, we just bump along with 100 cases a day, in lockdown, forever??
‘Dandy Murray says:
Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 11:13 am
Alpha zero,
The key difference is that there is an efficient level of congestion on a freeway (or a power network).
Not so much in ICUs.’
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Ah, ‘congestion’. Yet another Bludger pun.
I would have thought that an efficient level would be one where ICUs either rapidly shove the patients into general wards or efficiently propel them off their moral coil.
“But I want to say…And I also want to make this point…”
Must. Get. Talking. Points. Out.
@MehreenFaruqi tweets
No matter how you spin it, more than 100 new cases isn’t good. We know how much transmission happens in workplaces. Pay people so they can stay home. Full JobKeeper and income support above the poverty line. Do it now.
Choke point – always used to justify the extra lane being built on a freeway, which only succeeds in moving the choke point to a different location, usually about 500m further up the road…
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Or how Councils manage stormwater.
The press pack seems to be rather more agitated than usual.
Mark Butler MP –
After no media appearance for over three days, the Prime Minister has been on a radio blitz telling Australians his vaccine rollout was “on the right track.”
In response to questions on whether he regrets saying the vaccine rollout “is not a race,” he tried to mislead Australians and claim his comments were about the vaccine approval process. Here are the facts:
The Pfizer vaccine was approved by the TGA on the 25th of January. The AstraZeneca vaccine was approved by the TGA on the 16th of February.
The fact is Scott Morrison went on a media spree on the 11th of March where he was asked about the slow rollout of the vaccine. In response to those questions the Prime Minister repeatedly said the rollout “is not a race”. He said it on Sunrise, Today, in a press conference and repeated it in another press conference on the 14th of March.
BK @ #198 Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 – 11:14 am
Uh-oh ( as in the Challenger disaster)
Jaeger @ #202 Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 – 11:16 am
Exactly. Weeds have green shoots too.
”
BKsays:
Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 11:02 am
She ascribes the large number of positive results to the high number of tests. Now, where have we heard that line before?
”
So if we have lower number of tests we will have lower cases. Yesterday we had lower tests and lower cases. So are we implying that yesterday’s numbers are not a true reflection. I believe that is not the case.
The “It could be worse: we could be dying like flies” gambit.
This has been simmering along in the background for a few weeks, in the form of one-liners like “The really important metric is the low number of deaths”, as if a large number of deaths is not the result of a large number of infections, which are in turn the result of an initially small number of infections growing unchecked in the community.
Ah, so only ‘guided by the health advice’. It’s not prescriptive.
Do the people of NSW believe lockdown will conclude at the end of this month? Or are they understanding the reality?
Berejkilian is having a go at ‘blue in the face’ in the pun race.
Apparently she was saying until she was saying that the vaccine rates need to go up until she was ‘blue in the face’.
Fact check: she looks to me to be more sallow in the face, with occasional bursts of red in the face.
Perhaps if she holds her breath a bit more?
I mean NSW could be a 3rd World country after all! 🙄
Victoria @ #215 Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 – 11:20 am
No way are we coming out of lockdown at the end of the month. Maybe end of next month.
Boerwar and Victoria, good to hear there are still plenty of good spirits, despite everything.
As for things right now, I am kind of pissed off. I get the PM is not the PM of airborne microbes and can’t magic the pandemic away, I will note just a few weeks ago he was doing a victory lap and was ready to take credit for stopping the virus in its tracks. If he wants credit for the good, he can take blame for the bad. Added to that, the vaccine rollout is horrendous and it’s a supply side issue (a phrase you will rarely hear me say lol.)
I know I already am biased and there was no way I was going to support Morrison or the Coalition politically but I have been a lot more dispassionate in this area and have extended quite a bit of benefit of the doubt in the past but I am actually very livid now.
EDIT: And, of course, Morrison is more interested in spin and political arse-covering than being a leader.
‘Bushfire Bill says:
Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 11:20 am
Not a brilliant sign.
The “It could be worse: we could be dying like flies” gambit.
This has been simmering along in the background for a few weeks, in the form of one-liners like “The really important metric is the low number of deaths”, as if a large number of deaths is not the result of a large number of infections, which are in turn the result of an initially small number of infections growing unchecked in the community.’
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I think they were going to go for hospitalizations as the prime metric of progress.
Gladys, you have become boringly repetitive! And still avoiding directly answering questions.
It wouldn’t matter if vaccination rates were better at this point in time.
Singapore have half the population vaccinated, but once an outbreak occurred it still was difficult to control, hence the lockdown they have implemented,
GladysB. Needs to focus on how to drive down the virus ASAP.
Victoria
“Do the people of NSW believe lockdown will conclude at the end of this month? Or are they understanding the reality?”
Speaking for myself, a person of Sydney, I’m resigned to being in lockdown until September. That’s the reality from where I’m standing.
So what, we just bump along with 100 cases a day, in lockdown, forever??
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She has pledged that construction will reopen fully at the end of the month.
I wouldn’t put it past her to start making other pledges to get the donors off her back.
She thinks she is staying one step ahead of the spider but may get caught in her own web.
Wat
I must admit that my resilience app is being sorely tested by the current state of affairs.
When Gladys starts advocating smaller testing numbers simply to make the infection numbers seem less bad, then we’ll know she’s ready for the funny farm.
So far she has resisted that kind of Trump Logic.
There will probably a conservative back bench revolt before they can get out of lockdown. How much can these guys take?
When does righteous exhortation becoming nagging?
Gladystan: Total lockdown needed now.
Will happen next Monday.
Where are the straws when Berejiklian needs to grab them?
What’s this malarkey about ‘This is a cruel disease’. Anthropomorphising COVID-19 and giving it emotions doesn’t help.
🙄
Berejiklian keeps point to the elephant in the room, that ghostly presence…
Gladys is getting very testy.
Wat Tyler
I admit to being very aggro when the outbreak initially occurred in NSW and the manner in which GladysB was handling it.
It was obvious from that it was going to be a shit show.
And here we are.
But as far as lockdowns are concerned, we are familiar with the drill here in Victoria. We generally understand it is for the greater good.
Lucky for us we have all the modern conveniences to make our lives comfortable,
Those in third world countries continue to get the arse end of the deal in each and every situation including this pandemic.
Hazzard points to the elephant in the room, that ghostly presence, that chariot of fire…
C@tmomma,
End of August was what I thought could happen, the models suggested with Stage 4 lockdown it is possible. But true Stage 4 (actually more stringent) is restricted to 3 LGA’s. The virus has broken this more stringent containment line in a serious way. That means the models suggest it will be longer. Stage 3 + mask (less than Greater Sydney) is modelled as a Christmas release from lockdown. So somewhere in between.
BK
Testy?
Can I just say that I agree with you?
Hazzard appears to be running a book on getting a vaccine.
Kakuru
Yep. At this rate, September is the earliest.
It wouldn’t matter if vaccination rates were better at this point in time.
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Higher vaccinations mean less transmission and less sick people and less in ICU. More chance of catching a breakout with restrictions and tracing. More chance a lockdown will work quicker.
Griff @ #236 Wednesday, July 21st, 2021 – 11:29 am
Thanks, Griff. I try to be a glass half full kind of person but realistic also.
SK
Indeed. If 8.1 million Sydney siders were vaccinated by COB tonight with 2xAZ and 1xPfizer they could end the lockout instanter.
Hey, some of those look pretty cool. I might look into them. I do have some plain black cloth masks but I couldn’t find them and just grabbed a disposable one because I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.
I guess it doesn’t help that I have pretty severe anxiety and tend to hyperventilate at the drop of a hat, which probably exacerbated things under the mask as well haha
Suddenly workplace infections have become the focus of questions.
Simon Katich
Even if people manage to get vaccinated now the antibodies don’t kick in for at least two to three weeks.
The only way for them to get the virus transmission down now is for a strict regime and a clear plan and path for the people of NSW to follow.
some good news:
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/one-of-the-first-covid-hotspots-outside-of-asia-shows-promising-long-term-immunity/ar-AAMlFkS?ocid=msedgntp
“Is Gladys channeling Dotard?”
That’s exactly what I was thinking. The only reason we are over a hundred is because we did 84k tests. The only thing missing was “Slow down the testing pleeeeeeeze”.
Can someone tell me what the dots on Gladys’ jacket are for?
Wat Tyler
The son of a friend went to his doctor this week to complain of a rash across his face and was told not to wear a mask as his skin was reacting to it. He uses the pale disposables.
Doc didn’t make it clear whether it was the lack of air or the mask itself.
Ms Berejiklian is now reluctant to comment about what is happening in other states. Hoho.
So one of the unintended benefits of five dead, millions locked down, a cost of $200 million a day, dozens in ICU is that Berejiklian no longer sticks it to the other states.
But is the pain worth it?