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 The pollster’s website includes three further sets of hitherto unpublished results going back to the start of December, which show these latest results to be stronger for the Coalition than last fortnight’s, which had them on 36% of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.
UK Cartoons:
US Cartoons:
Australia:
David Rowe:
Glen Le Lievre:
John Shakespeare:
Also, if you’re podcast-inclined, Ben Raue of The Tally Room talks to Stewart Jackson about the upcoming NSW state by-elections:
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/45391
zoomster at 8:23 am
No it does not. There is random error . That is a fact of life in statistics. Those errors can be + or – . When results do not reflect that fact of life that says they’re bullshit.
Thank you, Alpha Zero!
I’ll go get some 9Fax cartoons then. 🙂
So the essential poll was taken before Morrison’s horror week?
Testing Firefox again.
John Shakespeare:
Matt Golding:
Dionne Gain:
Joe Benke:
I think it likely that opinion polls are less reliable than they were. It must be much harder for pollsters to get a representative sample these days. They used to be able to get a reasonable sample by calling landlines in the early evening or on weekends. That wouldn’t work now. Many people don’t have landlines or if they do, they use them very little. Marketing calls and scam calls abound. Many, possibly most people, don’t answer numbers they don’t recognise. Younger people would be particularly difficult to reach.
Believe it or not!
Also, here’s a couple of other articles I missed:
The NSW Coalition government has been in power for 11 years. Now it can be shown that for 10 years they have been pork barreling on steroids like their federal counterparts:
More than three-quarters of a $100 million NSW government gambling revenue grant program has been distributed to Coalition electorates and battleground seats over almost a decade.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/poker-machine-losses-funding-projects-in-nsw-coalition-seats-20220207-p59ufm.html
And Peter Hartcher today looks at the China-Russia alliance:
Stronger, tighter, bolder: China-Russia ‘alliance’ rings a bell:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/stronger-tighter-bolder-china-russia-alliance-rings-a-bell-20220207-p59ucd.html
I haven’t had a landline in over 10 years. My teenage boy can’t even remember one. We actually had to teach him how to use (and find!) a mobile in case there was an emergency.
Why does the Panda have a Vietnam shirt on?
Thanks Cat for the roundup.
This one is interesting. They can’t blame it on a Labor stooge.
“ news.com.au
@newscomauHQ
·
15h
Sky News host Andrew Bolt has declared Peter Dutton should “get ready to lead”, saying time is running out for Scott Morrison.
Mr Bowe, any reason you do not comment on the Kore poll? A bit unorthodox, but might be worth posting and possibly discussing strengths/shortfalls in their approach
Jenauthor
Yes taken before this past week.
Hope you are doing well.
I watched the 4-Corners “focus group” episode last night. I got the impression that the swinging voters interviewed were prepared to cut Morrison a fair of slack and were probably going to back the Coalition later in the year, because after all whatever has happened, it wasn’t really Morrison’s fault. He’s a pretty good bloke who does his best.
Support for this proposition will be confirmed next week when Anthony Albanese gets a flogging in the follow-up episode for being the man who nobody knows and therefore cannot be trusted.
It’s too easy, isn’t it.
@lizzie – I mentioned this previously. Dutton’s personal reputation is much better than many politicians, including the PM.
Either News Poll or Essential Research need to be relegated to fish wrapper status…. Polling on different weeks ( deliberately) not an excuse.
Thanks Victoria — am fine!
Newspoll and Morgan are on the same page these days, with Newspoll generally playing catch-up. Essential lives in a world of its own.
Three-quarters of Canberra public schools recorded a COVID case in the first week back
To be more specific, that’s 68 out of 90 schools.
All up, 240 COVID cases were reported.
But no schools were forced to close.
B.S. Fairman @ #61 Tuesday, February 8th, 2022 – 8:50 am
Flag of Vietnam:
Flag of China:
It’s a mistake but probably meant to be representational not accurate. Also Shakespeare probably didn’t realise his mistake.
Stuart
Yep.
The amount of slack they were prepared to cut Morrison was unbelievable.
And we got a preview of next week- who’s he? Is that the best they can do?
Jenauthor
Cheers!
The cookers were planning to storm Parliament House today.
Gotta hand it to them for originality. Not….. lol!
Essential has Independents on 5%.
The polling we’ve seen on the Teal targeted seats has the high profile ones at 20-30%. With this phenomenon this time round, how the weighting calculation for the 2PP works may have flaws
NSW records 9,690 new cases
The state has also recorded another 18 COVID deaths.
There are now 2,068 people in hospital, 132 in intensive care.
……………………………………………
Victoria records 9,785 new cases
There were 20 deaths in the last reporting period.
There are now 575 people in hospital, with 72 in intensive care and 30 on ventilators.
Stuart @ #63 Tuesday, February 8th, 2022 – 8:52 am
As night follows day.
Unfortunately the stars will not align for Labor under the current leadership.
Deep, deep down most here know that.
PhoenixRed
With school children and teachers required to do a RAT every three days, we should expect more cases.
Sadly the amount of older people succumbing to covid continues on its merry way. Sigh…
B.S. Fairman @ #61 Tuesday, February 8th, 2022 – 8:50 am
Nicely spotted. My question is why is the waiter presenting a dish of $$$ to Theresa May in the other Shakespeare cartoon? 🙂
Righto, we ,the essential people of Australia, have eased back on our anger at Morrison’s failures with Covid.
No need to look at all the other issues now.
Nothing to see here.
Situation normal.
Bloody bewty- the overseas tourists are coming back.
Sunny uplands!!
Agreed, Stuart. The Essential poll in combination with the Four Corners focus group is a sobering contribution to election soothsaying. Members of the focus group appeared to be taking a fair bit of interest in public affairs but were still accepting a lot of Morrison’s bullshit. A worry.
lizzie @ #58 Tuesday, February 8th, 2022 – 5:49 am
I once frequented a pub which was also the hangout for the local bikie gang.
In my experience they were endearing and nice people.
Mundo, it’s not about “current leadership”. It’s about the fact that the Australian media won’t give Labor a fair go under ANY leadership. It’s hard to become known to the Australian public, after all, when TV channels gladly cut away from your pressers to instead cover empty podiums for events held by the other party!
BiTB
What did you talk about?
B.S. Fairman @ #61 Tuesday, February 8th, 2022 – 5:50 am
😆 😆 😆
I had one exactly the same.
Victoriasays: Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 9:07 am
PhoenixRed
With school children and teachers required to do a RAT every three days, we should expect more cases.
Sadly the amount of older people succumbing to covid continues on its merry way. Sigh…
*******************************************
And a new Covid variant is out there in the wings, Victoria : (
Experts assess how worried you need to be about the new COVID-19 ‘stealth’ variant
Cases in Australia seem to finally be trending downwards, but the new ‘stealth’ variant has experts on alert over transmissibility, severity and more.
……. a new variant called BA.2 — and nicknamed the “stealth” variant — has experts on alert.
This new coronavirus variant appears to be closely related to Omicron, which is also called BA.1.
https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/experts-assess-how-worried-you-need-to-be-about-the-new-covid-19-stealth-variant-c-5534660
Shellbell @ #83 Tuesday, February 8th, 2022 – 6:14 am
Footy and cricket mainly. 🙂
‘B.S. Fairman says:
Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 8:50 am
Why does the Panda have a Vietnam shirt on?’
===========================
Unfinished business?
PhoenixRed
Yep. Everyone should be getting their booster right now.
I won’t be surprised if we will then need a fourth shot by winter.
The Toorak Toff says:
Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 9:10 am
Agreed, Stuart. The Essential poll in combination with the Four Corners focus group is a sobering contribution to election soothsaying. Members of the focus group appeared to be taking a fair bit of interest in public affairs but were still accepting a lot of Morrison’s bullshit. A worry.
Change is rare in Australian politics. The default position is the Reactionaries win, one way or another. Having said that, the current Essential methodology is untried. Whether their sampling is better or worse than the others is not known.
On the upside, at least there doesn’t seem to be any herding going on this time.
On twitter
As Parliament resumes, observers note Peter van Onselen has not tweeted since Bob Carr’s explosive claim that Peter Dutton leaked the texts. It’s unclear why PVO has not addressed Carr’s claim, and not doing so leaves the coalition extremely vulnerable in Parliament. #auspoL
Victoria: RATs providing ‘confidence and comfort’ for schools
Deputy Premier James Merlino says the feedback from schools is that the RAT system has been good.
He says no schools have been closed because of COVID cases.
Yesterday, 2,368 students and 125 staff tested positive for COVID, with Mr Merlino saying he had expected numbers to be a bit higher on a Monday because of weekend activities.
Overall, 7,046 students and 925 staff have tested positive – which Mr Merlino points out is 0.7 per cent of students and 0.84 per cent of staff.
Steve777 at 8:47 am
It would be damned hard to get random and representative ‘these days’. There must be quite a ‘brains trust’ working on it though what with the money and interest political parties would have in having accurate polling. Perhaps it’s focus groups ‘all the way down” now 🙂
Meanwhile in Ottawa Canada, the mayor has called a state of emergency in response to to the anti vax truckers convoy
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/gay-students-protected-but-trans-students-could-still-be-expelled-20220207-p59ud0.html
Faith-based schools would not be able to expel gay students, but would retain the right to expel transgender students under draft amendments to a contentious religious discrimination bill package that moderate Liberals say they cannot support.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison may have to rely on Labor to get the changes through the Parliament this week, forcing the Opposition to decide whether to pick a fight on religious freedom months out from an election.
——————
Sad we are going back to the 1700s and 1800s. What a fucked up country.
PhoenixRed
The system of testing teachers and students in this way is no doubt helping manage the spread of covid within schools.
That combined with the air purifiers and ventilation strategies is adapting to living with this virus.
Not forgetting having the majority of population vaccinated and boostered as well.
One essential poll and some posters start wetting their pants and embracing gloom and doom.
Toughen up and get a bit of steel in your spine or else get a new hobby.
Everything was ok yesterday with good Newspoll and Morgan results banked and now 24 hours later the world as we know it is over.
I have no idea what , if any , significance this essential has or if it even reflects the National mood. It will take more than one poll to get a real pulse on the ever evolving trend. Falling over and grieving after one essential is simply just sad.
Buckle up for the ride.
Anyone know why Amy isn’t doing the Guardian blog now that parliament is back? She’s the only credible journalist the publication has. Caitlin Cassidy is promising, though. The rest just pass on government press releases.