Essential Research, JWS Research and more

Election timing, electoral law reform, preselections and yet more COVID-19 polling.

Two bits of polling news to report, neither of which are from Resolve Strategic, which had hitherto been appearing in the Age/Herald on the third Wednesday of each month. That leaves:

• Essential Research’s fortnightly report does not include the monthly leadership ratings, which are the series’ main point of interest outside of its quarterly dump of voting intention numbers. However, it does feature the regular ratings on governments’ COVID-19 responses, which finds the federal government’s good rating up three from its nadir a fortnight ago to 41% and its bad rating steady on 35%. The New South Wales government’s good rating is at a new low of 42%, which is down five on a fortnight ago and compares with 69% eight weeks ago. Victoria’s is up two to 56% and Queensland’s is up six to 66%; from their particularly small sample sizes, Western Australia is up five to 87% and South Australia is down five to 68%. The poll also finds 75% support and only 10% opposition to mandatory vaccinations, with no distinctions to speak of by party support. Also featured are further questions on COVID-19 that tend to the personal rather than the political, and questions prompted by the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report last week. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1100.

• JWS Research has released its occasional True Issues survey, in which the federal government’s performance index score (by which 50% would indicate an even balance of positive and negative responses) is down six points since February to 52%. Fifty-seven per cent now rate Australia’s COVID-19 response as very good or good in comparison with the rest of the world, down from 79%. For the federal government specifically, the drop is from 56% to 38%; for state governments in aggregate, it’s down from 64% to 53%. A question on issue salience, in which respondents were asked to list three issues of particular importance, finds “hospitals, health care and ageing” reigning supreme on 59%, up from 45% in February, with economy and finances a distant second on an abnormally low 21%.

Other news:

Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review on “a school of thought that it would be better to not wait for another budget and go in March instead”:

Waiting until May and launching an election campaign with a budget that would be a sea of red ink does not have the same appeal as 2019, when the budget predicted a return to surplus and contained generous tax cuts. The March theory is based on the hope that there is some semblance of normality in society following the Christmas break, due to vaccination levels being high enough and nobody in hard lockdown.

• Graeme Orr of the University of Queensland law department pokes many a hole in the government’s legislation whose intention is to give the existing major parties dibs on the words Liberal and Labor, and notes the proposed hike in the minimum membership requirement for party registration from 500 to 1500 is rough on regionally focused parties but little obstacle to parties formed by “wealthy interests”.

Paul Sakkal of The Age reports the Liberal preselection for Casey, which will be vacated with Tony Smith’s retirement, has attracted a field of six: Roshena Campbell, barrister, Melbourne councillor and wife of Herald Sun journalist James Campbell; Grant Hutchison, managing partner of local law firm Hutchinson Legal; Aaron Violi, former staffer to Senator James Patterson and current executive with a company that provides online ordering services to restaurants; Andrew Asten, principal of Boston Consulting Group and former ministerial chief-of-staff to Alan Tudge; Donalea Patman, founder of For the Love of Wildlife, which campaigns against hunting in Africa; and Ranjana Srivastava, an oncologist. The report relates that Campbell and Violi are aligned with state Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien and party president Robert Clark, while Hutchison and Asten are in the rival Josh Frydenberg/Michael Sukkar camp.

Charlie Peel of The Australian reports there are three candidates for Liberal National Party preselection to succeed George Christensen in Dawson: Whitsunday mayor Andrew Wilcox, former Mackay councillor Chris Bonanno and “the relatively unknown Chas Pasquale”.

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.

1,297 comments on “Essential Research, JWS Research and more”

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  1. Whoops!

    Shellbell, just realise you may be more interested in the Medical Board proceedings than I realised.

    If so (and to other posters as well), please disregard my comments.

    A report from “on the ground” is worth a lot more than a “probability” comment from an armchair expert like me.

  2. Greensborough Growler @ #570 Thursday, August 19th, 2021 – 8:10 pm

    These are the sort of people that Taylormade idolises.

    https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/kids/victorian-liberal-mp-matt-bach-accused-of-using-his-threeyearold-child-for-a-cheap-political-stunt/news-story/bc69546a6797ff155e8a34bd61f4a3da

    What is it with Victorian Liberals and their too ready resort to calling people they disagree with, ‘flogs’? Is it an au courant epithet that gets thrown around Private Schools these days?

  3. DM

    Your points are excellent.

    The Board cannot strike him off but only suspend whereupon another body does the full investigation of the complaints and them puts him before a Tribunal to which the Board appoints three of the four members.

  4. Honestly without the curfew, it feels like we are already “living with covid”.
    However it is a ticking timebomb, which i don’t think is sustainable.
    Hospitals will become way too under pressure.

    I won’t be surprised if curfews do happen soon.

  5. Cud

    “Also, why are Singapore doing so well?

    Better access to better vaccines?

    A better roll out?”

    All of the above. They started vaccinating in January. They used Pfizer. They’re now contemplating boosters. Plus they are reportedly aiming to open up their borders whilst maintaining the principle of “near zero” cases. In other words, they’re going to take a very slow and measured approach to opening to visitors and they’re going to keep their public health response (and masks etc)

    My Chinese friends, from Singapore, Malaysia and everywhere else are going spare about Australians refusal to wear masks and wash hands frequently, and not hug each other. These are simple things, but they make such a difference in terms of transmitting COVID.

    The first time I went to Japan, Kyoto in 1997, for a two week conference, I was struck by the fact that anyone with even a sniffle would wear a mask. Every restaurant or eatery I visited had a hand washing sink, where you just washed your hands before you ate. In places where the hand washing was not possible, you were given a wonderful hot cotton hand towel to use.

    This was before SARS, so have people in east Asia realised a long time ago that living close to many people means being careful of transmitting communicable diseases?

    “If we can catch up with Singapore then things will look a lot better for us.”

    We need to catch up with them in terms of attitude and policy, not simply engage in learned helplessness and effectively give once we are past some arbitrary vaccination threshold.

    The “learned helplessness” is an interesting idea. Is Australia as a community no longer capable of having a national conversation about what we should be aiming for? It is not hard. Use the science, work out the “sweet spot” where infections are minimised through lockdowns just until vaccinations catch up, and then carefully open to the world. Maybe we need to live with quarantine for a bit – either home or hotel as the incoming data tells us.

    Or is Australia now infected by American libertarianism. we open up – those who are rich survive, and do what they want, and those who are not rich pay the price? Discuss.

  6. Please know .. GladysB, I worked with an old Architect who advised it was important to put an “error ” in drawings so those looking had something “unimportant ” to focus on.. distraction was the name of the game.
    Gladys & SfM deliberately wind us up & their rusted ons are too stupid to see the “error”

  7. William

    Anyone reckon they might be able to help me work out how to import an XML file in PostgreSQL?

    I will take that question on notice.

    I am just bored enough in the lockdown to think this could be fun.

    Hopefully someone has script they can send you 🙂

  8. It’s an AEC preload file for its 2019 election results feed, but I encounter the same problem when I try a three-line test file I wrote in a text editor. I’ve just started trying to learn PostgreSQL (always used SQL Server in the past), and importing an XML file for the first time is proving to be a bump in my learning curve.

    ETA: So just characters, I guess. UTF-8. I’ve emailed you (Yabba).

  9. boerwar:

    Thursday, August 19, 2021 at 7:46 pm

    I understand he’s quite good at his job. Overall, it could be argued he was merely being honest when allegedly saying he wanted a nurse to suck his dick, which does not turn on his professional expertise, more a case perhaps of wishful thinking resulting from the stress of his occupation. I’m prepared to give him the benefit until the complaints have been resolved but I wouldn’t let him see my daughter if I had one.

  10. Shellbell,

    Maybe another dark day for the NSW ALP with the Golden Century in Sussex Street going into administration.

    Wow! That really is the end of an era.

    I have definitely attended this establishment for ALP fundraisers.

    The food is / was very good.

  11. Mavis

    I understand he’s quite good at his job. Overall, it could be argued he was merely being honest when allegedly saying he wanted a nurse to suck his dick, which does not turn on his professional expertise, more a case perhaps of wishful thinking resulting from the stress of his occupation. I’m prepared to give him the benefit until the complaints have been resolved but I wouldn’t let him see my daughter if I had one.

    Google Geoff Marcy.

    In the end it was charlatans all the way down.

    n.b I suspect there are other neurosurgeons who can do the same job, without asking “How much for the little girl”. Can we just use them?

  12. 7NEWS Sydney
    @7NewsSydney
    · 2h
    There have been discussions about ‘contingency planning’ should @GladysB quit, or be forced to quit, as Premier. There is growing concern about how the COVID-19 crisis is being handled. http://7NEWS.com.au #nswpol #7NEWS

  13. In this graph…

    what do the “Efficacy” percentages indicate?

    (a) Completely invulnerable to infection (not infectious)
    (b) May get infected but won’t get sick (possibly infectious),
    (c) May get sick, but not real sick,
    (d) May rarely need hospitalization, but only in general ward,

    ???

  14. 7NEWS Sydney
    @7NewsSydney
    · 2h
    There have been discussions about ‘contingency planning’ should @GladysB quit, or be forced to quit, as Premier. There is growing concern about how the COVID-19 crisis is being handled. http://7NEWS.com.au #nswpol #7NEWS

    Pity they didn’t have “discussions” about “contingency planning” should the virus break out of the enclosure their hubris had put it in.

  15. Kerin is someone else who seems not to understand the fact that losing a War means that any ‘gains’ he and his mates shed blood for will not hold.
    He lost. They won.

  16. Mavis @ #1220 Thursday, August 19th, 2021 – 8:33 pm

    boerwar:

    Thursday, August 19, 2021 at 7:46 pm

    I understand he’s quite good at his job. Overall, it could be argued he was merely being honest when allegedly saying he wanted a nurse to suck his dick, which does not turn on his professional expertise, more a case perhaps of wishful thinking resulting from the stress of his occupation.

    As an outsider, married into the job, there is a lot of dark banter exchanged between professionals. Thankfully, I’m not expected to judge.

  17. William Bowe @ #1218 Thursday, August 19th, 2021 – 8:31 pm

    It’s an AEC preload file for its 2019 election results feed, but I encounter the same problem when I try a three-line test file I wrote in a text editor. I’ve just started trying to learn PostgreSQL (always used SQL Server in the past), and importing an XML file for the first time is proving to be a bump in my learning curve.

    ETA: So just characters, I guess. UTF-8. I’ve emailed you (Yabba).

    Whilst not familiar with PostgreSQL, I am with many other databases. Often in such situations it can help to convert the XML to another simple format, even CSV, as these can often be easier to import.

  18. Douglas and Milko @ #588 Thursday, August 19th, 2021 – 8:33 pm

    Shellbell,

    Maybe another dark day for the NSW ALP with the Golden Century in Sussex Street going into administration.

    Wow! That really is the end of an era.

    I have definitely attended this establishment for ALP fundraisers.

    The food is / was very good.

    Just about everyone at ALP HQ in Sussex Street is working from home these days. Of course it went into Administration! 😆

  19. BB,

    The rabbits are out and running regarding Gladys.

    This can only end one way.

    Frank Sinatra’s My Way ready and primed

  20. GG
    Ms Berejiklian is a mix of a rabbit in the spotlight, a sacrificial goat, and Mad March Hare. IMO Morrison will be hoping that she goes, and eats his political sins in so doing.

  21. Sceptic @ #581 Thursday, August 19th, 2021 – 8:26 pm

    Please know .. GladysB, I worked with an old Architect who advised it was important to put an “error ” in drawings so those looking had something “unimportant ” to focus on.. distraction was the name of the game.
    Gladys & SfM deliberately wind us up & their rusted ons are too stupid to see the “error”

    She’s onto it. Gladys using Victor Dominello as a distraction:

    NSW Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello has reminded Australians to look after their health after being diagnosed with Bell’s palsy.

    Dominello sought medical attention after viewers noticed his “droopy eye” during the state’s COVID-19 press conference on Wednesday.

    The minister later clarified he had attended Royal North Shore Hospital that afternoon where he was diagnosed with the condition that causes a sudden weakness or paralysis in one side of the face.

    “At this morning’s press conference, a number of people commented on my droopy eye,” he wrote online.

    “Some people thought I was winking at the cameraman. Some thought I had a stroke.

    https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/nsw-cabinet-minister-victor-dominello-diagnosed-with-bells-palsy-after-viewers-notice-droopy-eye-c-3720728

    🙂

  22. Douglas and Milko:

    Thursday, August 19, 2021 at 8:36 pm

    [‘Google Geoff Marcy’]

    And yet he retained the title of “emeritus” despite his resignation in the wake of sexual harassment. It seems to vary in the professions, but from what I’ve gleaned, surgeons seem to be an almost protected species.

    [‘n.b I suspect there are other neurosurgeons who can do the same job, without asking “How much for the little girl”. Can we just use them?’]

    Probably, but Teo has the reputation for taking on ops that others fear doing. I know of counsel, for example,
    who promise the earth but expect their instructing solicitor to visit clients in holding cells beneath courts, following a guilty verdict, to inform them that “we can’t perform miracles” where in point of fact they never had a chance. I further think that in Teo’s case, wherever the truth lays, there are least others in theatre who can bear witness to his alleged impropriety. But, again, I wouldn’t take the chance with a female relative of mine.

  23. Cud Chewer @ #592 Thursday, August 19th, 2021 – 8:40 pm

    So, how would David Elliot or Stuart Ayres handle covid?

    People seriously considering Mr Marise Payne (Stuart Ayres), can’t be serious!

    Not to mention he already has probity questions swirling around him.

    And David Elliott!?! The guy who, as Police Minister, okayed strip searches for drugs of 14 year olds!?! Not to mention using a gun in a dangerous manner and boasting about how he could get the Police to do his bidding.

    Anyway, swapping leaders by the NSW Coalition would just be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

  24. Douglas and Milko says:
    Thursday, August 19, 2021 at 12:06 pm

    I do not know who Dr Mariann Gale is,

    Fortunately, the esteemed publication “A Real News” is here to help:
    https://arealnews.com/dr-marianne-gale/
    They even claim to know her height, weight and show size! as well as her “net worth”, but fail to know her “husband’s / boyfriend ‘s name”!

    I presume this is generated automatically from the results of some scraping, but what an appalling publication, and what an appalling development that such things exist.

  25. It would be nice to think that those concerned about the way Gladys is handling the covid crisis actually have alternative plans for action. Simply replacing her in a political coup won’t necessarily fix it.

  26. Flaneur:

    Thursday, August 19, 2021 at 8:53 pm

    [‘As an outsider, married into the job, there is a lot of dark banter exchanged between professionals. Thankfully, I’m not expected to judge.’]

    In my experience, there’s a lot a ‘dark banter’ at every level. We expect a higher degree of professionalism from professionals but they are no worse or better than us plebs – just more highly trained. A surgeon, for instance, can be a prick in the same way as a labourer can.

  27. After having missed it all these years, HI and I are finally binge-watching Fargo, the TV series, on Netflix.

    We have just been through the scene in Series #2, where the butcher feeds a human body -arms, legs, head, teeth, entrails, hands and feet – into a mincing machine after hours.

    He notices a stray finger on the floor while the local State Trooper pays a visit, after having seen a light on. He puts it in his pocket until the trooper leaves.

    I said to HI, “I couldn’t bear to touch the bloody thing.”

    HI replied, “I couldn’t bear to do anything any of these people have done.”

    “Amen to that,” thought I.

    I guess I’m just not as hardened as I thought I was.

  28. “Maybe another dark day for the NSW ALP with the Golden Century in Sussex Street going into administration.”

    Only been there the once. Was unfortunate enough to be close enough to Richo to see his eating habits.

  29. Study reveals how our immune system reacts to COVID-19 variants

    7 July 2021
    An important lesson for vaccine design
    Australian scientists researching how our immune system responds to COVID-19 have revealed that those infected by early variants in 2020 produced sustained antibodies, however, these antibodies are not as effective against contemporary variants of the virus.

    Key findings
    SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses are sustained for up to seven months post-infection.
    The immune response remained stable in some individuals, and while it decreased in others, no individual showed a negative response during the seven-month period.
    Levels of virus-neutralising antibodies were associated with COVID-19 severity.
    Antibodies generated after early infection displayed a significantly reduced antibody binding and neutralisation potency to globally emerging viral variants.

    https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2021/07/07/study-reveals-how-our-immune-system-reacts-to-covid-19-variants-.html

  30. Mavis @ #1241 Thursday, August 19th, 2021 – 9:25 pm

    Flaneur:

    Thursday, August 19, 2021 at 8:53 pm

    [‘As an outsider, married into the job, there is a lot of dark banter exchanged between professionals. Thankfully, I’m not expected to judge.’]

    … A surgeon, for instance, can be a prick in the same way as a labourer can.

    People are people: I’m more likely to forgive a collapsed extention than I am the carer of my mother who suffered at the hands of a corporatised nursing home. Colour me “pissed off”. On the other hand, I’m not expected to judge.

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