Two fairly meaty items of attitudinal polling on COVID-19 today, starting with the fortnightly Essential Research poll, which also included its monthly leadership ratings. Scott Morrison’s ratings were hardly changed, with approval steady at 50% and disapproval up one to 41%, while Anthony Albanese’s were slightly improved, with approval up three to 37% and disapproval down two to 36%. Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister nonetheless widened slightly, from 45-26 to 47-26. Offered a choice between the proposition that the government deserved to be re-elected and that it was “time to give someone else a go”, respondents favoured the latter over the former by 41% over 36%, which sits well with the tenor of recent voting intention polling.
On COVID-19 management, the federal government’s good rating was down two to 39% and its bad rating was up one to 36%. Of the state governments with almost meaningful sample sizes, the good rating of the New South Wales government was down two to 40%, that of the Victorian government tumbled 12 points to 44%, and the Queensland government was up a point to 67%. Of those with entirely inadequate sample sizes, the Western Australian government’s good rating was down nine to 78% and South Australia’s was up eight to 76%.
A series of questions on COVID-19 strategy produced the rather striking finding that 61% favoured the low-ball option of “less than 100 deaths per year” when asked how many would be “acceptable to ‘live with’ in Australia as lockdown restrictions are removed”. Furthermore, current lockdown restrictions remain strongly supported, with 56% in New South Wales and 57% in Victoria considering their states’ settings to be “about right”. However, the balance is tipping towards them being thought too strong, at 28% and 35% respectively, compared with too weak, at 16% and 8% respectively.
Another question found only 12% favoured Australia living with COVID-19 “even if there are hospitalisations and deaths”, compared with 44% apeice who favoured a near-zero policy and living with a few cases “even if there are hospitalisations and deaths”. There were notable differences between the lockdown states and the others: 38% in New South Wales and 37% in Victoria favoured a near-zero strategy, compared with 50% in Queensland, 51% in South Australia and 59% in Western Australia. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1100.
Also out today through the News Corp papers is a large-sample survey on COVID-19 conducted by YouGov, results from which can be viewed in The Australian here. This featured a number of questions on how things should be “when everyone has the opportunity to be fully vaccinated”, which 41% thought should mean an end to lockdowns, although a not inconsiderable 37% felt otherwise. Respondents from Western Australia were most pro-lockdown, those from New South Wales and Victoria least so. Younger respondents and parents of children in school were more likely to be pro-lockdown; those who did not wish to be vaccinated, accounting for 13% of the total sample, were most opposed.
The poll similarly found that 66% would eventually favour French-style vaccine passports for a range of public activities; 63% state borders being kept open only for the vaccinated; and 68% likewise with respect to overseas travel. Only 23% were opposed to the notion that employers should be able to demand their staff be vaccinated, compared with 69% who supported it for “frontline or public-facing jobs”, inclusive of 45% who thought it should be allowed across the board. Clear majorities were in favour of compulsory vaccinations for aged-care workers, nurses, school staff, public transport workers, take-away restaurant and food delivery workers, public servants and hospitality workers, and opinion was about evenly divided for construction workers and tradies.
Respondents were also given a choice between uncompromising anti-lockdown (“lockdowns should be ended immediately”) and pro-lockdown (“lockdowns must be part of Australia’s future until COVID-19 is completely eliminated”) positions and the much looser middle-ground option that “vaccination is the pathway to ending lockdowns”, which when you put it like that gets respective results of 14%, 22% and 64%. The survey was conducted by YouGov from August 20 to 25 from a sample of 3114.
Mavis @ #1093 Thursday, September 2nd, 2021 – 7:34 pm
It sure does.
A bit of a leg up for Labor.
Let’s hope they know what to do with it.
Looks as though our fed + state leaders are coming around to us all getting the plague.
Wishing everyone good luck & hope it’s just a sniffle.
Griff:
“I pointed to the net satisfaction ratings between Albanese and Morrison and halving the gap since the pandemic”
… so directionally, Albo has improved his relative unpopularity to ScoMo since the first few months after he took the job. I’m not sure what this is evidence of, but if it counts as evidence of anything then so does PPM which remains firmly in ScoMo’s favour. I’m afraid i dont draw any remote conclusion from this factoid whatsoever
Roy Orbison:
“You are a Scomo fan…. Say it out loud. You’ll feel better…. I know everything I need to know about you and you sicken me.”
lol, if i was a committed liberal voter then i’d be happy to say so – would share that in common with, what, 10 million or so other australians… their existence sickens you, i get it. This need to only want to discuss with people who line up with one’s own worldview? That is essentially the same as a Fox News redneck in the USA desperate for confirmation bias validation. Pure irrelevance except as a number, and unfortunately you need more than what you have. Pity unlike the US, where you can win on turnout, here you actually need to persuade swing voters.
For the umpteenth time, i believe ScoMo has a potentially winning strategy because what he is advocating has the capacity to resonate with millions of people. The very thought drives some people here incandescent with rage. I feel your rage, it per se is as persuasive as a fart in an elevator
Oh and I’m absolutely certain that the belated permit system that cut down trips from Sydney to Newcastle helped enormously in keeping our numbers (Hunter) down to a handful. Shame they didn’t do this earlier, but it shows you how controlling physical mobility is the key to getting rid of the virus by divide and conquer means.
I fully expect Gladys to open up and allow more friend/family contacts between Sydney and Newcastle in a few weeks and then the real shit happens (up here).
Peter Stanton
One of the best things about Australia is that Multiculturalism and being able to experience locally, foreign cultures. Of course it’s no substitute for travel but I hate the hate and fear culture war that restricts people experiencing the local melting pot.
Having a direct connection to the culture of the worlds oldest democracy is one of the things I appreciate about Melbourne.
Thanks Cud. I was searching for my own version of a sunny uplands. … sigh
Expat
“because what he is advocating has the capacity to resonate with millions of people. ”
Until they realise that they’ve been lied to and things go seriously tits up. Which is so typical of everything Scomo.
Cud
“Which is why the utter incompetence and reckless indifference of Gladys allowing that limo driver to be infected needs to be hammered home. Just as “he only had two jobs” is sticking, this should with Gladys.”
ok, whose job is this to hammer home in an effective way such that this is the only narrative a majority of nsw voters care about in 2023?
tough ask for someone really gifted at what they do, really tough ask for someone whom 8/10 people couldnt pick out in a lineup
“Until they realise that they’ve been lied to and things go seriously tits up. Which is so typical of everything Scomo.”
what would be your threshold measure of things going “seriously tits up”, Cud?
EF
Marginal Voters in South West Sydney being punished by apartheid Sydney Government will remember at the ballot box.
Labor only has to make sure voters know who failed them. Not too hard a job with incumbency telling voters it’s time for change.
Edit: Berejikilian helped with snubbing the local mayors while Labor met with them.
guytaursays:
Thursday, September 2, 2021 at 7:44 pm
—————————-
Melbourne is one of my favorite cities. I spent a lot of time there in my union days. I was fortunate to grow to in a street fill of recent migrants (mostly Italian). As a young boy in the 1950s I discovered the delight of real pasta.
My mother brought us up to never use the word hate but I share your feelings.
Obviously I cannot convince you with data expat follower – you keep having those ‘feel-pinions’.
Others can see that Albanese has halved the net satisfaction difference since the pandemic started and don’t worry, pre-pandemic he managed to even be ahead: https://www.pollbludger.net/bludgertrack2022/leaders.htm?
I hope you get paid a decent wedge for this 🙂
I suppose ‘tits up’ could be defined as a rising Ref.
You’ve got to give it to Palaszczuk for political smarts. She reads Queenslanders like the back of her hand whereas Morrison & Frydenburg are flailing after her “what about the kids” comment. Her old man (Henry) was a smart operator too – the former member for Inala.
They can roll out the Chief Medical Officer, the Chief Health Officer of NSW, even Doherty to dispute her claim that there is not enough in the modelling about the under sixteens, but her simple message will cut through to most parents and that the absence of the entire population in the stats skews the percentages of those fully vaccinated.
Did anyone else catch the late press conference from Berejiklian?
Sounds pretty sinister:
https://www.tiktok.com/@amindeeee/video/7002590685375319298?fbclid=IwAR0FmeF7fqL3Pybdh0ud2L9YnAPG4cQHP1sYaAowD00DQL6WrutqKV7AWO4
Wat Tyler @ #1085 Thursday, September 2nd, 2021 – 7:27 pm
Yes I seem to vaguely remember one of the attacks on Kevin Rudd was that he couldn’t possibly have been telling the truth about sleeping in the car with his mum because the Murdoch media had found out (probably from his estranged brother Greg Rudd), that the car was a VW Beetle. How preposterous a suggestion, Kevin, they screeched in unison. Kevin Rudd promptly pointed out his age at the time and how he fit snugly in the back seat actually and his mum slept in the front seat reclining.
To which I might add that we have seen none of this sort of dirt digging by the yellow press when it comes to Scott Morrison’s childhood. I’m sure there’s plenty they could find if they tried.
Nevertheless, I take comfort from the fact that Kevin Rudd won despite all that because the electorate had decided John Howard’s number was up and it was time to punch his card.
On the other hand that was all pre-facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
At the end of the day, will this sort of character assassination at 5 minutes to midnight before the election compare with the broad sweep of Scott Morrison’s last three years in the Prime Ministership? I hope not.
Guytaur,
“Marginal Voters in South West Sydney being punished by apartheid Sydney Government will remember at the ballot box.”
you could be right. All i’ve seen are a drop from 75% to 40% in approval of how Gladys is managing covid, but a 50% approval rating. Is there any polling to show a collapse in vote across their seats in this part of Sydney, or that the ALP are within 10 points of the Libs since McKay got shot?
just so i understand your logic, they were punished in terms of being unfairly locked down too hard or feel discriminated against because other suburbs were not being locked down as hard as they were even though their lockdown was appropriate?
but yes if i were Chris Minns, i would probably be hanging out a fair bit in SW Sydney over the next 18 months years doing my best to keep that fire stoked.
Griff
“I hope you get paid a decent wedge for this”
yes i’m on a cost per acquisition incentive to get all of you here to vote Coalition at the next election!
i know how y’all are going to vote. i’m interested in who will actually win and why.
EF’
I am going on the anecdotal reporting by the mayors.
It’s all we have to go on. The local grass roots politicians feedback from their community
Lizzie
“I suppose ‘tits up’ could be defined as a rising Ref”
interesting. that’s an input measure that presumably drives an unacceptable output measure
do you think daily numbers like 1000 cases, 10 hospitalisations and 2-3 deaths would be ‘tits up’?
Expat – you know you’ve made it on Poll Bludger when the herd starts calling you a Liberal! I for one enjoy your posts, as they provide a breath of real world political reality in the Lefty group think that often prevails here. I don’t mean to say that prevailing wisdom here is wrong, and I suspect if I met most on here in person, we’d probably be very philosophically similar. But this site is not well served by alternative viewpoints (and those that espouse them are regularly hounded away by the mob), so I like the fact that you keep coming back.
Yabba
I have done the rock hopping from Forresters To Bateau Bay several times.
We usually ealk from Shelley Beach to Forresters through Wyrrabalong NP and then return via the rocks.
Lizziesays:
Thursday, September 2, 2021 at 8:02 pm
I suppose ‘tits up’ could be defined as a rising Ref.
________________
Or losing 700k voters in one term of govt.
Especially when they are yet to return 10 years later.
If it’s true that Morrison intends to write to the over 60s who’ve failed to get the A-Z jabs urging compliance, that’s fair enough but to add the rider that they’ll go to the end of Pfizer/Moderna queue if they fail to follow his instructions is probably not very clever politics. I wonder what the backbenchers on narrow margins will have to say about his latest brain fart let alone Dutts, whose margin is 4.64% and who of course dearly covets to the top gig(?).
Cud Chewer
NZ whips us again
Sceptic – that would be those slackarse Sandgropers and Banana Benders letting us down! 😉
Hugoaugogo @ #1122 Thursday, September 2nd, 2021 – 8:33 pm
How condescending of you, Hugoaugogo. It’s not exactly an enlightened perspective that you champion. Apparently we’re not allowed to challenge different points of view now. Or, if we do it then gets lumped into a basket marked ‘lefty groupthink’, as if that’s some sort of political crime, when what we are dealing with world-wide is the preponderance of Hard Right Group Think. For real. Maybe if YOU didn’t do the oh-so-predictable thing of shooting the messenger and blaming US for ‘hounding’ people away, whereas what is often the case is that some people come here thinking they can just spout their pre-digested pablum and get away with it and when they find that’s not going to happen because they are correctly challenged on it, they give up and go away.
Still, you’re entitled to your point of view. Just like the rest of us. 😐
C@t – thanks for proving my point. Now all the rest of regulars can pile in too. Still, at least it will give the likes of Expat a break!
Hugoaugogo
Possibly.. Banana Benders disproportionately support PHONy & UAP parties.. they have a death wish.
All those generations growing up with bagman Joe & his mate Russ.
Just a thought on the electoral impacts of lockdowns in specific LGAs in NSW. A lot of the seats in the 12 lockdown LGAs are already Labor-held. Two which aren’t are East Hills on a 0.1% margin, and Penrith on 0.6%. After that the next most marginal is my own electorate of Seven Hills, on 5.7%. Who knows what the political landscape will be in March 2023, but I can’t see lingering anti-lockdown sentiment having a big impact beyond maybe helping Labor win East Hills and Penrith.
Looks like these two goons have tag-teamed. A bigger target to ignore.
Roy Orbison,
Yoda: Always two there are, no more no less 😉
But seriously, what happened to the last two, Nath and Lars? Did I miss a smiting?
Cud Chewer
It would appear Australia is now only just approaching steepness of other major countries.. & way later in the cycle.. NZ showing rocketing tax rate.
Roy Orbison – and right on cue! Don’t ever change!
Seriously though, why do you all think the likes of Meher Baba and Bucephalus – two posters who regularly posted things that I didn’t necessarily agree with, but whom I always found at least gave me food for thought – don’t come around any more? Because having the same old arguments with the same old people gets tiresome, so they give up and go somewhere else. Some people on here need to find more inclusive ways of disagreeing, because for regulars on a blog about politics, some of you lot really don’t handle differences of opinion very well.
I believe Nath got banned for making a joke.
These partygoers most likely think they’re immune from contracting C.19. Given they endanger the health, life of many others, perhaps it’s time to make an example of them:
[‘Health authorities say they have no idea how many people attended an illegal house party in Sydney’s east last month that residents have slammed as “selfish”, which has now been linked to almost 90 COVID-19 cases.
It comes as police investigate whether there are any links between an illegal gathering at the Malabar Headland in July and the house party on August 14. Both events were in breach of the Public Health Orders.
The house party was attended by up to 60 people, according to the state government, including a number from the 12 local government areas of concern.
A spokesperson for South Eastern Sydney Local Health District said 87 people have returned positive COVID-19 test results since the party, which include 20 people who attended the gathering and 67 of their contacts.
“Contact tracing and further testing is underway. The Public Health Unit has not been able to ascertain the exact number of people who attended the gathering,” the spokesperson said. “Residents of Maroubra, Malabar and Matraville are encouraged to get tested and isolate should they develop the slightest symptoms of COVID-19.’]
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/authorities-stumped-on-number-of-guests-at-illegal-eastern-suburbs-party-20210902-p58o2o.html
“Looks like these two goons have tag-teamed”
Griff instantly jumps on board
lol
Oh, and Hugo, don’t bother with the entirely predictable, trite dismissal.
Lurker @ #1137 Thursday, September 2nd, 2021 – 9:05 pm
Not true.
Thanks Lurker!
So that leaves Lars.
Edit: or maybe something else happened? But Nath is banned?
Morrison making things go tits up? If he is good at one thing, surely making things go tits up must be the thing.
Lost the War
Fucked up the retreat
Fucked up the response to the Brereton Report
Fucked up the Bushfire response
Fucked up quarantine
Fucked up Ruby Princess
Fucked up vaccine acquisition
Fucked up vaccine distribution
Fucked up the relationship with China
Fucked up the relationship with the US
Fucked up the relationship with NZ
Fucked up the Covid App
Fucked up good public policy processes
Fucked up ministerial responsibility
Fucked up transparency
Fucked up accountability
Fucked up the federation
Fucked up pandemic messaging
Fucked up biodiversity
Fucked up water in the MDB
Fucked up public infrastructure investment
Fucked up the response to the Call from the Heart
Fucked up Indigenous vaccinations
Fucked up Vaccinations for Aged Care workers
Nath got banned for being nath. You know how nathlike nath can sometimes be.
HugoAuGoGo,
You know, I thought better of putting up the response above the one to ‘Lurker’ because I thought you weren’t crass enough to make an entirely predictable reply like the one you did to me. But it snuck in anyway, probably because it knew it was spot on.
Morrison:
Fucked up JobKeeper
Fucked up our climate response
Fucked up the sub project
Griff @ #1141 Thursday, September 2nd, 2021 – 9:15 pm
Humiliated into retreat by Mr Bowe I think. But Wayne still keeps paying us a visit every Newspoll day. 🙂
The NSW government will significantly scale down its contact tracing as COVID-19 vaccination rates rise, instead relying on people being alerted via their smartphones when they have been at a venue of concern.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-to-scale-down-contact-tracing-with-smartphone-alert-for-exposure-sites-20210902-p58o96.html
If you don’t like the data.. stop collecting it.. simple
From The Australian:
“Senior WA Labor sources say Anthony Albanese is on track to gain as many as four seats from the Liberals, including those of ministers Christian Porter and Ken Wyatt, amid Mr McGowan’s sky-high popularity and concerns over borders and vaccines.”
That’s the view from the horse’s mouth.
Expat
“what would be your threshold measure of things going “seriously tits up”, Cud?”
I’d say a pretty good measure is when cases/hospitalisations don’t peak in mid October. Gladys has pretty much nailed herself to this.
Also, as much as the media like to dish out Liberal press releases, they also love to do horror stories of hospitals breaking under the strain.
I don’t think Mr Bowe can pull me up on that one. Saying nath is nathlike surely can’t be wrong :P.
hazza
That’s why Scomo is doing everything to get the virus back into WA…
(McGowan wasn’t exaggerating either)