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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  2. I said it before but how lucky is Chris Minns to have taken the ALP leadership in NSW when he did? Assumes the leadership on June 4th and government was riding high at 69% approval and now nine weeks later it’s approval is 42% and not improving….

  3. SMH breaking:

    New Zealand’s Delta case ‘originated in NSW’: Ardern
    The NZ Prime Minister has confirmed the COVID-19 case that plunged NZ into a new lockdown originated in NSW.

  5. Chant has lost the plot.. totally
    Seeding seeding seeding.. she says not realising ( ironic) that why it should be a full lockdown..
    Press are at it .. “you are not answering the question” “its a yes no answer “…

  10. Dr Chant being as clear as she can be that she informs, gives directives, and they who know about logistics, etc etc, they make the actual rules. This “we follow the health advice” exposed.

  15. Clennell is clearly asking the tough questions.

    Unlike Victoria, NSW has massaged the Medical advice by having other interested parties involved in the decisions made.

    This is why the Government is struggling. Lack of focus on the health outcomes as the sole driver of it’s response has lead to the public not taking the warnings seriously and has only assisted the spread of COVID.

  18. Looks like it is Gladys rather than Scotty going under the blame bus.

    I think they are both going to find themselves under the bus soon enough, the only question is who goes first.

  19. Yesterday I heard Victoria’s CHO Brett Sutton say that overnight he “signed into law a number of directives”. Chant has no such power, I believe. Correct me if I am wrong.

  22. It’s amazes me the vitriol aimed at Chant.

    She advises on what to do from a health perspective.

    It is the Government that actually decides on how to act on that advice.

  23. Dan was very clear yesterday with “On the advice of the Chief Health Officer” the same statements and rules were then echoed by Brett himself. There was no difference between them.

  25. Chant is not responsible for the final form of the restrictions. She is quite right to point out the limits of her role.

    Ultimate responsibility rests with the politicians, especially the “let it rip” faction in the government, which I don’t think includes Gladys.

    People should realise that if Gladys goes the “let it rip” faction would most likely have the levers of power.

    Regardless of the warm feeling that some would get for Gladys getting her just desserts, the effect for NSW could be quite tragic.

  26. And off they go with a thousand questions unanswered.
    Presser summary: We’re still fucked, we have no answers, it’s really your fault and see you tomorrow.

  31. A transscript :

    Chant:

    What we do is define the problems. We define the fact the transmission is occurring, the fact we need to decrease mobility, we need to reduce presence at workplaces, we need to keep activity to the most essential. Those are the objectives we needs….

    (guardian)

  33. Barney,

    Absolutely correct.

    She could have granstanded and walked away in the middle of this. But she decided to fight from within. Given the significant changes made in NSW since last Friday, she has had an impact.

    But, the advice is still being massaged by business interests to some degree. So, NSW is playing catch up while the virus roars on.

    It’s a horrible situation about to get worse.But Chant has been brave and loyal and playing a bad hand remarkably well imho.

  37. “Chant” is normally pronounced “Charnt” – and I should know.

    _________________________________

    Moving house is not as pleasant as it used to be.

    ________________________________

    Berejiklian says, “She very concerned with today’s numbers”. That’s an understatement. If the numbers continue to trend upwards, which appears likely, she should perhaps consider her political future. Her replacement should not be so beholden to Morrison.

  38. It’s not just the 633 cases, it’s the exponential growth in cases in isolation.. that number has to come down before the actual cases do.

    Nick Evershed
    @NickEvershed
    today’s NSW case numbers are extremely bad, to say the least – a big jump in cases, and again the highest % of under investigation.

  41. Chant let it slip this morning that the NSW Reff number is now up to 1.3.
    Reff measures acceleration rate. Increase in Reff indicates the rate of increase in acceleration. A horrible situation.

  42. poroti
    “Genome sequencing has confirmed NZ’s Covid-19 outbreak is the Delta strain of the virus, and that it came from NSW, Australia.”

    First Melbourne, then the ACT, now NZ. Sydney is a super-spreader event.

  45. Kakuru @ #242 Wednesday, August 18th, 2021 – 12:06 pm

    poroti
    “Genome sequencing has confirmed NZ’s Covid-19 outbreak is the Delta strain of the virus, and that it came from NSW, Australia.”

    First Melbourne, then the ACT, now NZ. Sydney is a super-spreader event.

    It’s time the rest of the country – and our neighbours – put a ring of steel around NSW. Although it may already too late.

  50. Just catching up with how well its going in NSW. So great.

    On Chant and the press conferences, there are two fundamental differences between the Covid press conferences Gladys has in NSW and those run by Andrews, Marshall, McGowan and Palaszczuk in Vic, SA, WA and Qld respectively.
    1. The CMOs have authority to make emergency declarations in those other states; Chant does not.
    2. Gladys does not always let Chant speak. The other four (Labor and Liberal) hand over to the CMO after they finish, and the CMO is free to answer questions. Chant is tightly controlled by Gladys.

    There have been several times when Chant has been present but not spoken at all, and not been given an opportunity to answer questions. Why is she there? Obviously Chant is being used as a prop to make Gladys look credible. At that point such press conferences become farcical; the medical equivalent of “security theatre”.

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