Polls: Essential, Morgan and ANU Indigenous Voice survey (open thread)

Two new voting intention polls have Labor keeping its nose in front, while the Australian National University unveils an extensive post-referendum survey on the Indigenous Voice.

Essential Research’s fortnightly poll records little change on federal voting intention, with the Coalition steady on 34%, Labor down one to 31%, the Greens up one to 13%, One Nation steady on 7% and the undecided component up one to 6%. The pollster’s 2PP+ reading has the Coalition as close as it has been this term to taking the lead, with Labor down a point to 48% and the Coalition steady on 47%, the remaining 6% being in the undecided category. Monthly leadership ratings have Anthony Albanese in net negative territory for the first time since the election, his approval down four to 42% and disapproval up four to 47%. Peter Dutton is up three on approval to 39% and down one on disapproval to 42%.

A monthly “national mood” reading records a deterioriation after five months of stability, with 51% now rating the country on the wrong track (up three) compared with 30% for the right track (down four). The Coalition is credited with an edge as best party to manage the economy (33% to Labor’s 25%), reduce cost of living pressures (28% to 25%) and keep prices down (ditto), though Labor leads 37% to 19% on supporting higher wages. Forty-four per cent consider social and economic equality is decreasing (one would more naturally say inequality was increasing), with only 16% holding the opposite view. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1151.

Also out yesterday was the weekly Roy Morgan poll, one of Labor’s better recent results with a two-party lead of 52.5-47.5, reversing a Coalition lead of 50.5-49.5 last week. The primary votes are Labor 32% (up two-and-a-half), Coalition 35% (down two-and-a-half), Greens 13.5% (steady) and One Nation 5% (down one-and-a-half). The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1379. The Australian also published further results yesterday from the recent Newspoll showing only 16% consider themselves better off than they were two years ago, compared with 50% for worse off. The 18-to-34 cohort offered the most favourable response, with 29% for better off and 37% for worse off.

The Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods also treats us to a 93-page report on the October 14 Indigenous Voice referendum, based on a survey of 4219 respondents from October 17 to 29. I haven’t absorbed this one yet, but the report is here.

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.

778 comments on “Polls: Essential, Morgan and ANU Indigenous Voice survey (open thread)”

Comments Page 1 of 16
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  1. “The Coalition is credited with an edge as best party to manage the economy (33% to Labor’s 25%), reduce cost of living pressures (28% to 25%) and keep prices down (ditto) …”

    How, against all the evidence, do they keep on getting away with that?

  2. @oliver, because they keep telling us they are the better economic managers and poor timing. The world is facing a cost of living crisis but the LNP repeatedly tell us it is labor’s fault.

    The alp think by being a better government people will notice. They won’t. Blame is immediate.

    The lnp are playing hardball. The ALP are playing tiddlywinks.

    This is a gun fight, and the ALP are gardening.

  3. Oliver Sutton @ #1 Wednesday, November 29th, 2023 – 5:44 am

    “The Coalition is credited with an edge as best party to manage the economy (33% to Labor’s 25%), reduce cost of living pressures (28% to 25%) and keep prices down (ditto) …”

    How, against all the evidence, do they keep on getting away with that?

    Exactly. They create the problems that Labor has to deal with. Labor gets in, it all blows up, and Labor gets the blame!

  4. Vladimir Putin is a disgusting human being and deserves to burn in hell(if there is one):

    Kyiv: The wife of Ukraine’s intelligence chief has been diagnosed with heavy metals poisoning and is undergoing treatment in a hospital, a spokesperson for the agency said on Tuesday as the country’s war with Russia stretched into its 22nd month.

    Marianna Budanova is the wife of Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the military intelligence agency that is known in Ukrainian as GUR for short. Her condition was confirmed to The Associated Press by Andrii Yusov, the agency’s spokesman.

    Yusov did not provide more details about the alleged poisoning, nor did he say if it was believed to have been intended for Budanov or whether Russia was thought to be behind it. Earlier this year, he told Ukrainian media that military intelligence chief had survived 10 assassination attempts carried out by the Russian state security service, or FSB.

    Previously, Budanov had also told local media that his wife lives with him in his office, which could suggest he was the intended target for the poisoning.

    There was no immediate comment on the poisoning claim from the Russian government, which has long been suspected of poisoning opponents. Russia media and commentators picked up the Ukrainian reports, with some speculating that it could be part of infighting in Ukraine.

    However, separate reports suggest that Russia has begun a new information campaign with the goal of undermining Ukraine’s leadership over the conduct of the war.

    https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/ukraine-says-spy-chiefs-wife-is-being-treated-for-poisoning-with-heavy-metals-20231129-p5enk9.html

  5. Oliver Sutton @ Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 5:44 am:

    ““The Coalition is credited with an edge as best party to manage the economy (33% to Labor’s 25%), reduce cost of living pressures (28% to 25%) and keep prices down (ditto) …”

    How, against all the evidence, do they keep on getting away with that?”
    ===================

    Sadly, most people are lazy thinkers, most of the time. They form a snap judgement on something, and then routinely sift evidence from the world around them which reassures them that judgement is correct (aka, confirmation bias).

  6. AFR on Seven’s dodgy deal with Rent Boy:

    ‘Spotlight executive producer Mark Llewellyn told news.com.au in May that “no one was paid”, but added, “the program assisted with accommodation”. The Seven press team ran the same line to other outlets, insisting that the network “made no payment to Bruce Lehrmann for the interview”.’

    ‘Seven wasn’t putting Lehrmann up for a night or two, which is standard practice to facilitate major interviews. The network was instead putting a roof over his head for a full 12 months.’

    ‘On Tuesday … a Seven spokesman reiterated that “we said at the time we were assisting Bruce Lehrmann with his accommodation costs. It was well reported back then.”’

    Weasel words from Stokes’s Seven.

    https://www.afr.com/rear-window/kerry-stokes-and-seven-s-questionable-taste-in-men-20231128-p5enf8

  8. Interesting that the first sentence of the AFR article uses the descriptor “twice accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann”.

    Not spooked by fear of further litigation, it seems.

  9. Oliver Sutton says:
    Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 6:24 am
    AFR on Seven’s dodgy deal with Rent Boy:

    So he gets $100k pa… for how long, 10 years?

  10. From Essential’s monthly mood measures William linked, the age breakdowns tracked as you’d expect ( (basically 18-34 pro Labor, 35-54 evenly split, 55+ pro Coalition) for ‘managing the economy’, ‘reducing cost of living pressures’ and ‘keeping prices down’. However, that neat link between age and ‘better party on’ is broken for ‘supporting higher wages’, with the 55+’s more supportive of Labor than the 35-54’s and almost as supportive as the 18-34’s. I’d love to know why people here think the 55+’s buck the age trend for this measure but not the others.

  11. I’ve just been reminded of the famous saying by HL Mencken:

    ‘No one ever went broke underestimating the public’s intelligence.’

    When reflecting upon metrics such as ‘who is the better economic manager?’

  14. MacArthur: ‘I’d love to know why people here think the 55+’s buck the age trend for this measure but not the others.’

    Maybe over-55s carry memories of unionised workplaces where local Labor people were visible in campaigning for wages and conditions.

    The experience of under-55s, by contrast, would be more in the post-neoliberal era of non-unionised workplaces and the gig economy, where Labor is much less visible on the ground.

  15. Dr Doolittle (from last thread, and sorry to all PB readers about the length of this post)

    My responses to the points you have made in reverse order:

    1. Thanks for the link to Kirby’s speech, which was as entertaining and informative as he always is. His main point seemed to be that the risk of being accused of “nominalism” simply comes with the territory of being a High Court justice who quite rightly seeks to interpret the Constitution as a living document with relevance to the 21st century. Kirby did not mention it, but another, related criticism of the High Court in his era was that it indulged in “results-driven decision making” (eg, in the Theophanous vs Herald & Weekly Times Limited Case, which I think was before Kirby’s time, where the High Court, including your seeming bete noire McHugh, somehow discovered a right to”freedom of speech” in the Constitution).

    2. You praise Edelman’s reasoning, even though it appears that the other justices found it unnecessarily complex. Edelman seems to have found within Lim a concept that the detention process applied to an alien needs to be “proportionate” (a word that’s been getting a lot of press lately). He suggests that the purpose of detention in cases such as this one is “detention pending removal” (which, if you read the Migration Act and also think about the analogy to people being held in remand, is not necessarily the only reason people are being detained in these cases, but whatever). Then he reasons that, once it becomes clear that removal is impossible for the foreseeable future, then indefinite detention is disproportionate and thereby inherently punitive. The other judges seem to have preferred to keep it simple and rule that, contrary to the view expressed by McHugh, the Lim decision meant that the constitutional prohibition on the Federal Government imposing punishment on people means that it does not possess the power to detain people indefinitely for any reason whatsoever. I don’t like their reasoning, but it makes more sense to me than does Edelman’s.

    3. re McHugh. He was certainly not averse to human rights and other progressive causes: look at his record re the Mabo case, the aforementioned Theophanous case, etc. Where his reasoning sometimes differed from that of some of the other justices, particularly on migration cases (eg, the 1995 Teoh case) was that he had an appreciation of how disruptive for good governance it can be for the High Court suddenly to pull the Constitutional rug out from under the feet of Governments in relation to longstanding methods of implementing policy, and that this should not be done on the basis of pedantry but only when really important points of principle are at stake.

    4. The decision in the NZYQ case – like the decisions in Section 44 cases that took the test beyond that of actual foreign citizenship to encompass even the theoretical possibility of obtaining foreign citizenship – certainly pulled the rug out from other the feet of the Government and imposed a burden on the general public to no good end (at least IMO). The Section 44 cases required expensive and time-consuming by-elections that, in the end, changed nothing. The NZYQ case will require complex new legislation, or perhaps a referendum or else will require Australians to tolerate having potentially dangerous criminals walking our streets who nobody (including the High Court) thinks should be granted permanent residency in Australia.

    To return to the concept of “proportionality”: I appreciate that it is far from ideal that, in a society such as ours, governments should have the power to detain anyone indefinitely. However, I would argue that, if the only remedy to this injustice is to grant effective permanent residency status to dangerous criminals, then that is a “disproportionate” outcome.

    I’ll be interested to see what sorts of legislative remedies the government lawyers come up with to try to get these people back into detention. I’m sceptical that any of them are going to be satisfactory and would think that a referendum will ultimately be required.

  18. OS:

    Quite so. I think it was C@t yesterday who observed that the Liberal party and their proponents use lies as a way of deflection or deferral.

  19. ‘fess,
    I don’t know the answer to that but I believe I read once that, with the agreement of the parties, their lawyers and the judge, it can be livestreamed. Plus I vaguely remember there were some new rules brought in recently to that effect.

  20. I’ll be interested to see what sorts of legislative remedies the government lawyers come up with to try to get these people back into detention. I’m sceptical that any of them are going to be satisfactory and would think that a referendum will ultimately be required.

    meher baba,
    This is the latest out of the government:

    The worst offenders released from immigration detention could be locked up again under new preventative detention laws the Albanese government vows to rush through parliament before Christmas.

    In outlining its reasons for overturning indefinite detention, the High Court left the door open to re-detaining people considered a risk to the community if new laws were passed.

    Speaking on Tuesday afternoon, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil urged parliament “to support the government in protecting the Australian community”.

    “Today our government received reasons from the High Court. We are moving quickly to finalise a tough preventative detention regime before parliament rises. The safety of Australian citizens is our utmost priority,” she said.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/high-court-publishes-reasons-for-indefinite-detention-decision-20231128-p5ena0.html

  21. Oliver, that’s a very good point about the impact of on-the-ground visibility in forming lasting impressions in the minds of voters. The more Labor leans on legislation from government to reform the economy and the less it has access to workplaces to move such reforms forward with activism from below, the less reward they reap from shifting voter attitudes towards them, even when the reforms are passed and bear fruit.

  22. c@t: “However, separate reports suggest that Russia has begun a new information campaign with the goal of undermining Ukraine’s leadership over the conduct of the war.”

    Which the ABC seems to have been listening to a bit more than I would like.

  25. Dawn Patrollers

    Sorry, but I have arisen very late this morning and feeling somewhat sub-optimal. I don’t think I could do justice to the Dawn Patrol given this and time constraints.

  26. c@t: “meher baba,
    This is the latest out of the government”

    Yes I saw that, and I have seen media speculation that the Government might be able to use this part of the decision as the basis for new legislation:

    “Nor would grant of that relief prevent detention of the plaintiff on some other applicable statutory basis, such as under a law providing for preventive detention of a child sex offender who presents an unacceptable risk of reoffending if released from custody.”

    But, with the usual proviso that I am not a lawyer, I don’t believe that the Federal Government would have the power to enact such legislation. Indeed, aren’t there basic common law rights preventing the gaoling of people who haven’t committed a crime but are perceived to be at risk of doing so? Can PB lawyers please clarify this? In any event, it doesn’t seem to me to be a very desirable way to proceed: I interpret the High Court to be effectively saying “you go sort it out, but don’t try to do so through the Migration Act so that we are forced to rule on it again.”

    It seems to me that the most straightforward way to go is to have a referendum to clarify the Constitution to ensure that the Government has the clear power to detain aliens awaiting removal until they can be deported, regardless of how long it takes for the deportation to happen, and that detention under these circumstances is not punishment.

    Any other approach is going to be messy and ineffective in some of the cases in which we would really want people to be detained.

  28. Morning all. Oliver Sutton’s opening comment about why the public perceives the Liberals as better economic managers is a good question, but Labor needs to counter it regardless.

    The answer is Morrison bought popularity in a borrowing and spending binge. Now interest rates are higher that had to stop.

    We know that but every Labor Minister and MP has to repeat that message every day, in every interview. No, the public will not get it if Labor stops pointing it out.

  30. No worries, BK. You’re only human, not an AI news generator. 🙂

    I’d do it but I have to decamp soonish to go and pick up my son’s new 2nd hand car, after he was involved in a crash in the rain last weekend.

    Maybe HoldenHillbilly can help?

  39. ‘Macarthur says:
    Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 9:23 pm

    Boerwar @ Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 8:55 pm:
    ===========

    BW, a very comprehensive and well-considered summary of the ways in which the 26 million of us – and our forebears – have made such a monumental pig’s breakfast of scratching out a sustainable existence on this continent we possess. Is it a case of too many of us, though, or rather a case of us engaging in poor land use choices and land management practices?

    This also makes me wonder how the Indians get by, 10 of them packed into the same amount of arable land each of us gets. What should they do about that, I wonder?’
    ——————————
    What Indians as a human population are doing about the ratio of people to arable land is often going hungry and having a life expectancy 13 years less than that of Australia. Global warming generated Monsoon instability looms as a massive disruptor to sustainability in India. The birthrate is falling. Energy use per capita is rising. Indians are migrating in large numbers. Biodiversity is being smashed.

  40. ‘Mavis says:
    Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 8:08 am

    The King of Oz is ensnared in a bad case of bona vacantia:

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/23/revealed-king-charles-secretly-profiting-from-the-assets-of-dead-citizens‘
    ——————————
    So did the Queen. Her minions soothed the troubled plebs with promises that the money thus harvested from the dead would be distributed to charities. But this was not distributed to charities. The MSM was respectfully silent thereto.

    The sins of Mummy?
    Poor Chuckie!

  41. The Australian Taxation Office has paused a letter campaign alerting taxpayers they have historical debts after conceding its communication caused “unnecessary distress”.

    While the ATO said it would review its overall approach to the on-hold tax debt scheme, it is not erasing the amounts allegedly owed.

    Thousands of Australians were recently advised they have money owing, ranging from a few cents to thousands of dollars, that may be decades old and will be taken from future refunds.

    The tax letters caused distress to recipients, who told Guardian Australia the debts were nearly impossible to contest given their historic nature.

    The ATO said in a statement on Tuesday evening that it had heard the community concerns.

    Taxpayers can check whether they have a debt on hold by calling us. However, we accept that our communication approach caused unnecessary distress – especially for those debts incurred several years ago.

    We will review our overall approach to debts on hold before progressing any further.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2023/nov/29/politics-ir-legislation-thalidomide-question-time-peter-dutton-anthony-albanese-greens-labor-indefinite-detention-telstra-nsw-vic-qld

    Seriously. Given that we are only supposed to keep our records for a certain number of years, how can it be legal to advise people of tax debts that go beyond this period?

    And instead of asking people to make the effort to call them, why not also offer to communicate via MyGov?

  42. Data on the referendum confirms what was generally observed.

    Support for the Yes crashed after Dutton belligerently failed to support it, with no voters more likely to be older, male, have lower levels of education and speak a language other than English at home, and live outside the major cities, or basically not give a shit about anyone else but themselves, while yes voters were younger, more urban, better educated, and more caring about the outcome.

    Very few people who intended to vote no at the start of the campaign ended up voting yes, according to the ANU survey. But 42% of those who intended to vote yes in January ended up voting no.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/2023/nov/29/indigenous-voice-referendum-failure-why-bipartisan-support

    Call the failure to pass a loss. For me it confirms my position that Albanese didn’t lose the referendum. Dutton lost the referendum. The Yes campaign was hobbled by the belief that good will win, inertia, and I suspect organisational and logistical problems. It wasn’t the Government’s campaign per se. It was the Yes campaign’s campaign.

    It confirms that the coalition’s cohort of bigoted self-interest and ignorance is their default. The crash in the Yes vote after Dutton said No is what history will take note of.

  44. Boerwar @ Wednesday, November 29, 2023 at 8:16 am:

    “What Indians as a human population are doing about the ratio of people to arable land is often going hungry and having a life expectancy 13 years less than that of Australia. Global warming generated Monsoon instability looms as a massive disruptor to sustainability in India. The birthrate is falling. Energy use per capita is rising. Indians are migrating in large numbers. Biodiversity is being smashed.”
    ===============

    BW, yes. I think out of all those responses, emigration is by far the most humane. And one country’s emigrant must be another country’s immigrant…

  46. Confessions @ #41 Wednesday, November 29th, 2023 – 8:25 am

    And instead of asking people to make the effort to call them, why not also offer to communicate via MyGov?

    From direct personal experience, yesterday, calling them after 8.30 am is a waste of time. They tell you the wait is longer than 30 minutes, then hang up after 40. Today I rang at 8.01, to be told that wait time was over 30 minutes, but was offered a call-back in ‘longer than 30 minutes’, which I accepted. Still waiting, of course. Just like Centrelink, they are overwhelmed and sinking into a mire.

  49. Gosh, I just read that “outbreak” on PB from about 9PM last night.

    PaulA – It’s you who needs to pause before pressing enter as what you posted last night is off the trolley. All Cat posted was I didn’t pick up on the ALP bounceback with the last Morgan Poll. It’s true – I didn’t. Not a major issue, just a fact. I suggest you apologise to her before the week is out otherwise you’ll find the other posters here will wipe you or the site manager will just remove you which has happened to other former posters this year. It’s an adult blog, not some teenage thing where everyone frets about being liked or whatever.

    C@t – well played. Straight through to the keeper. Post whatever you want. I like your c@tfacts.

    … and BK, I actually logged on to do the morning news over a cuppa. Sorry to hear you’re off colour.
    Get well as Dawn Patrol is a highlight of the day!

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