The Guardian reports the fortnightly Essential Research poll includes the pollster’s quarterly-or-so dump of voting intention numbers, and that it will henceforth abandon its practice of holding them back and publish them promptly every fortnight. The latest set of numbers is a fair bit better for the Coalition than its recent form from other pollsters, with primary votes of Coalition 37%, Labor 35%, Greens 9%, One Nation 4%, United Australia Party 2%, independents 5% and 8% undecided.
If the undecided are removed and preference flows from the 2019 election applied, this gives Labor a two-party preferred lead a shade higher than 51-49. Essential Research instead gives us its “2PP+” measure which does not exclude the undecided, and comes out with Labor on 47%, the Coalition on 46% and undecided on 8%. The pollster’s website includes three further sets of hitherto unpublished results going back to the start of December, which show these latest results to be stronger for the Coalition than last fortnight’s, which had them on 36% of the primary vote to Labor’s 37%, with the Greens on 8% and One Nation and the United Australia Party on 3% each.
The poll also finds the Coalition with better ratings for COVID-19 management than a fortnight ago, its good rating up five to 40% and poor down four to 34%. It also finds 57% believe the definition of fully vaccinated should be three shots, compared with 31% who would settle for two. Positive ratings for the state governments, with the usual caveat that sample sizes are small in all cases but especially so for the smaller states, have New South Wales up seven to 44%, Victoria down five to 42%, Queensland up ten to 56%, Western Australia down two to 64% and South Australia up ten to 53%. These too can be found already on the Essential Research website, with the rest of the report to follow later today. The poll had a sample of 1069 and was conducted, presumably, from Thursday to Sunday.
Roy Morgan also eventually came good on the federal poll that it teased in its newsletter last week, from which the two-party headline had Labor’s lead edging out to 56.5-43.5 from 56-44 a fortnight ago. The primary votes are Coalition 33% (down one-and-a-half points), Labor 37.5% (up half), Greens 11.5% (down half), One Nation 3.5% (up half) and United Australia Party 2% (up one-and-a-half). The state two-party breakdowns have Labor leading 54-46 in New South Wales (down from 58-42 a fortnight ago for a swing of about 6%), 59-41 in Victoria (steady, swing of about 6%), 51.5-48.5 in Queensland (a reversal of last time for a swing of about 10%), 55.5-44.5 in Western Australia (compared with 51-49 last time for a swing of about 11%), 64-36 in South Australia (61.5-38.5 last time for a swing of about 13%) and 61.5-38.5 from the very small Tasmanian sample.
The poll was conducted from Monday, January 17 to Sunday, January 30, suggesting the pollster has abandoned its past practice of polling on weekends, online and by telephone from a sample of 2783.
‘Believe’ being the key word.
The scary thing is that we have a federal government which is likely to take the inexpert views of randomly polled individuals rather than medical evidence in determining public health policy.
William 47 +46 +8 = 101. How can that be the 2PP + result. ? I am confused.
Rounding.
Thank You William. I am a stats ignoramous
This is quite a remarkable poll, in particular given its very wide divergence from the most recent Newspoll. They can’t both be right!
Taken at face value, it’s a salutary warning to Labor supporters that victory is far from won.
Polling,polling. One pollster has Labor 1 point ahead, while the other has Labor 13 points ahead.
Which pollster has captured current public opinion? The answer: no one knows, given the events of the past week in Canberra.
What is certain if the lib/nats combined primary vote is below 40% , lib/nats will be in opposition
Outsider:
Quite so. Hopefully this pours cold water on the recent ‘rah-rahing’ from some quarters.
Good morning all. I have gratefully taken up C@t’s kind offer to assemble the Dawn Patrol today.
Most of the essential polls , show higher % rate of coalition supporters participation in the essential poll than Labor supporters
Jaeger, Re: Grog’s Gammut tweet… volunteering at Lifeline Bookfair Warehouse as I do I know a few volunteers who would give the protesters an experience they wouldn’t forget to soon.
Hope you are on the mend BK, best wishes.
It probably a sign that the lib/nats should be very concern that a poll with a higher coalition supporter base participation rate then Labor’s supporter base and still the lib/nats combined primary vote is below 40%
“This is quite a remarkable poll”
The eighty per cent of Australians completely disengaged from the circus(aka Federal Parliament) have probably got it about right.
The telltales of a need for a FICAC are yapping like a platoon of unruly terriers and the majority of voters are too busy at Bunnings.
The question needed to put to the public when polling is whether a religious discrimination bill is increasing this year like all the other utilities!
SportsBet has
ALP 1.32
LNP 3.25
Might be worth considering a ‘saver’ on another ScoMiracle
Essential does not show a female effect or there is a similar and opposite male effect.
On the night of the 2022 federal election , it will be the lib/nats combined primary vote or Labor’s primary vote will be over 40%
It will be very unlikely that both Lib/nats combined and Labor to have their primary votes under 40%
Testing for edit function in Firefox
Edit:
Yes – it’s there!
Hard to imagine that the anger about RATs and everything else that’s going on has suddenly subsided in the past two weeks since their last poll. Still, you can’t count on anything until polling day.
This result may diffuse the Dutton/Frydenberg push though. Morrison surely will take it for the breathing room it may be.
With that positive result Scomo will obviously be encouraged to speed up the date of the election…. Will he do it?…. I don’t think so!…. Why?…. Because I doubt that he believes the positive numbers….
So, it’s federal election at the latest possible date….
Morning all. This is a very strange poll relative to previous. Hard to see where the improvement came from for the LNP?
I also wonder about the collection period. Was this before/after leaked Scomo smears from other Libs?
On these numbers there will be no Dutton challenge any time soon. Odd.
This is what I like to see some difference in the polls reflecting the uncertainty in polling. The industry came completely unstuck with their convergence of polling result last election day.
The samples ceased to be random long ago, we would expect to see some bias based on the selected sample method. The difference can not be explained away with polling error.
It would be interesting to know if this bias is removed do we still see a random error, this should show up as the polls randomly moving relative to each other.
If that is gone then we would know, not only is the sample size non random but the sample does not show a normal distribution on which statistical theory giving the expected error is based.
In short if they start publishing real results instead of fiddling the figures to converge there is some chance of working out the characteristics of each pollsters methodology.
As to the chances of the Liberals winning, if they win this time we as a country are really really stuffed, we accept incompetence and corruption, not a good outcome.
With bullshit, the Greens and Liberals win again.
It polled “The survey of 1,069” which is over 1500 less than the Morgan Poll.
Margin of error would be greater than 3% William?
The issue overall is the undecided voters, they are more than likely to vote for what they know than against – also known as the least interested in politics and are easily won over by marketing.
Two polls also done in SA one in Boothby, credits Labor ahead for the Fed election. The other one for the state, which is in the upper North, credits state Libs with the hold.
Plenty of fun times ahead, Morrison still a chance but cant take essential seriously with that few asked, c’mon, ask more people.
Socrates says:
Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 7:27 am
On these numbers there will be no Dutton challenge any time soon. Odd.
———————
on the numbers
The lib/nats would still lose the federal election comfortably
What fortunate timing for Bullshit Man that such a poll should pop up now.
I see a lot of posters are not understanding Essentials method.
The figures are not TPP preferred.
See Katharine Murphys article this morning in The Guardian for a clearer picture.
William Bowe says:
Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 6:12 am
Rounding.
A challenge; produce a set of one decimal place numbers that add to a hundred, round properly and have the result add to 101.
Shows why the Lib/nats will not make it a contest with a combined primary vote of below 40%
2013 Lib/nats combined primary vote 45.5% = 91 seats
2016 Lib/nats combined primary vote 42% = 76 seats
2019 Lib/nats combined primary vote 41.5% = 77 seats
lib/nats currently sitting on 76 seats , lib/nats would lose well into double figure of seats , if there is a 2.5% swing against them
And the answer is of cause have everything lands on x.5 and always round up.
Scott
Exactly. Still an easy win for Labor on those figures.
frednk
The polls diverging is surely a sign that one pollster is doing it wrong.
Convergence of polls is what you’d expect if all pollsters were getting it right.
And – as polls measure intentions at a particular moment in time – the pollsters last time didn’t get it very wrong.
They showed that Labor was well ahead before the election, that there was a narrowing as the election approached and that this narrowing continued up until election day.
Good Morning. This is the Mini Me Dawn Patrol 🙂
Lisa Visentin commenting that Liberal Moderates still know how to wedge Labor by saying that they can’t support an amended Religious Freedom Bill which allows faith-based schools to be able to expel Trans but not gay students, therefore for the Bill to pass Morrison needs Labor support:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/gay-students-protected-but-trans-students-could-still-be-expelled-20220207-p59ud0.html
Anthony Galloway reports that the Quad is meeting in Melbourne this week, which sees the first visit to Australia of the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. Major topic of discussion will be China:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/free-from-coercion-quad-countries-to-counter-china-s-disinformation-campaigns-and-trade-strikes-20220207-p59ud4.html
Rob Harris reports on a paper released by the Centre for Future Work that outlines how Australia could establish an EV manufacturing industry here:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/advantages-other-nations-would-die-for-push-to-build-electric-cars-in-australia-20220207-p59ubd.html
Dana Daniel reports on the woeful number of Aged Care Commission site visits in the teeth of a COVID-19 surge that is seeing accreditation for Aged Care facilities automatically renewed despite many deaths:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/aged-care-watchdog-scales-back-compliance-checks-as-deadly-outbreaks-grow-20220207-p59udi.html
Shane Wright and Katina Curtis report that residents of Josh Frydenburg’s electorate are campaigning against 2 of the 4 commuter car porks he promised to build at the 2019 election:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/cranky-kooyong-constituents-reject-car-parks-as-waste-of-money-20220207-p59uab.html
Rob Harris reports that, with only 3 sitting days for the Senate before the likely May election, it’s unlikely Federal ICAC legislation will be able to pass parliament, no matter what Scott Morrison says:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/breaking-election-promise-on-integrity-commission-could-prove-costly-20220207-p59uik.html
The Herald editorial praises the NSW Coalition government’s plan to set up a Womens Economic Advisory Council to aid the recovery from the pandemic:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/getting-more-women-into-work-will-boost-the-economy-20220207-p59ud3.html
David Crowe also reports on the Federal ICAC, with Scott Morrison being challenged to ‘bring it on’:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/bring-it-on-pm-challenged-to-deliver-on-anti-corruption-pledge-20220207-p59ui2.html
The Guardian reports that George Christensen has been claiming $10000/month from the taxpayer for ‘e-material’ as he ramps up his Trumpesque Anti Vaccination campaign:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/08/george-christensen-claims-10000-a-month-for-e-material-as-he-ramps-up-anti-vaccine-mandate-facebook-ads
In the week that Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame speak at the NPC The Guardian reports an anonymous federal parliamentary staffer’s story of sexual harassment:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/08/i-was-sexually-assaulted-by-an-australian-parliamentarians-chief-of-staff-i-believe-change-is-coming
Katharine Murphy reports that Covid handling anger directed at the Morrison government appears to have cooled:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/08/guardian-essential-poll-voter-anger-cooling-at-morrison-government-handling-of-pandemic
Josh Butler reports that Australian parliament’s Covid rules could block anti-vaccine protesters’ entry, thus stymieing Craig Kelly’s attempted stunt:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/07/australian-parliaments-covid-rules-could-block-anti-vaccine-protesters-entry
Josh Butler also reports that Aged Care sector welcomes deployment of Defence personnel in nursing homes, even if it’s a bit late and after more than 500 people have died:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/07/aged-care-sector-welcomes-deployment-of-defence-personnel-in-nursing-homes
Michelle Grattan in The Conversation reports on the Morrison government’s change to the rules for international tourists travelling to Australia and the deployment of Defence force personnel to Aged Care homes:
https://theconversation.com/australia-opens-border-on-february-21-beckoning-tourists-176571
Michelle Grattan has spoken with Anthony Albanese on his legacy so far, via her podcast:
https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-anthony-albanese-on-his-legacy-so-far-176573
And that’s yer bloomin’ lot for this morning!
NB If anyone has anything to add, please do. 🙂
The 3% drop in Labor during the 19-Jan to 2 Feb would be outside the margin of error so seems significant. Seems odd the LNP would get a big boost (3%) in poll taken on 2nd Feb. considering the headlines they had been getting then.
Labor needs to be well ahead at this stage of the electoral cycle, because as the big day approaches, the gap tends to close. Waverers drift back to the Coalition, the mainstream media are campaigning for them. Kevin 07 was scoring 55+ 2PP to finish with a comfortable 52.7.
This time around, the Covid outbreak will hopefully subside and in two months’ time things will look more normal.
There’s “events”, of course. One would be a new Covid variant the reignites the Pandemic. To the general public, Omicron seemed to burst upon us out of nowhere within a couple of weeks. Then we’ve got whatever happens in Ukraine. Or, as always, maybe something totally out of left field.
Been There @ #27 Tuesday, February 8th, 2022 – 7:47 am
If you think Labor’s in for an easy win you haven’t been paying attention.
Once Scotty gets behind the wheel of the Bullshit Steamroller-Election-Campaignmobile those numbers are going to flatten right out.
It’s all about the campaign.
Strayans are sitting ducks.
BTW the number plate on the BSEC is MRCLE 2.0
Make the adjustment now, you don’t want to go through another 2019 election night.
I know I don’t.
Frednk
Thanks for the comments on the poll. You made some good points. I had missed the Guardian discussion with Katherine Murphy.
I still struggle to understand why anyone would vote for a government with levels of corruption that would make Eddie Obeid blush.
zoomster at 7:50 am
No it doesn’t. Sure they might all agree once in a while or average out at a consistent measure But that all the polls are consistently identical says ‘bullshit’ . That individual polls are stable is also bullshit. It means they are eliminating ‘random error’ , their quoted margin of error meaningless, which means they’re ‘massaging’ of the numbers to put it euphemistically.
Both Resolve and Essential seem to be trying to provide some sort of “fixed” version of polling because there is a belief that the traditional method has failed. I am not sure that either attempt is providing anything better, they are removing definition in order to provide uncertainty which makes them close to useless. At the outcome of the election, they will claim to have not been wrong but that won’t mean they were right.
Smoko on the telly now blowing smoke up voters’ arses.
Am I right to speculate that other pollsters ‘push’ the undecided to finally nominate a vote, contra this pollster?
Morning all
Much thanks C@t for todays reports!
When was the last time someone was discriminated against on the basis of their religious belief in this country?
poroti
Which all means that some are getting it right and some aren’t.
At any moment in time, the population of Australia has a voting intention.
What that is, is of course unknowable, but it exists.
If polls were ideal, all polls would accurately reflect what this voting intention was at a given period in time.
Thus all polls would converge.
That polls don’t converge is because they use different methods. Which one is correct can’t be determined until the only real measure we have of voting intention – the vote on the day – happens.
You have to admire Putin’s staging of this photo with Macron – are our positions still far removed?
With the dashing and debonair US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, making an appearance in Oz this week for the Quad meeting, it looks like Morrison is getting all his bells and whistles in a row before the election. Imagine the photo ops!
I stopped taking any notice of Essential a long time ago. It’s a very strange poll.
sprocket_,
Putin is well-known for being paranoid about catching COVID-19 as well. That may also explain the cavernous distance, sans masks, between the two men.
AE, If you read the link in Murphy’s article in the Guardian, Essential do push those who vote for a minor party to nominate a major, and leave the “true undecideds” out.
I think it’s always been a truism that 5-10% undecideds decide the election. It’s why the campaign is critical.
This is a sobering reminder that in a 2 horse race, the favourite doesn’t always get the prize.
You can bet your bottom dollar that Albo won’t be lulled into complacency.
While this result might give Morrison’s camp some hope, it might also firm up the resolve of tHose who want to change the leader.