Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor

Labor bounces back in the Essential poll after a brief lull, as respondents mark the government down on the National Broadband Network.

Courtesy of The Guardian, this week’s Essential Research poll has Labor’s two-party lead bouncing back to 54-46, after two weeks at 52-48. Primary votes will have to wait for later. The poll also has particularly interesting supplementary questions this week in relation to the National Broadband Network. Only 24% of respondents expressed support for the Coalition government’s fibre-to-the-node downgrade, compared with 43% who preferred Labor’s abandoned fibre-to-the-premises plan. The network’s failures are attributed to the government by 39%, compared with only 19% for Labor. Fifty-four per cent rated that the NBN would “fail to adequately meet Australia’s future internet requirements”, with 23% saying otherwise. However, 52% thought the NBN had improved their service (presumably where applicable), compared with only 17% who thought it worse and 28% about the same.

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.

1,175 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor”

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  2. guytaur @ #1041 Wednesday, November 1st, 2017 – 5:25 pm

    Ratsak

    We shall see. How far Weatherill goes depends on the politics.

    So we will see how serious it is. Meanwhile Nxt has infighting over a Senate seat being the story of the day

    And that’s my point. Politics should have nothing to do with it. For a Labor Premier to even consider not rubber stamping whoever the relevant party nominates for a Senate causal vacancy is a complete and utter disgrace. Inexcusable.

    Jay is effectively pardoning Joh for his corruption of the process in 75 and openly inviting Coalition Premiers to pull the stunt again on Labor. Just on the pure idiocy of opening up the potential for the Coalition to screw Labor over it is unforgivable. But we should hold ourselves to a higher standard than those filth anyway.

  3. Antony Green does his damn best to remain apolitical and we shouldnt spend time trying to guess his views but thanking him for his apolitical service.

  6. I can’t say I’ve ever even wondered about Antony’s political views. The guy is straight down the line. That’s why he’s held in such high regard.

  7. Ides
    I’m inclined to agree. That he’s been calling elections since before I entered primary school (and many of them that would have been painful for supporters of one party or another) and no one has much idea at all of his political positions is absolutely to his credit.

  8. So section 15 finally gets some light thrown on its inadequacies. This could end up in the High Court. If they are still a member, Weatherill could prorogue the SA Parliament and appoint any NXT Member he likes (who serves until the 14th day from the next sitting of the SA Parliament).

    It is better that an ALP Premier pull a stunt like that because then it gets fixed before the Coalition can do the same, hopefully fixing the non-appointment loophole as well (used against the ALP in Tasmania).

  10. Re: Weatherill, why not?

    The raving right have written a new set of rules for Australian politics. It goes roughly like this.

    If you can do it and shaft your opponents, do it.

  12. BW

    Yes. Unless its in the law Labor should not hold back on this.

    After all Labor is not blocking supply and then doing this.

    Make the right realise Labor can play hard too. Maybe then the LNP will agree to reform this law.

    Relying on convention means Labor is relying on the LNP to play by convention.

    We have seen what respect the LNP gives to convention. Its convention overboard when its in their eay to power.

  14. Is it not a bit strange that most of the dual nationals have been from the Senate?
    Suppose there are two or three more LNP members in the lower house who find themselves ineligible – then Malcolm loses control of the parliament; unless of course he trickles them out one by one!

  15. Antony Green does his damn best to remain apolitical and we shouldnt spend time trying to guess his views but thanking him for his apolitical service.

    Damn right.
    Or left?

  17. Uhlmann good again! It’s doing my head in.

    WTTE: “The backbench is beginning to worry that all this confusion is making them un-electable, and that is a problem for Malcolm Turnbull.”

  19. Tom the first and best – I had a quick squizz at the NXT constitution, seems the ‘Management Committee’ (i.e. Nick + Stirling) can expel a member at any time for any reason. Under S15, you need to still be a party member at the time you are sworn in as a senator, otherwise your place becomes vacant again.

  20. C@

    I’ll have some of what you’ve been smoking!

    I don’t think it’s got to do with what he’s been smoking. More to do with being South Australian … examples being Cory, Mary Jo Fisher, etc.

  22. Tim Nichols on the ABC cooking hamburgers in a shop in Nambour.

    Could be an outcome of how much money the LNP has to campaign with or proving he can do anything Poorleen can do?

  23. Not good at taking orders IoM.

    BTW, I’m a great admirer of Green, but he did editorialise on his TV spot on Parry. He probably intended it within the confines of the constitution, but in the context of Parry it didn’t look “apolitical”.

  24. I don’t think it’s totally up to Weatherill to determine who to choose to replace X in the senate. According to the ABC article referenced by Guytaur, Weatherill is taking the wise step of seeking advice from the Crown Solicitor’s Office on how to proceed. Also the replacement will be chosen by a joint sitting of parliament where the Liberals and other parties can vote. So Weatherill really isn’t the final arbiter.

    The casual vacancy for Mr Xenophon’s seat was expected to be filled by his handpicked candidate, Rex Patrick.

    But Mr Weatherill said the Nick Xenophon Team’s fourth-placed candidate at the last election, Tim Storer, had stepped forward to take the seat.

    He said the Government would seek legal advice from the Crown Solicitor’s Office on how to proceed and fill the seat.

    “I can … confirm that I have received a letter marked private and confidential from lawyers representing Mr Timothy Storer, a Senate candidate for the NXT Party at the 2016 federal election,” Mr Weatherill said…

    In the meantime the party has asked that the letters from Mr Storer’s solicitor be made publicly available.

    Mr Weatherill said there would be a joint sitting of Parliament on November 14 to consider a replacement senator.

    This means there will be at least two days when the Senate is one down because Mr Xenophon has already quit.

  25. So who is going to put themselves forward for President of the senate?

    I imagine it comes with a nice salary, offices and a big chair.

    It might be another bun fight, no doubt Trumble will handle its with his usual aplomb.

  27. Tom @ #637 Wednesday, November 1st, 2017 – 5:15 am

    With the way the Fox network is in denial over Trump/Russia, one wonders if Rupert may be shielding himself…

    Tom.

    Yeah, I have been increasingly wondering that too.

    Fox is getting way too hysterical and disconnected from reality over Trump’s self-inflicted troubles, even by their own abnormally low standards.

    If Trump takes Fox and Murdoch down with him, I will be happy to publicly thank Trump for that important contribution to the progress of humanity. 🙂

  28. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/01/the-adani-problem-will-haunt-palaszcsuks-election-campaign?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=250367&subid=22688624&CMP=ema_632

    The case that Adani will cost rather than create jobs has been confirmed, in spectacular fashion, by none other than Townsville mayor Jenny Hill, the project’s most enthusiastic backer. To secure a promise from Adani that half of the Fifo workforce will be based in Townsville, Townsville City Council agreed to pay half the cost of building an airstrip at the mine site, more than 600km outside the council’s jurisdiction.

    Under the deal, the airstrip will be used, free of charge, by Adani, but any subsequent mines will have to pay. The estimated cost to the city is $18.5m. Rockhampton, which had been in the running to secure the whole base, had no alternative but to match Townsville’s offer.

    This would be a misuse of public money under any circumstances but what has just come to light is the truly appalling fact that the money given to Adani has been saved by Townsville council by cutting over 100 jobs. The process is euphemistically described as “belt-tightening”, but of course the consultants and senior managers who pushed the process through won’t be tightening their own belts. They never do.

    The most likely outcome of all this is an anti-climax. Having been turned down by all the major Australian banks, and nearly all the major global banks, not to mention the State Bank of India, Adani has to rely on the generosity of the Turnbull government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to get started. But the $900m it is seeking won’t be nearly enough, so approaches are being made to China’s state-owned banks. While the lending decisions of these banks reflect a mixture of politics and economics, it’s hard to see why they would throw away their money on a project with such lousy finances and no obvious strategic benefit.

    Unfortunately for the Palaszcsuk government, the final announcement won’t be made until March 2018. When the project was officially launched in June, financial closure was promised for December this year, which would have resolved the issue before the due date for an election. But it’s always a mistake to rely on Adani promises, and the financial close date was extended just far enough to make this impossible.

    As a result, Palaszczuk faces an election campaign where she will be dogged by anti-Adani protesters on the one hand and doubts about her enthusiasm for the project on the other. The LNP faces no such problems. But should they win, their difficulties will start when the project falls over, as it almost certainly will.

  29. If Weatherill prorogues the SA Parliament, while the Senate is sitting, he can have the Governor appoint any NXT member and then notify the Governor-General and have the NXT Member in before NXT can do anything about it, as the NXT could well find out on the floor of the Senate as the Swearing is announced. It is a major hole in section 15.

  32. Perhaps the easiest way to fill all the senate vacancies at the moment would be to run a nationwide raffle with tickets at, say, $10 a pop. A great fund raiser for the government and a few happy prize winners (subject to them passing the citizenship check!)

  33. Section 15, first paragraph:
    [If the place of a senator becomes vacant before the expiration of his term of service, the Houses of Parliament of the State for which he was chosen, sitting and voting together, or, if there is only one House of that Parliament, that House, shall choose a person to hold the place until the expiration of the term. But if the Parliament of the State is not in session when the vacancy is notified, the Governor of the State, with the advice of the Executive Council thereof, may appoint a person to hold the place until the expiration of fourteen days from the beginning of the next session of the Parliament of the State or the expiration of the term, whichever first happens.]

  34. People are justifiably pissed off over the destruction of the NBN.
    They should be equally pissed off over paying among the highest rates for electricity in the world.
    Meanwhile, the bin chickens running this government supports the status quo, and the main stream media can’t seem to come to grips with the issue. Presumably because the argument involves more than a single component.
    e.g.

    UK billionaire Sanjeev Gupta is a very rich man, with a very big business that consumes a lot of energy.

    In the last few months he has come to the same conclusion as tens of thousands of Australian homeowners and thousands of businesses, big and small: the best way to cut your bill for energy is to generate your own.

    Gupta this week unveiled the details of his plans to build 1 gigawatt of large-scale solar, battery storage, pumped hydro and demand management for the Whyalla steel works and other big energy users in South Australia.

    Gupta reckons it will slash his company’s energy bills by around 40 per cent, and he intends to repeat the dose in his even bigger steel plants in Melbourne and Sydney, which he says will be powered 100 per cent by renewable energy within a few years.
    Most businesses reckon they can achieve similar savings, which is why the likes of Nectar Farms are turning to wind and battery storage for a $750 million investment in a new glass house and energy park near Stawell in Victoria, and why zinc refiner Zinc Metals is turning to solar to slash the costs of electricity in north Queensland and, like Gupta, help to expand the business.

    It’s why Telstra has contracted to take the output of a 72MW solar farm in Queensland, and will do the same with many more such facilities; it’s why Foster’s Brewing is going 100 per cent renewables; why Woolworths is also turning to solar, along with countless other large retailers, and mining groups.

    Households can do even better. The pay-back for a rooftop solar system is probably less than five years – for an asset that will last 25 years. The savings on an electricity bill, even without the generous “premium” tariffs that too many still enjoy, are well over 50 per cent.

    As Gupta says, and nearly two million household and businesses understand, it’s not a difficult equation. The cost of solar has plunged 90 per cent in the last five years, and the cost of storage is following suit.

    And then there’s this.

    Australia has ridiculously high charges for electricity from the grid. For many consumers, it’s around 40c/kWh or even more, and that’s around 50 per cent more than the cost of a diesel generator in the outback.

    It’s absurd, and it’s got little to do with the cost of technologies or the cost of service.

    It’s more about the greed of the incumbents, the monopoly that own the networks, and the oligopolies that control the wholesale markets and dominate the retail scene, and the totally inadequate supervision by the regulators.

    http://reneweconomy.com.au/time-for-australia-to-wake-up-to-scale-and-pace-of-clean-energy-transition-49862/

  37. Tom to exploit that scenario a premier would need to forgoe all further state parliament sessions until the end of the federal Senate term.

  39. bemused
    briefly @ #801 Wednesday, November 1st, 2017 – 11:19 am

    It’s puzzling that anyone would want to re-enact a battle. The mock-up at Beersheba seems to me like adults playing morbid dress-ups. Battle are scenes of organised intentional killing. They should certainly be remembered, but turned into japes? I don’t think so.

    I agree entirely.
    I have respect for those who participated in the battle.
    I respect and honour my father and his comrades in WWII, but I have no wish to re-enact their lives.

    I think of my own father, who served as a very young man in a naval detachment on The Solomon Islands. He never offered to talk of the war to me; and when I asked him about what had happened he would make an excuse and change the subject. The few times he did speak of his experience, it was only to declare he had no wish to recount anything that he’d been involved with; and to let it be known, in undertones, that he’d burned his uniform, his colours and medals when he’d been discharged. Once or twice he bade me promise that I’d never volunteer for military service.

    He absolutely forbade discussion of war and anything to do with it, including weapons and battles or any of the days of commemoration. His closest friendship was formed during the war. These two men remained dearest friends all along, deeply bonded by their experiences, that was plain to see. But neither of them would be drawn into a serious discussion about their service.

    They obviously wanted to spare us, the children who followed, everything they had been obliged to endure. I think we should recall them in silence too.

  41. Trog Sorrenson @ #1080 Wednesday, November 1st, 2017 – 5:59 pm

    Most businesses reckon they can achieve similar savings, which is why the likes of Nectar Farms are turning to wind and battery storage for a $750 million investment in a new glass house and energy park near Stawell in Victoria, and why zinc refiner Zinc Metals is turning to solar to slash the costs of electricity in north Queensland and, like Gupta, help to expand the business.

    It’s why Telstra has contracted to take the output of a 72MW solar farm in Queensland, and will do the same with many more such facilities; it’s why Foster’s Brewing is going 100 per cent renewables; why Woolworths is also turning to solar, along with countless other large retailers, and mining groups.

    So much for renewables being uneconomical.

    If the government doesn’t get its act together it’s everyone else that’s going to be screwed as businesses buy up all the cheap, renewable power, exit the market for conventional power, and leave residential users to fill the void they’ve left.

  42. four questions over barneys and parrys dual citz.
    1. Both talk solely of their mums heritage back to first fleet etc but ignore their dads background. Are they ashamed of it, why shit on it by ignoring it. Seems highly unlikely they know all about mums heritage but not dads and thus would likely know any benefits of citizenship confering on them.
    2. As others have noted keeping dual citz can have benefits for when you leave parliament, cant revoke and then ask for it back, can purchase land in NZ or work in UK, was this a factor.
    3. parry waiting till the last moment meant cancellations fees for his bookings for the India trip, we , the taxpayer bear the cost for this. why?
    4. did barny send otu any material before he “resigned” relating got the bi-election, this would appear a misuse of funds

  43. “People are justifiably pissed off over the destruction of the NBN.”

    Yes, but I’m even more pissed off when MTM is being rolled out inequitably.

    At this late stage, I expected that I’d be lumped with FTTN. (Maybe FTTB if they think about it.)

    I was very pissed off to see that a few blocks over, one street is apparently getting FTTC/dp. Who lives there, and what $%#@! strings did they pull to get upgraded?!

  44. It would be impossible to forgo all sittings, as Parliaments tend to have an annual sitting requirement that means 12 months or just under is the length of time that can happen with Parliament prorogued.

  45. **I don’t think it’s got to do with what he’s been smoking. More to do with being South Australian…**

    I am not South Australian.

    I am Earthian. Although I suspect all of my atoms are refugees from elsewhere.

  50. Trog Sorrenson
    “People are justifiably pissed off over the destruction of the NBN.
    They should be equally pissed off over paying among the highest rates for electricity in the world”…

    We had solar 6kw installed in March in Hervey Bay. Result – first full power bill $300+ reduced to $10 for 91 days. Ergon charges us 28.5 c /kw and pays 10 c/kw for what we supply to them. We have a “battery ready inverter” but not sure about the saving of just $10 /qr versus the cost? Present system will pay for itself in about 5 years as well as providing Ergon with excess electricity worth well over $300o over the same period if no changes occur.

    The LNP government is run by blockheads not to see the value of this for every home and business in Australia.

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