Essential Research leadership ratings and end-of-year review

Scott Morrison’s personal ratings maintain a downward trend, as the government scores middling ratings for its overall performance for the year.

Essential Research has published its final fortnightly poll for the year, which includes its monthly leadership ratings. Scott Morrison is down two on approval to 46% and up two on disapproval to 44%, his weakest numbers since the onset of COVID-19 and a continuation of a downward trend since March. Anthony Albanese is steady on 40% approval and up one on disapproval to 36%. Essential’s numbers for both leaders are consistently more favourable than those for other pollsters. Morrison’s lead on preferred prime minister is down from 44-28 to 42-31, the narrowest it has been all term.

The federal government’s ratings for COVID-19 response have deteriorated after a three-month improving trend, down six on good to 41% and up seven on poor to 32%. The equivalent results for the states record a one point drop in the New South Wales government’s good rating to 54%, an eight point drop in the Victorian government’s rating to 43% and a three point drop for Queensland to 57%. The Western Australian government is up four to 78% and the South Australian government is down three to 57%, with due caution to the tiny sample sizes in these cases.

Respondents were asked about the Coalition’s performance on various matters since it came to power in 2013, and were interestingly given the opportunity to indicate whether the issue was important or unimportant to them in addition to evaluating the government’s performance. Its worst results came for handling sexual assault and misconduct, with 35% from the 50% who rated it poorly considering it an important issue, and handling of corruption allegations, rated likewise by 35% from 49%. However, the government now records neutral ratings on the vaccine rollout and is rated very favourably for the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

As it does at the end of each year, the pollster asked if had been a good or a bad year for various actors, with the federal government deemed to have had a good year by 34% and a poor year by 38%. Thirty-eight per cent considered it had been a good year for them and their family compared with 23% for poor; 37% rated their personal financial situation favourably compared with 30% for unfavourably. As usual, large companies and corporations were deemed to have done best of all, at 52% for good and 21% for poor. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of around 1000.

Another poll worth noting is a Western Australian survey for Painted Dog Research, published today in The West Australian, which found more respondents considering the state’s recently announced opening up date of February 5 to be too soon (36%) than too late (18%), with 46% deeming it right. Mark McGowan was credited with a 77% approval rating, down from 88% in a previous survey in February. The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday from a sample of 811.

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.

2,431 comments on “Essential Research leadership ratings and end-of-year review”

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  1. p
    Putin and Xi, Russia and China, are doing a temporary barley charley because it suits both of them.
    It won’t last.
    It never has.

  2. Touching several pieces of wood, long time Telstra Bigpond, no problems, promised speeds, no fuss, only a couple of losses of service for very short periods and 1 deaded modem. Nowt to moan about from this sample of 1 .

  3. ‘rhwombat says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:24 pm

    Boerwar @ #2152 Sunday, December 26th, 2021 – 12:18 pm

    Here is a quiz question for youse all:
    Name the only human achievement that will last for ever.

    Deliberately eliminating smallpox.’
    —————————–
    A qualified part of the larger answer, but a partial tick; smallpox still exists, I believe.

    The answer is: ‘extinctions’.

  4. Boerwar at 12:16 pm
    Who says it will ? But I can see it easily going 20-30 years . Enough time to change a whole lot of global balances.
    Oh and I hope you award rhwombat a special prize for that very clever answer 🙂

  5. ‘Mexicanbeemer says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:30 pm

    The Suez and Panama Canals.’
    —————————-
    I doubt that they will last the next couple of trillion years. Let alone forever.

  6. ‘poroti says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:30 pm

    Boerwar at 12:16 pm
    Who says it will ? But I can see it easily going 20-30 years . Enough time to change a whole lot of global balances.
    Oh and I hope you award rhwombat a special prize for that very clever answer ‘
    —————————————
    I had been mulling just that example, and several others, before posing the question. Smallpox comes under the heading ‘extinct in the wild’. We have several known species that only exist in captivity as living creatures. Others are locally extinct but survive elsewhere. Others only exist as germplasm in purpose-built storage units. Other still exist only as DNA.
    Regardless of those various categories, a full, proper extinction is forever. Everything else we do and touch will eventually go.
    I do get annoyed with the latest and utterly fatuous ‘forever house’.

  7. Boerwar
    Africa and South America are moving north so they wont but when it comes to humans they will probably be longest lasting legacy of humans.

  8. ‘Mexicanbeemer says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:32 pm

    Boerwar
    Humans being apex predators are not alone in causing the extinction of other animals.’
    ———————————————
    I am curious to know some examples where predators, other than humans, have forced extinctions.

  9. ‘Mexicanbeemer says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:35 pm

    Boerwar
    Both Africa and South America are moving north so they probably wont but when it comes to humans they will probably be longest lasting legacy of humans.’
    ———————————————
    Perhaps. Left alone the Suez Canal will quite rapidly disappear under sand.

  10. Mexicanbeemer @ #2158 Sunday, December 26th, 2021 – 11:32 am

    Humans being apex predators are not alone in causing the extinction of other animals.

    Possibly. But we’re alone in extincting other animals for reasons that have nothing at all to do with securing our own immediate survival. We do it mostly out of a mix of laziness, thoughtlessness, and greed, not because if we don’t do it we’ll starve.

  11. Boerwar
    Other than the major extinction events many extinctions have been caused by the arrival of a new predator that then becomes the dominate apex predator. South America is an example of that.

  12. ‘poroti says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:30 pm

    Boerwar at 12:16 pm
    Who says it will ? But I can see it easily going 20-30 years . Enough time to change a whole lot of global balances.’
    ———————————————
    Russia’s one remaining global economic and political play this century is gas. Beyond that, a declining and ageing population beckons. It might just last 20 years but the way I view things, 20 years is short term.

  13. ‘Alpha Zero says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:42 pm

    Pioneer, Voyager, Voyager 2, New Horizons will last forever.’
    ————————————————–
    So, their trajectories will never pull them into black holes or some such? It is very crowded out there.

  14. Boerwar @ #2047 Sunday, December 26th, 2021 – 12:45 pm

    ‘Alpha Zero says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:42 pm

    Pioneer, Voyager, Voyager 2, New Horizons will last forever.’
    ————————————————–
    So, their trajectories will never pull them into black holes or some such? It is very crowded out there.

    You are manifesting a very convenient definition of ‘forever’.

  15. Using AI and a nifty algorithm, I predict England to be 2 for 250 at stumps; Starc will break down; Greens’ test figures will look a lot sicker than they did this morning; there will be calls for Smith to take over as captain following Cummin’s fast bowler-type decision to send England in for a bat this am.

  16. ‘Alpha Zero says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:47 pm

    Boerwar, space is generally very empty it even makes the liberal party policy cupboard look full…
    ————————————————
    If you add gravity to what we can see then it is a lot more crowded than it looks to the naked eye. I do have a question from someone who actually understands astrophysics, which I do not. Is it possible, from what we know, to send a satellite out on a course that will miss everything we already know about?

  17. Is it possible, from what we know, to send a satellite out on a course that will miss everything we already know about?
    _____________________
    Isn’t missing everything we already know the central doctorine of Hillsong?

  18. Boerwar says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 9:30 am

    So, what is the Morrison/Dutton/Payne scoresheet on national security?

    – – –

    15. Located our strategic fuel supplies on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

    15. Located our strategic fuel supplies on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. in Galveston so the bunker fuel has to round the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn or transit the Panama Canal

    Summary: Morrison, Dutton and Payne have left Australia in an immeasurably worse security situation than they inherited. yes

  19. Boerwar says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:49 pm
    Using AI and a nifty algorithm, I predict England to be 2 for 250 at stumps; Starc will break down; Greens’ test figures will look a lot sicker than they did this morning; there will be calls for Smith to take over as captain following Cummin’s fast bowler-type decision to send England in for a bat this am.
    ______________________________

    The nifty algorithm has its limits.

  20. The tone of Morrison’s Tik Tok is very childish. “Buddy has to go and wrap presents now.” Perhaps he’s aiming for the pre-school vote.

    It’s a RW characteristic that they assume their audience is full of gullible people who don’t have a brain that thinks for itself. Anyway, the TikTok comment was obviously written by one of Morrison’s many PR hacks, along with the obviously phoney pictures of him making curries etc.

  21. https://www.pollbludger.net/2021/12/22/essential-research-leadership-ratings-and-end-of-year-review/comment-page-42/#comment-3782943

    We have now got Aussie Broadband (whom I do dread might get snapped up)/ Nbnco HFC DOCSIS3.1 for wired Internet, after years of Telstra HFC/ DOCSIS3 after SingTel Optus HFC[, even pre-WiMAX/ VividWireless/ UnWired at some stage at a variable 1 Mbps, though that was after ISDN2/ 128 Kbps] . [I do keep an eye out on the 5G rollout.]
    For the 117/ 5+ Mbps we had before for the same dollars we now get 57/ 18+ Mbps, quota still unlimited.
    Doesn’t seem to have impacted Netflix or iView.
    Aussie seems to be excellent at alerts, be it unscheduled or scheduled, and call backs, and so far I haven’t had to work through layers of not so AI to get to a human.
    At the end of the street Nbnco seems to be using the (Telstra copper pillars and) HFC aggregation, wires from here to it are unchanged given the Telstra comm tech had done so in the last three year, though some of the Nbnco comm techs look like they belong in jail rather than near national infrastructure [they always seem to do ‘stuff’ during core working hours, not outside, white vans etc don’t carry an Nbnco logo so presumably contracted out, down the road anyway, presumably in exchange/ POI etc it is different].
    So far reliability means outages every fortnight or month, compared to may be twice a year on Telstra, but some kit down the street is scheduled for replacement about Aus Day.
    A number of the young adults just use Aldi/ Telstra 4G LTE. [So far whenever Aussie Broadband or Telstra or … go, we then get various levels of notification on the neighbourhood group.]
    And we do have Telstra 4G backup.
    And once in a while we’ve used our Aldi/ Telstra 4G LTE for work hotspots. Unlike my wife’s work VPN, my work’s VPN etc doesn’t allow Wi-Fi or mobile terrestrial 4G LTE wireless though so if Nbnco goes down I am off the air or then go to the office …

    So far we haven’t looked at water or power contingency [like a battery, solar panels, and there’s always the BBQ].

  22. Looks like SA government’s determination to get in Morrison’s good books and be the new gold standard has backfired. They were supposed to be learning to “live with the virus” not reintroducing restrictions left, right and centre. Doubt that will go down well with the population a couple of months out from an election.

  23. Maxxy @ #2059 Sunday, December 26th, 2021 – 1:03 pm

    Looks like SA government’s determination to get in Morrison’s good books and be the new gold standard has backfired. They were supposed to be learning to “live with the virus” not reintroducing restrictions left, right and centre. Doubt that will go down well with the population a couple of months out from an election.

    It will be interesting to see how it shakes out politically because there are those who really want restrictions reintroduced and those who don’t.

  24. citizen

    It’s a RW characteristic that they assume their audience is full of gullible people who don’t have a brain that thinks for itself

    Results have shown their assumption is very credible.

  25. Anyone know why yacht sails appear to almost always be black in these types of races?
    Are they solar powered sails?
    Is it an aesthetic thing?
    Or do black sails go quicker than white sails?
    For the record they could be pink with purple spots for all I care. Just a random question that popped up in my curious brain. 🙂

  26. Gee Brad , I wonder why it is under pressure ? Obviously it must be for some reason nobody could have predicted and prepared for eh? Your boss worked hard to get NSW to where it currently is, so ‘bon appetite’.

    Drop PCR tests for travel, Minister urges

    NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard calls on Queensland and South Australia to turn to rapid tests, saying the state’s testing infrastructure is under ‘enormous pressure’.

  27. Currently viewing Don’t Look Up on Netflix.

    It’s a film about what happens when Politics, Marketing, Polling, and Celebrity cultures hijack an impending planet-wide catastrophe.

    Really just a logical extension of what’s happened with Covid.

  28. Boerwar @ #2155 Sunday, December 26th, 2021 – 12:26 pm

    ‘rhwombat says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:24 pm

    Boerwar @ #2152 Sunday, December 26th, 2021 – 12:18 pm

    Here is a quiz question for youse all:
    Name the only human achievement that will last for ever.

    Deliberately eliminating smallpox.’
    —————————–
    A qualified part of the larger answer, but a partial tick; smallpox still exists, I believe.

    That’s why (on reflection) I amended my response to eliminating a human disease by vaccination (quite literally – by inoculating humans with vaccina (cowpox) virus). “We” have only done it (deliberately & knowingly) with one disease by the well understood principles of mass immunisation – all the other extinctions were “accidental”.

    There are two (acknowledged) samples of (“wild type”) smallpox (variola) virus extant: one at the CDC in Atlanta, USA and the other at the Vektor Institute in Koltsovo, Russia. The debate about destroying those samples has now (almost) lapsed completely – they are now considered useful archives.

    Actually, viruses shouldn’t really count, as it is theoretically (and practically) possible to synthesise “wild type” pox virus from a nucleic acid sequence – hence the retention of the two samples.

    I don’t think we have eliminated any prokaryotes or eukaryotes (eg bacteria, archaea or fungi – which we cannot yet synthesise) yet. A Falciparum species would be a good start.

    On a more metaphysical level, extinction is the only thing that could actually last forever.

  29. Apparently (as quoted in Wikipedia), reviewing the film for the Los Angeles Times, Justin Chang wrote,

    “Nothing about the foolishness and outrageousness of what the movie [Don’t Look Up] shows us—no matter how virtuosically sliced and diced by McKay’s characteristically jittery editor, Hank Corwin—can really compete with the horrors of our real-world American idiocracy.”

  30. Cracking thunderstorm right on top of me at the moment.

    Very noisy and quite spectacular even in the middle of the day.

  31. ‘TPOF says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 1:02 pm

    Boerwar says:
    Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 12:49 pm
    Using AI and a nifty algorithm, I predict England to be 2 for 250 at stumps; Starc will break down; Greens’ test figures will look a lot sicker than they did this morning; there will be calls for Smith to take over as captain following Cummin’s fast bowler-type decision to send England in for a bat this am.
    ______________________________

    The nifty algorithm has its limits.’
    ==============================
    I do believe that the AI techno may have misheard me. When I told him to shove the england batting slider input right over to ‘arse’ he shoved it right over to ‘clarse’ instead. It is from such apparently minor errors that mighty batting empires can fall.

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