The Age/Herald’s monthly Resolve Strategic poll has caught me off guard by coming out early Tuesday rather than Wednesday as it’s done in the past. It’s the Coalition’s best poll result in quite some time, recording a two point rise in their primary vote to 40% while Labor is down three to 32%, with the Greens steady on 12% and One Nation down two to 2%. While Resolve Strategic doesn’t publish a two-party result, this pans out to 51-49 in favour of the Coalition based on 2019 election preference flows.
Scott Morrison records 46% approval and 46% disapproval, both unchanged from last time, while Anthony Albanese is respectively down two to 28% and up one to 47%. Morrison holds a lead of 46-23 as preferred prime minister, out slightly from 45-24 last time.
The poll was conducted Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1607.
UPDATE: The poll also finds 62% support for a national cabinet deal to ease restrictions when “key targets” are met, with only 24% preferring that states and territories should “go their own way”. However, a great deal would depend here on how the question was worded, and on this the reporting is not specific. Nor can we expect any further clarity from the pollster, since it is not a member of the Australian Polling Council which requires publication of question wording as part of its code of conduct. On the more straightforward question of whether Australia will ever return to complete suppression of the virus, the poll records 27% for yes and 54% for no.
A couple of further points on the poll. The biggest driver of Labor’s drop on the primary vote is the Victorian sub-sample, which had it at 33% compared with 40% in the last poll and 37% in the poll before (it was 36.9% at the 2019 election). Labor also scored a weak result of 26% in Queensland, although it was also at this level in the previous poll (and much the same in 2019, at 26.7%), after ranging from 30% to 35% in the pollster’s first three results. It seems the pollster is no longer providing breakdowns for Western Australia, as it had been before now.
Whereas the Age/Herald released its results online early yesterday, only today has it appeared in the print editions — so to that extent it has maintained its earlier pattern in publishing the results. That presumably means tomorrow will bring us the regular bi-monthly state voting intention results for Victoria, using combined results from this and last month’s surveys.
UPDATE 2: The Age/Herald online report now contains more context, including full wording for the question on easing restrictions, which read thus: “Some state and territory leaders have suggested they might apply different rules at different times, such as using less severe restrictions once their populations reach 50 per cent vaccination or easing restrictions at 70 and 80 per cent if case numbers are still high. Do you think that each state and territory should stick to the national plan of 70 and 80 per cent or do you think they should have the freedom to decide on their own goals?”
UPDATE 3: The Age/Herald brings further results from the poll, which found 38% had a positive and 36% a negative view of Scott Morrison’s handling of the pandemic. Respondents were also unusually asked how they felt about the performance of the Premiers of the three biggest states, and not just those of their home states. This found good results for Daniel Andrews, with 52% positive and 25% negative, and Annastacia Palaszczuk, with 51% positive and 20% negative, but had ones for Gladys Berejiklian, with 26% positive and 56% negative.
N:
Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 3:11 pm
[‘….I do not need a thesaurus. I’m literate. Nor am I paranoid.’]
Perhaps not but you are terribly boring and repetitive, having spun the same hackneyed lines forever & a day.
”
Douglas and Milkosays:
Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 2:42 pm
Information is important. should I bring mum to my place immediately and put us all in 14 days lockdown? Should I make sure she has 14 days of frozen meals just in case?
Until an hour ago I had not even thought of these scenarios.
”
May be it is a good idea to bring your mom to your place, get a COVID test for 3 of you and isolate till test results come.
If you don’t bring her and her apartment goes into lockdown then it could become a difficult situation for her and you.
I cannot believe this!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-26/nsw-records-1029-covid-19-cases-three-deaths/100408670
– What could possibly go wrong?
– How can one person be so tone deaf to announce this today of all days?
– Who is going to police who is and isn’t vaccinated?
Player One 21 at 3:10 pm
Yep re 1980’s. Not for nothing did Rupert’s empire give rock star treatment to the Labor governments of Aus-NZ-UK when they rolled out the ‘neo-Liberal’ .
The Greens do represent a constituency that the Coalition are able to safely ignore, other than to demonise and attack.
The absence of daily updates on indigenous vaccination is unjustifiable given the wide range of reporting on other categories.
For the minister to say it is 200,000+ first dose and 108,000 both doses suggests an increase over 1/2 a week about 11,000/8,000.
The eligible indigenous population is 560,000 so 5,600 equals a 1% lift in vaccines each day. Indigenous uplift is probably less than 1/2 that although how 12-15s are being calculated.
The Oz lift in first cases today was 0.8% and second was 0.7% so the gap will widen.
”
Player Onesays:
Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 2:45 pm
Douglas and Milko @ #1228 Thursday, August 26th, 2021 – 2:42 pm
It is weird, but every last thing in Melbourne gets reported on – blocks of units are shut down, then there are reporters everyone.
In Sydney, it is almost as if it is not happening.
Melbourne is a community. Sydney is a competition.
”
It is not happening because Murdoch hacks and other MSM decided not to report anything outside the “concerned”LGAs
I just love Julian Hill. he is my favourite federal Labor MP. He has fire in the belly and a visceral and real hatred of Tories and everything they stand for. If only Labor had more MPS like him and fewer nervous nellies, scared of their own shadows.
”
C@tmommasays:
Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 2:47 pm
Victoria @ #282 Thursday, August 26th, 2021 – 2:43 pm
C@t
GladysB and the NSW govt are stringing the public along whilst the vaccination rates go up.
Filibustering while NSW burns.
”
What did Nero do while Rome burned?
This is the background to Julian Hill’s ‘outburst’, and I don’t blame him.
This is why I love Julian Hill, a Labor man to be proud of.
clem attlee @ #1259 Thursday, August 26th, 2021 – 3:26 pm
Yup. If he was my local member he would get my first preference.
P1:
IMO, it’s both, in a self-sustaining feedback loop of sorts.
Hold on, why is Labor supposed to be annoyed with Julian Hill, now? He strikes me as one of their star performers
A normal procedure or does the ACT DPP know something?
Vaccine rollout
NSW
33.8% fully vaccinated; 62.8% first dose
National
32.3% fully vaccinated ;55.2% first dose
It goes without saying that the targets are 70%, more Morrison/Berejiklian gibberish.
Asha @ #1264 Thursday, August 26th, 2021 – 3:31 pm
I agree there is some feedback. Perhaps we can agree to disagree on this point but agree that Labor drifting to the right has resulted in a long term decline of their primary vote because they have bled more votes from the left than they have gained from the right.
They did this knowing full well that they could count on getting most of those Green votes back again as preferences … which makes it incredibly ironic indeed that briefly now seems intent on stopping this process.
The result of that would be that Labor could never again hope to win a federal election in their own right (so to speak!).
Citizen
The more time Ms Higgins is compelled or chooses to give her account of events, the more inadvertent and subtle differences may emerge which will help the defence.
Is the Green exodus the cause or effect though? I realise there’s probably a chicken/egg aspect to it (yes, I know the egg actually came first – it’s a metaphor.) I suspect that the leftists moving away from the Greens has influenced Labor to be more conservative but it’s more a runaway effect, than a root cause.
Obviously, this is left of centre politics everywhere. Go to any democratic country with ideological diversity and you’ll hear the same thing: Hard leftists complaining about hard centrists and hard centrists complaining about hard leftists. Meanwhile the soft, pragmatic varieties get caught in the middle.
However, I do think there are a couple of things that are specifically different (but not necessarily unique) to Australia’s situation:
1. Preferential voting allows third parties’ support base to consume more than a fringe, as they are not seen as spoilers as much as those that operate in FPTP systems are, so there is less guilt involved in supporting them.
2. An upper house that is proportionally elected allows for a third party to have tangible election wins and look stronger in the eyes of the electorate but the single member seat nature of the lower house reinforces the two party dichotomy, leading to a friction between “vote for the best” and “vote for the most viable”.
3. The ALP’s rules on all MPs voting for what the agreed position on an issue can cause internal disillusionment, especially when it’s felt like one group has conference/caucus numbers stacked in their favour.
Ven @ #1260 Thursday, August 26th, 2021 – 3:27 pm
Fiddlebusting?
”
C@tmommasays:
Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 11:54 am
Well, I just went and got a Covid test. For a testing site that pretty literally had tumbleweeds blowing through it a month ago and a couple of staff on their phones most of the day, now it has 6 staff and a steady stream of cars passing through.
I have had a mild headache, a bit of a runny nose, kind of breathless, a bit of a cough and felt a bit dizzy for a few days, so I thought I’d get checked out
”
Good luck. You take care.
https://twitter.com/CaseyBriggs/status/1430753746162655232/photo/2
The first dose rates get quicker and will presumably be mirrored by the second doses.
There will be big time gaps between the leaders and laggards which will hopefully be an opportunity for the 12s-15s and other groups to be progressed and higher levels of vaccinations in NSW/Vic etc
I might even add to my previous post that the preferential system can also allow leftist wants to be more easily ignored because the preferences will still flow back anyway.
Asha, Labor is not annoyed with Julian Hill for being a fierce and vociferous advocate for his constituents, it’s just Shellbell.
”
Shellbellsays:
Thursday, August 26, 2021 at 3:25 pm
The absence of daily updates on indigenous vaccination is unjustifiable given the wide range of reporting on other categories.
For the minister to say it is 200,000+ first dose and 108,000 both doses suggests an increase over 1/2 a week about 11,000/8,000.
The eligible indigenous population is 560,000 so 5,600 equals a 1% lift in vaccines each day. Indigenous uplift is probably less than 1/2 that although how 12-15s are being calculated.
The Oz lift in first cases today was 0.8% and second was 0.7% so the gap will widen.
”
Shellbell
You appear to show cursory interest in vaccination rates of other countries as well like Israel, UK, US etc. The number of doses given in India is 600 million.
https://www-thehindu-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.thehindu.com/news/national/over-60-crore-covid-vaccine-doses-administered-in-india-health-minister/article36098235.ece/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16299573567534&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehindu.com%2Fnews%2Fnational%2Fover-60-crore-covid-vaccine-doses-administered-in-india-health-minister%2Farticle36098235.ece
Please note 60 crore = 600 million
I’m sorry – this idea that Labor has recently made significant rightward shunts is falacy.
Australia’s political dynamics have shifted. Like most discussions on political “identity” it’s complicated.
Labor’s loss of primary votes is a consequence of losing old school working class right-wing (because they did and do exist) voters on social issues to the Liberals and other assorted nut-jobbery and to the left, because the Greens are now a much better organised entity and the Democrats leftied themselves into irrelevance.
It’s been on the key strategies of the Greens – they’ve built their profile enough to have a platform then have staked out positions they know Labor cannot or will not go – then claim Labor isn’t serious and draw away primary votes from them. It’s a pretty clever electoral strategy.
Labor (correctly) sees more benefit electorally in picking off \voters from the Libs in suburbia – so are shifting themselves into a position where they cannot be as effectively pigeon-holed as they were in 2019. Albo and anyone worth their salt knows the next election will be fought in Suburban Brisbane/Perth, Northern Tasmania and regional Queensland (with some love for Western Sydney and Eastern Melbourne). As I’ve said – Shorten ran on a platform to govern, and Albo is running on a platform to win. Because you can do exactly 100% of fuck all if you don’t win.
And I know how much I hate these stupid ALP v GRN slap fights around here… and I’ve contributed… yay.
Wat Tyler @ #1274 Thursday, August 26th, 2021 – 3:51 pm
Which is how you end up with parties like the Greens. Which kind of makes it a bit self-defeating for Labor to then demonize them, doesn’t it?
jt1983
Thank you. You help me to understand more.
jt1983 @ #1277 Thursday, August 26th, 2021 – 3:57 pm
There have certainly been occasional lurches, but mostly it has been a steady drift.
I probably should clarify that I don’t think the Greens (or other left-wing minor parties) are solely – or even mostly – responsible for this shift. It’s just one of a number of different factors, much of which are indeed the ALP’s own doing.
Correction to this typo from my post at 3:46pm (too late to edit): I meant to say to the Greens.
An epidemiologist being questioned by NZ parliamentarians makes an important point re elimination vs suppression.
.
.
“What would it take for something to happen in New Zealand for you to conclude that elimination is now an impossible goal?” Bishop said.
Professor Skegg replied that the country will “continue to try and stamp it out. When we fail – we may fail, we’ve taken an ambitious strategy, but we lose nothing by doing that.
“We may find that it’s not possible, we may find that we have to move to a suppression strategy, but it won’t be something we do in advance – it will just happen.
Skegg said that life under a suppression strategy would be more difficult than life under elimination.
“Unfortunately, it will not be good because we will all have to live a more restrictive life, people will have to shield from each other particularly in winter,” Skegg said.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-delta-outbreak-lockdown-likely-to-be-for-weeks-prof-david-skegg-says/4LJFOXV6G65TWFKHCS325YQBV4/
PBers might be interested to know that the Resolve poll is run by Jim Reed, who has done lots of internal polling for the Liberal Party under Crosby Textor.
Labor is really no different to the Hawke and Keating era.
Possibly more left when it comes to economics now, since the neo liberal economic ideas have become less persuasive in general.
Can’t see where Labor has gone more right since the 80s and 90s to be honest?
From a Federal government with a galaxy of administrative failures, this has to be one of the brightest stars:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/26/australian-research-council-disqualifies-22m-worth-of-applications-under-new-controversial-rule
Maximum harm, achieved by minimal administrative rule change, with minimal prior thought. The only reason why whoever came up with this rule will not get an OA for it is that I can’t think of a way a fossil fuel company benefits.
Nicko
I do love a nice euphemism “less persuasive” rather than found to be a pile of snake oil.
On social issues, at least, I’d say there’s been a definite shift to the left in the ALP over the last decade or two. Labor’s pretty much on a unity ticket with the Greens there.
Economically and environmentally it’s been much more of a mixed bag, with ebbs and flows depending on the times. Certainly, there’s been a drift to the right in both areas since 2019, but that also came after a noticeable move left under Bill Shorten that then got punished at the ballot box.
It’s complicated.
Even comparing the modern day ALP to the pre-Gough days, it isn’t as simple as saying they are more right-wing now. Certainly they are when it comes things like economics and industrial relations, but the left was also a very different beast back then. The ALP’s policies back then on race, on gender, on most social issues would have trouble getting a hearing in One Nation these days!
The environmentalists used to make significant gains at every election. Basically they traded their votes for big outcomes.
Along came the ideological Left of various stripes who loathed Labor as much as they loathed the Liberals.
They conned the environmentalists into forming a political party.
The environmentalists have locked themselves in a death grip with the ideological Left.
The ideologues then dominated the policy processes which generated the policies that are freely available for purusal for anyone.
Those policies are virtually immutable.
Knowing that they cannot form government, the Greens Party is forced to target the BOP.
They can only reasonably form a BOP by damaging Labor.
Further, to get tribal loyalty, the Greens Party is full throttle on the Culture Wars.
The result is a structural stasis that involves the following elements:
1. The Greens need to damage Labor in order to establish a BOP.
2. Rural and regional voters fear a Labor government dominated by a Greens BOP. A cursory glance at the Greens rural and regional policies demonstrate that this is rational. Add the routine and open contempt by many Greens for rural and regional people and the picture is complete.
3. The environmental vote is locked up. There is no political play in environmental policies.
4. Not having to compete for government, the Greens can advance extreme policy positions. These are welcomed like water in a drought by Morrison, Joyce, Canavan and Taylor.
5. Labor is wedged on policy between elections and wedged on tactics during elections.
6. These structural elements have caused significant losses for Labor in the regions including in seats that used routinely to return Labor MPs.
7. Combined, these structural elements are a tremendous electoral and political gift to Morrison, Joyce, Canavan et al.
The net result is that the environment is getting smashed and climate action is going backwards.
Now, the Greens Party claims that this is happening despite their best endeavours.
Any rational observer would follow the logic chain above and see the truth.
The Greens are after political power. They wish to force policies which 90% of Australians do not support. They have spent 30 years hunting a chimera. On the way they have kept gifting power to the Morrisons, Joyces, Canavans and Taylors.
After all the carrot dangling by Gladys.
From the 13th September, people will be able to go to a picnic 5km from home if fully vaccinated.
Epitome of gaslighting.
Won’t we be having around 3000 cases a day by then?… going for a Gaslight Gladys picnic won’t appear very empathetic.. but Gladys doesn’t give a s**t….
Asha at 4:24 pm
Probably a reflection of generational change as the social policy ‘dinosaurs’ shuffled off stage.
Their is nothing in Labors environmental and economic policies that are more right than Hawke and Keating governments. It is more about different time, and different problems.
It is also the difference between opposition and governments.
The last Labor government created the largest marine park, the Liberals got in and destroyed it for example.
A Labor opposition can’t do anything about it, and whether they say something about it or not doesn’t mean they are suddenly more right wing or whatever rubbish someone wants to spout.
I’m hoping scovid doesn’t get bumped off. Bare with me here….
If there’s a change of party leader during the term of government they get voted back as the electorate never voted for that particular person to be PM (yeah I know the winning party choose the PM).
As a very flimsy argument I give you…..
2007 Kevin Rudd Labor elected.
2010 Julia Gillard Labor elected, just.
2013 Kevin Rudd returns to the leadership and is defeated having previously been elected as PM (wouldn’t of mattered if Julia was leader, result would of been the same).
2013-2019 fiberals win an election and a double dissolution with different leader. The first more or less a land slide the second a skin of the teeth win.
2019 scovid and the fibs get elected after scovid drives a Toledo Salamanca broadsword through mal the magnificent ribs, after claiming he only has ambitions for the magnificent one.
So if recent history repeats and scovid is still PM he’ll be out on his arse. If on the other hand they do the broadsword thing again they’ll get back.
A 33-year-old Adelaide man has been charged with additional offences as part of an investigation by the South Australia Police (SAPOL) Counter Terrorism and Security Section (CTSS) and the South Australia Joint Counter Terrorism Team (SA JCTT), which comprises the Australian Federal Police (AFP), SAPOL and ASIO.
The man is now facing a total of five charges as a result of the investigation into Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremist groups in SA, and is expected to appear in Elizabeth Magistrates Court on 7 October 2021 on the new offences.
The new charges come after a review of information allegedly found on electronic devices seized from the man’s home during a SAPOL-led investigation in April (2021), after which he was charged with three offences relating to the alleged possession of an explosive device.
Members of the SA JCTT charged the man yesterday (25 August 2021) with:
Possession of extremist material, contrary to section 37 of the Summary Offences Act (Extremist Material) 1953 (SA);
Possession of information for terrorist acts, contrary to section 83CA of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA).
The maximum penalty for the charges is seven years’ imprisonment.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Counter Terrorism Scott Lee said the threat of terrorism in Australia is enduring and becoming increasingly diverse and complex.
“The AFP and its Joint Counter Terrorism Team partners take all individuals or groups who show support for violence seriously. We target criminals and criminal activity, not ideologies or backgrounds,” AFP Assistant Commissioner Lee said.
“We continue to place significant effort and resourcing into combatting these threats and keeping our communities safe.”
Hh
‘….
“The AFP and its Joint Counter Terrorism Team partners take all individuals or groups who show support for violence seriously. We target criminals and criminal activity, not ideologies or backgrounds,” AFP Assistant Commissioner Lee said.
…’
____________________________________________
Yeah, nah.
While the development of the Greens on Labor’s left flank have likely hastened Labor’s drift Rightwards by absorbing white might be called Labor’s ‘soft left’, the development of One Nation, Family First/Australian Conservatives and other groups on the Right flank of the Liberals has, if anything, pulled them further to the Right. A different dynamic is operating.
S777
It is not a continuum on a single flat line where the entire population shuffles in one direction or the other.
Bert:
I agree, and hope Scomo sees off any potential leadership challenges for that exact reason. A new PM might provide the government with just the reset that they need.
boerwar at 4:48 pm
Definitely not shuffling one way or the other ……..
and