Morning Consult: PM approval ratings (open thread)

The only bit of new polling data I can identify from the past few weeks suggests Anthony Albanese has more than maintained his strong personal ratings over the New Year period.

Having waited rather too long for a new blog post topic to fall into my lap, here’s one that falls back on the regularly updated tracking poll of Anthony Albanese’s approval ratings maintained by US pollster Morning Consult, which maintains the exercise for twenty leaders internationally. While these numbers have been basically steady since June, they suggest that Albanese ended the year on something of a high, with his approval registering at either 59% or 60% after easing to 55% in November, and his disapproval down since that time from 32% to 28%.

As for when the polling treadmill will crank back into action, I note that the Age/Herald had a Resolve Strategic poll in the third week of last year, although that may have reflected the imminence of a federal election. Newspoll and Essential Research took a fortnight longer to resume regular transmission.

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.

2,368 comments on “Morning Consult: PM approval ratings (open thread)”

Comments Page 45 of 48
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  3. “What’s to be lost by progressing this first as promised prior to the election? It starts the ball rolling, doesn’t scare the horses and if successful, paves the way to Treaty.”

    cronus, the above simple statement of the bleeding obvious is likely to have to be made time and time and time again in the lead up to the referendum. But also, a constitutionally guaranteed and enduring Voice is important in and of its self.

  5. “Why the change of heart?”

    They haven’t had a change of heart you idiot. They are simply going about it in an orderly and methodical way that is most likely to achieve the objective.

  6. ”Labor promised to progress the whole of the Statement From the Heart.”

    And that’s exactly what they’re doing.

    ”Why the change of heart?”

    There has been none.

  7. Steve777 @ #2201 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 7:15 pm

    If there is no Voice, who exactly do we treat with? Treaty first then Voice seems back to front to me.

    So you think if there is no Voice, the First Nations people just vanish? You know, the ones who came up with the Statement From the Heart?

    I guess some people might wish this would be the case.

  9. “If there is no Voice, who exactly do we treat with? ”

    That’s such an easy one Steve777. 🙂

    Lydia and whoever she most approves of.

    Maybe Motorcycle Gang members ???

  11. “The budget is also providing $5.8m to commence work on setting up a Makarrata commission, which would “oversee processes for agreement making and truth telling”.

    The government had in the election pledged more than $27m in total to establish the Makarrata commission.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/25/australia-federal-budget-2022-indigenous-voice-referendum-recognition-makarrata-truth-telling-commission-deaths-in-custody-stolen-generations

    Or one can listen to Player One 😉

  12. So you think if there is no Voice, the First Nations people just vanish? You know, the ones who came up with the Statement From the Heart?
    _______________________________________

    Are you referring to the people who asked for a voice?

  14. The Voice is the least scary bit of the whole thing to mainstream Australia.

    It also makes sense to have the Voice to lead the Makarrata/Treaty process.

    The Voice is going to be hard enough without insisting on complicating things by doing other steps simultaneously with it, quite aside from the fact that without the Voice there’s no obvious path to the Makarrata and Treaty. The Voice is the way to channel the views (differing as they may be) of the indigenous community so that the Treaty isn’t just the single point of view of a loud person like Lidia Thorpe or Jacinta Price or even a Noel Pearson or Marcia Langton.

    I can’t say whether a Treaty will happen at all after the Voice, but there’s a shot at it.

    It’s interesting you know. I think people generally think NZ has a better relationship with Maori people than Australia has with Indigenous Australians and they will often cite that NZ has had the treaty of Waitangi. If you’ve actually read the Treaty of Waitangi you’d realise Australian indigenous people would be horrified to sign that now. THAT is sovereignty ceded.

  15. TPOF @ #2212 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 7:26 pm

    So you think if there is no Voice, the First Nations people just vanish? You know, the ones who came up with the Statement From the Heart?
    _______________________________________

    Are you referring to the people who asked for a voice?

    And for a Makarrata Commission. And a Declaration of Recognition.

    Where are they?

  16. Griff @ #2211 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 7:26 pm

    “The budget is also providing $5.8m to commence work on setting up a Makarrata commission, which would “oversee processes for agreement making and truth telling”.

    The government had in the election pledged more than $27m in total to establish the Makarrata commission.”

    I am sure we have something in the budget about nuclear submarines as well.

    But only an idiot would believe we will actually end up with any.

  17. ”So you think if there is no Voice, the First Nations people just vanish?”

    No of course they don’t vanish. No one vanishes.

    We could negotiate a Treaty with an ad hoc group of First Nations community leaders. Some might be elected by their communities, some might be appointed, some might be self-appointed. Maybe something like the Republican conventions in the 1990s (but for First Nations people). Maybe a reassembled Uluru group. Jacinta Price apparently doesn’t feel he views were represented by the Uluru gathering. No matter what is done someone won’t be happy and will kick up a stink.

    The democratically elected Government of Australia is working to a plan taken to the recent Federal election. Is the plan perfect? Of course not. Is it the only possible plan? No. Should we wait for the perfect plan? Like the Republic? That worked well – for its enemies.

    Let’s just get on with it.

  19. ‘ it is notable the statement does not actually use the term “treaty”. Instead, it proposes the distinctly Aboriginal concept of “Makarrata”, which refers to a process of learning from the past to create new ways of interacting with each other based on dialogue. Voice, Makarrata and Truth are inseparable, but Voice is the motor that drives all of them forward.’

    https://theconversation.com/why-a-first-nations-voice-should-come-before-treaty-192388

  22. Boerwar at 6.35 pm

    You say: “Assuming an elected Voice, there is a legitimate body to lead on the negotiations on a Treaty.

    In the absence of a representative body, there is no legitimacy to the Treaty negotiations.”

    Things may not be so simple, either here or comparatively. E.g. in 1993 there were difficult negotiations by the Keating government with a select group of Aboriginal Land Councils, largely in the areas of later colonisation. Note that the negotiations were not with ATSIC, then a statutory but also a representative Indigenous body.

    Did anyone question the legitimacy of those negotiations? Yes, particularly Aboriginal groups in the South East. And the Indigenous negotiators had to accept a compromise.

    Did the resultant Native Title Act lack legitimacy? Arguably yes, but not because of the way the negotiations were conducted, without a body such as the Voice. The reason was in article 7(3) of the Act, which overrode the Racial Discrimination Act regarding any acts after that earlier 1975 Act was promulgated. In other words, in specific situations Aboriginal people were denied the protection of the Racial Discrimination Act.

    Your last sentence is correct, but it does not mean the representative body has to be in the form of the Voice. Indeed, if the referendum succeeds, we may find that the Voice is regarded (partly because of its form, but perhaps also because of its subservience to Parliament) as not being the ultimate representative body for Treaty negotiations.

    Elsewhere, it has been possible to have modern Treaty negotiations without the form of a Voice, such as in Canada. In New Zealand it is emphasised that the Treaty was signed (the Maori version) by hundreds of different Maori tribal leaders, not by any pan-Maori body. Even in recent decades the NZ government has always negotiated on Treaty matters with different iwi (tribes), not with a national representative body.

    Australia is different because it has been historically so backward in recognising what we could learn from Indigenous Peoples.

    In the end, the referendum question is one of principle, as Albo has stressed: should there be a representative Indigenous Voice to Parliament, or not?

    It is best not to burden the Voice too much before the event. The question for Thorpe’s supporters will eventually be the same question of principle as for everybody else.

    Obviously the media will report on division, since that is a perpetual media trope. Even sensible stories do this to some degree, e.g.:

    https://www.themonthly.com.au/the-politics/rachel-withers/2023/01/20/voice-memo

    The organisers of some of the Invasion Day rallies are reported there as saying they will campaign against the Voice. Perhaps, but it’s far too soon to conclude that they will do so, especially when to do so would mean campaigning in support of Hanson.

    If, as is likely, the referendum becomes intensely political, which is not surprising, it may be that, ironically, Hanson will in effect marshal votes for Yes. It would not be hard to construct a simple and direct ad: “Should there be an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. It’s a historic question of principle for Australians now. Pauline Hanson is no friend of First Nations people. She says No to a Voice. What do you say? Vote Yes.”

  23. zoomster @ #2219 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 7:35 pm

    ‘ it is notable the statement does not actually use the term “treaty”. Instead, it proposes the distinctly Aboriginal concept of “Makarrata”, which refers to a process of learning from the past to create new ways of interacting with each other based on dialogue. Voice, Makarrata and Truth are inseparable, but Voice is the motor that drives all of them forward.’

    https://theconversation.com/why-a-first-nations-voice-should-come-before-treaty-192388

    The authors gave the game away a bit in that article, Z …

    While some form of treaty will undoubtedly remain an important goal …

    … “some form of treaty” will “remain a goal” …

  24. Player One @ Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7:32 pm

    “I am sure we have something in the budget about nuclear submarines as well.

    But only an idiot would believe we will actually end up with any.”

    Are you thinking other people are idiots and cannot comprehend you again? David and Justin put their names to such a condition. Carry on 😉

  25. zoomster @ #2169 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 7:35 pm

    ‘ it is notable the statement does not actually use the term “treaty”. Instead, it proposes the distinctly Aboriginal concept of “Makarrata”, which refers to a process of learning from the past to create new ways of interacting with each other based on dialogue. Voice, Makarrata and Truth are inseparable, but Voice is the motor that drives all of them forward.’

    https://theconversation.com/why-a-first-nations-voice-should-come-before-treaty-192388

    So why do the BlakGreens and the SovCit Greens(mostly one and the same) keep going on about a Treaty!?!

  27. Dr Doolittle – my understanding is Native Title legislation had to override the Racial Discrimination Act due to concerns that it involved discriminating against everyone else in favour of Indigenous Australians on the grounds of race. This is genuinely the first time I’ve heard the idea that it “lacked legitimacy” due to the RDA override and that it somehow denied Indigenous people protection from racial discrimination. In what way?

    I swear some people just go looking for reasons to be dissatisfied with stuff. Native Title wasn’t perfect but in the context of Australia it was an astounding achievement to recognise Indigenous land rights within the Australian legal system the way it was done.

  28. “Australia is different because it has been historically so backward in recognising what we could learn from Indigenous Peoples.”
    —
    Ignorance prevents me from the first part of this but learning from uncounted millennia of continental stewardship and discovering a shared tap root into identity, one that does not depend on borrowed identities, is no small thing. The Voice is a small thing. Seeds are. It is a gift. And only a thief would turn it away.

  30. Arky at 7.29 pm

    If you’ve studied the Treaty of Waitangi, you would know there are two versions and they do not clearly state the same principles. Maori signed the Maori version for rather obvious reasons – that is the one they could comprehend. That version committed the British Crown to preserving Maori chiefly authority (tino rangatiratanga) along with their other treasures, including their relationship to lands. The word used in article 1 of the Treaty was kawanatanga. It properly translates as governorship not sovereignty.

    See: https://teara.govt.nz/en/kawanatanga-maori-engagement-with-the-state/print

    See also: https://sites.google.com/site/treaty4dummies/home/the-kawharu-translation (the translation by Maori anthropologist Hugh Kawharu)

  31. Player One says:
    Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7:16 pm
    Cronus @ #2197 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 7:03 pm

    What’s to be lost by progressing this first as promised prior to the election?
    Labor promised to progress the whole of the Statement From the Heart.

    Why the change of heart?
    ———————————————————————————————

    I don’t understand why you would suggest I’ve had a change of heart when I have and will support Constitutional recognition (even if apparently some Indigenous leaders won’t). My understanding too is that the government is progressing this same recognition which is a fulfilment of their election promise, not a change of heart. Are you saying, with evidence (this would help me) that the Statement From The Heart was definitively meant to be progressed all at once rather than staged? I haven’t been able to find this anywhere in my reading.

  32. Must say again – I really doubt Indigenous people in Australia want a Treaty of Waitangi so the NZ model doesn’t really work…

    Canada is a different case because the land of politeness has always liked to do treaties with its indigenous groups and has shit tons of them, albeit they are often the product of the colonial times in which they were written. This has given them a platform for a raft of modern treaties with individual indigenous groups which are to my understanding something akin to our native title claims but negotiated directly with government rather than determined through a legal process, with some elements of American style self governing tribal reservations thrown in. It’s still nothing like the single unified treaty sought here.

  33. “Player One says:
    Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7:16 pm
    Cronus @ #2197 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 7:03 pm

    What’s to be lost by progressing this first as promised prior to the election?

    Labor promised to progress the whole of the Statement From the Heart.

    Why the change of heart?”

    Labor never ever promised to progress the whole of the Statement From the Heart in a single referendum!… Why are you lying? Or is it just propaganda hiding behind cluelessness?

  34. Lars Von Trier:

    Friday, January 20, 2023 at 5:56 pm

    The SA Voice legislation is interesting. On the one hand it says there is nothing to fear here it’s already happened – on the other hand it says if we can legislate a Voice why do we need to constitutionally enshrine the Voice?’]

    I’m surprised by your critique, Lars. Howard knobbled ATSIC & replaced it with the National Indigenous Council, about as effective as a colour blind interior decorator. In the absence of an amendment to the Constitution, they’ll be no guarantee that a Dutton government won’t legislatively return to the status quo.

  36. Dr D: even the Maori version is exclusively about surrendering the governorship of the land to the Queen of England and sale of land to the Queen’s representatives in exchange for protection and citizenship. It’s really not what the Treaty in Australia is meant to be about.

    Back when Australian Indigenous people were even excluded from the census and were being genocided, Waitangi was a far better deal than Australian Indigenous people got but that doesn’t mean it’s a type of Treaty that provides a model for 2023.

  37. “Player One says:
    Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7:52 pm
    Griff @ #2224 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 7:49 pm

    Are you thinking other people are idiots and cannot comprehend you again?

    No, it seems to be a condition experienced mainly by Labor partisans.”

    Sorry mate, but you just don’t have sufficient intelligence to judge anybody here…. Just apologise and move on, surely there are dishes to wash at home, or a dinner to be prepared, etc.

  39. “Player One says:
    Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7:23 pm
    Steve777 @ #2206 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 7:19 pm

    There has been none.

    So, where is the progress on Makarrata?”

    The only referendum that’s coming is on the Voice. How are you going to vote?…. Are you going to vote “No” because you won’t be asked any question about the Makarrata?… You are obviously a Liberal… and I am sure that, in due course, you will be voting “No” to the Makarrata too, and the Treaty, or whatever else sounds too friendly to Australian First Nations.

    Pathetic!

  40. Arky at 7.53 pm

    The issue with the Native Title Act and the Racial Discrimination Act was different. It had to do with the validation of acts of dispossession of Aboriginal native title holders since 1975, when the RDA was enacted. The RDA was suspended so those dispossessed people could not challenge their dispossession on the basis of racial equality.

    The concept of race is a colonisers’ construction, as Mick Dodson and Marcia Langton have stressed.

    See this anonymous question after a Senate Lecture by Mick Dodson 11 years ago:

    “Question — It just seems to me a no-brainer this constitutional consideration and the referendum. If we have a Constitution which at the moment enables Australian governments to prepare and implement discriminatively laws like the legislative response law [i.e. NT intervention] and to suspend the Racial Discrimination Act, it is pretty obvious that there’s overt discrimination associated with our Constitution. It just seems to me that it’s black or white. You either agree with discrimination or you don’t. And it just seems like a very simple process. Why we are having all this argument about preambles and stuff, I really don’t know. And I note that Justice Kirby, for example, spoke to the Law Council a couple of weeks ago and he made a comment along the lines of when we voted in the 1967 referendum, which I did, we never thought we would ever see a Racial Discrimination Act being suspended as it was and having the soldiers go in and god knows what and really imposing a very patronising system on Aboriginal people. We’ve really gone wrong. I think it’s a black-and-white question: we discriminate or we don’t.”

    https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/pops/pop57/c02

    Note that, once the Voice referendum has passed, the Australian Constitution will still permit racial discrimination in the opinion of most lawyers, though not in the opinion of Justice Kirby in the Kartinyeri case. See:

    https://database.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?EntityID=8423

    “In Kirby J’s view, the text of the Constitution must be interpreted in the context of its history and the changing values of the Australian and international communities [132].

    When interpreting the Race Power, the Court should consider its amendment by the 1967 Referendum, and the surrounding circumstances [157]. Kirby J found ‘not the slightest hint whatsoever in any of the substantial referendum materials’ that the proposed amendment would ’empower the Parliament to enact laws detrimental to, or discriminatory against, the people of any race, still less the people of the Aboriginal race’ [146]. For example, Parliamentary debate on the Constitutional Alternation (Aboriginals) Bill 1967 (Cth) explicitly referred to the amendment as being ‘with respect to Aboriginal advancement’; ‘favourable, not unfavourable’; and having ‘no suggestion of any intended discrimination in respect of Aboriginals except a discrimination in their favour’ [142]-[144].”

    Yet in that case the Howard government claimed racial discrimination was permissible.

  41. “Mavis says:
    Friday, January 20, 2023 at 8:10 pm

    …In the absence of an amendment to the Constitution, they’ll be no guarantee that a Dutton government won’t legislatively return to the status quo.”

    But Mavis, that’s the whole point of the Liberal party stormtroopers active here: get a No vote to win, or at least get a Voice that’s weakly enshrined in a highly deletable legislation, rather than in the more solid Constitution.

  42. anyone would think from some of the commentary on here about the Voice that the First Nations people who came up with the Uluru Statement hadn’t thought about all of the complicating factors that might impact upon the Statement’s intent.
    There is a simple reason for putting the Voice first and it’s this. The Voice is the consultative body that will (hopefully) be enshrined in the constitution. ONCE it is then the other parts of the Statement (the treaty and truth telling) can be negotiated via the parliament.
    Here’s the thing: once the Voice is in place what do you reckon the first two items will be that are referred to the Voice? That’s right – treaty and truth telling. The parliament can’t get away with simply imposing its will once the Voice is in place
    It’s a case of horse before cart.
    You see those behind the Uluru statement have actually thought about this. They’re actually smart. we should give them some credit for not only coming up with the Statement but in actually constructing a process which 1. has the best chance of succeeding and 2. is self-sustaining in achieving outcomes.
    So let’s trust those behind the Voice and support them.

  43. Arky at 8.11 pm

    Re “in exchange for protection and citizenship”, please read the Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi via the link. It was not in exchange for protection as that is usually understood in Australian colonial history. It was in exchange for recognition of, and protection of, Maori customary (tribal) authority, including over land and heritage.

    The issue of protection was different. Maori leaders wanted the Crown’s protection from the rampages of unregulated and uncivilised settlers. They wanted the Crown to control the abuses of the Pakeha settlers, not to control them in a colonial way. That is what they signed. What happened was different. For further elaboration see p 57 at:

    https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p15621/pdf/ch0510.pdf

  44. Arky @ #2236 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 8:11 pm

    Dr D: even the Maori version is exclusively about surrendering the governorship of the land to the Queen of England and sale of land to the Queen’s representatives in exchange for protection and citizenship. It’s really not what the Treaty in Australia is meant to be about.

    Back when Australian Indigenous people were even excluded from the census and were being genocided, Waitangi was a far better deal than Australian Indigenous people got but that doesn’t mean it’s a type of Treaty that provides a model for 2023.

    I hadn’t realised the Treaty of Waitangi had been negotiated on behalf of Queen Anne. She was after all the last Queen of ENGLAND.

  45. Barney, I said exactly what you just said about the voice a month ago. The people who don’t know those things by now do so deliberately.

  46. Using ‘England’ to mean ‘the United Kingdom’ was common place well into the 1900s.

    I remember reading a book in my teens (alas, a long time ago) about a Scottish Olympiad who was outraged to find that he was representing England.

  47. Cronus @ #2231 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 8:06 pm

    Are you saying, with evidence (this would help me) that the Statement From The Heart was definitively meant to be progressed all at once rather than staged? I haven’t been able to find this anywhere in my reading.

    No. I am saying that those who claim the Statement prioritizes one aspect over the others are not able to demonstrate that this was the intent of the Statement. They simply a misunderstanding the use of the term “culmination”. Prioritization seems to have been added subsequently, perhaps by some of the parties involved, and this undermines the essential and consensual nature of the Statement.

    For the record, I am in favor of all aspects of the Statement, and think they should all be progressed.

    A tripod only stands if it has all three legs.

  49. zoomster: “Using ‘England’ to mean ‘the United Kingdom’ was common place well into the 1900s. ”

    The ‘English’ cricket team is actually England and Wales to this day.

  50. Alpo @ #2237 Friday, January 20th, 2023 – 8:16 pm

    Sorry mate, but you just don’t have sufficient intelligence to judge anybody here…. Just apologise and move on, surely there are dishes to wash at home, or a dinner to be prepared, etc.

    Gosh. Sexism, misogyny and stupidity in a single post.

    Are you going for the record? Because on PB there is some stiff competition.

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