Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition

Crikey reports the latest Essential Research poll has the Coalition lead at 53-47, up from 52-48 last week – which managing director Peter Lewis indicated Labor was lucky to get to because of rounding. On the primary vote, Labor is down two points to 34 per cent, with the Coalition and the Greens up a point each to 47 per cent and 12 per cent. I should have the full report shortly, but in the meantime Bernard Keane of Crikey summarises the other findings thus:

Voters strongly support Labor’s moves to trim middle-class welfare, according to today’s Essential Report.

Fifty-two per cent of voters back Wayne Swan’s budget night measure to continue the pause in indexation of the thresholds at which family payments are phased out, to 28% who oppose them. Even Liberal voters back them, 47-38%. Voters were strongly of the view that households earning more than $150,000 a year don’t need family payments — 67% of voters agreed with that, and only 27% disagreed.

Only 35% agreed that all taxpayers should be eligible for some form of payment, regardless of income, compared to 57% disagreeing. However, most voters distinguished between family payments and welfare, with 61% agreeing that family payments to middle-income earners were different to welfare payments to low income earners (we’ll discuss Essential’s results on views toward middle class welfare in more detail tomorrow).

There has also been a further rise in support for the Government’s plan to impose a price on carbon. After reaching the nadir of support at the end of March, when support was just 34% and opposition 51%, support grew in April and last week was at 41% support and 44% opposition, with Greens voters now strongly in favour of it after initially being lukewarm.

The poll also revealed a quite remarkable ignorance of one of the government’s key reforms, its scheduled increase in the compulsory superannuation rate to 12%. Around 53% of voters said they had not heard of the proposal and a further 27% saying they had heard little — a damning indictment of Labor’s efforts to sell what began as a key part of its mining tax package, particularly given there was strong support for the proposal across voters of different stripes.

UPDATE: Full report 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.

8,354 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Coalition”

Comments Page 166 of 168
1 … 165 166 167 168

  3. Did i hear Nuclear, anyone?

    [May 30, 2011 – Germany announces end to nuclear power by 2022 – BERLIN – GERMANY on Monday announced plans to become the first major industralised power to shut down all its nuclear plants, with a phase-out due to be wrapped up by 2022, the government agreed on Monday.

    Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen announced the decision by the centre-right coalition, which was prompted by the Japan nuclear disaster, in the early hours of Monday morning, describing it as ‘irreversible’.

    He said the vast majority of Germany’s 17 reactors would be offline by the end of 2011. Mr Roettgen was speaking after a meeting of the ruling coalition led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, which lasted from Sunday evening into the small hours of Monday.

    Germany has 17 nuclear reactors on its territory, eight of which are currently off the electricity grid. Seven of those offline are the country’s oldest nuclear reactors, which the federal government shut down for three months pending a safety probe after the Japanese atomic emergency at Fukushima in March.

    The eighth is the Kruemmel plant, in northern Germany, which has been mothballed for years because of technical problems. Already on Friday, the environment ministers from all 16 German regional states had called for the temporary order on the seven plants to be made permanent.

    Mr Roettgen said Monday that none of the eight reactors offline would be reactivated. Monday’s decision is effectively a return to the timetable set by the previous Social Democrat-Green coalition government a decade ago. And it is a humbling U-turn for Dr Merkel, who at the end of 2010 decided to extend the lifetime of Germany’s 17 reactors by an average of 12 years, which would have kept them open until the mid-2030s. — AFP]

  5. have to saymthe Fairfax journos have been doing their job lately

    LATIKAMBOURKE | 1 minute ago
    [. RT @PhillipCoorey: #qanda Cate Blanche returns serve. Tomorrow’s SMH.]

  9. Hi all
    Busy day at work. A group of the office staff organising to go to the rally in Melbourne on Sunday.
    Any ideas for rally signs?

  19. [James J

    Posted Monday, May 30, 2011 at 10:19 pm | Permalink

    GhostWhoVotes: #Newspoll Primary Votes: ALP 34 (+1) LNP 44 (-2) GRN 14 (+4) #auspol
    ]

    Slowly Slowly, Catchee Monkey 🙂

    Where’s Evan – His Wet Dream has turned into a Mirage.

  23. Mando Habib going to Cairo as witness in Trial
    _______________________________________
    Habib… who is to be involved in the trial of former Egyptian V.P Sulieman(the man who read out Mubarek resignation statement)has been given a new OZ passport and will be a witness against Sulieman…know as the Sheik of Torture under Mubarek. Habid received financial compensation from Canberra too

    Habib always claimed that his torture was done in the presence of some Australian embassy members…if so did Canberra know ?,,,did Downer Know ?…and if this emerges will they be subject to the Hague Tribunal for crimes,as we have signed the treaty which set it up…The USA and Israel didn’t sign

    The trials of many Mubarek cronies are underway..including his two sons..and several ministers(0ne recently got 12 years jail)
    There is also a trial of police cronies
    There is talk in the Egyptian press of the death penalty for some…Egypt still has that.
    Sulieman who will in the dock when facing Habib was the principal “go to ” man for the USA and the Israel in seeking information in Egypt under Mubarek,and a great friend of Netanyahu and Bush…so why not a friend of Downer too.???
    It will be fascinating case.
    It is said that Habib was tortured and another prisoner was tortured and killed in front of him to make him confess !

  25. So it is only the pissed offs about the carbon tax that are still hanging out.

    Low hanging fruit imho.

  27. Misfit @ 8258
    I will be there on Sunday and hoping to bring others.

    I took my grand-daughter to the last one and other PBers were there too.

    We need a secret sign so we can recognise each other. I am the tall good looking guy 😀

  29. [Rod Hagen

    Posted Monday, May 30, 2011 at 10:22 pm | Permalink

    GhostWhoVotes GhostWhoVotes
    #Newspoll Abbott: Approval 37 (-1) Disapproval 53 (+2) #auspol
    ]

    Music to Turnbull’s ears 🙂

  31. deblonay, there’s no such thing as a small l liberal. A meaningless term since the fall of the Berlin Wall. People calling themselves “small l liberals”, are always the most “socially aware”. They’d be in the Labor right accept for their own fantasies about class consiciousness.

    Mr Turnbull’s life successes are an interesting study. He isn’t self made the way it’s often pointed out. His greatest successes were working under strong characters. At Goldman Sacs he was a very minor player that would never make at head office. There are Australians “unknown” in this company much higher up the food chain than Mr Turnbull was ever going to end up.

    The interesting part is that almost always these strong leaders have moved to dismiss Mr Turnbull. I think this points toward “character weakness”. People make an assessment from the history of a persons life, and his history is there for all to see.

  39. Victoria,
    [Newspoll has been a very welcome surprise:)]
    No Victoria, as I said earlier your were right the first time, “presently surprised”.

  42. [Gusface

    Posted Monday, May 30, 2011 at 10:26 pm | Permalink

    frank

    we were correct b2
    ]

    The behaviour of the OO from Wednesday said it all.

    Hardly a “Gillard Eat Babies” story printed – all bad for Abbott.

  44. Finns @ 8249:

    Yeah, and it was Brandis who coined the nickname “lying rodent”. He denied one half of that nickname later, ha ha.

  50. Hi victoria. Thanks for asking! Still rather over-pressed with in-law issues and other hunks of life, I’m afraid. Been spending most of my remaining free time trying to understand Libya! 😉

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 166 of 168
1 … 165 166 167 168