Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor

Essential Research yet again records a solid lead for Labor on two-party preferred, but finds Malcolm Turnbull moving clear as preferred Liberal leader.

The Guardian, which joins the fun by spruiking the result as the “eightieth straight loss” for the Turnbull government, reports that Labor holds a lead of 53-47 in the latest Essential Research poll, out from 52-48 a fortnight ago. The poll also features Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, which find Malcolm Turnbull’s lead over Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister unchanged at 41-26 (a growing contrast with the narrow results from Newspoll); a 39% approval rating for Turnbull, down two, and a disapproval rating of 42%, down one; and a 35% approval rating for Bill Shorten, down two, and a disapproval rating of 43%, down one.

A question on preferred Liberal leader finds Turnbull moving clear of Julie Bishop since the last such result in December – he’s up three to 24%, with Bishop down two to 17%. Both are well clear of the more conservative alternatives of Tony Abbott, on 11% (up one) and 3% (down one). Scott Morrison scores only 2%, unchanged on last time. When asked who they would prefer in the absence of Turnbull, 26% opted for Bishop and 16% for Abbott, with Dutton and Morrison both on 5%. Also featured is an occasional question on leaders’ attributes, but I would want to see the raw numbers before drawing any conclusions from them. Those should be with us, along with primary votes, when Essential Research publishes its full report later today.

UPDATE: Full report here. The primary votes are Coalition 38%, Labor 37% (up one), Greens 10% (up one), One Nation 7% (down one).

Also today, courtesy of The Australian, are results from the weekend’s Newspoll which find support for a republic at 50%, down one since last August, with opposition up three to 41%. With the qualification of Prince Charles ascending the throne, support rises to 55%, unchanged since August, while opposition is at 35%, up one.

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.

2,361 comments on “Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor”

Comments Page 4 of 48
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  1. bemused, like Rudd, you are stuck in the past.

    Nothing that happened to young Ruddykins way back then justifies his behaviour now.

    I understand his feelings were hurt.

    Lots of people in politics (and out) have met worse fates with far more dignity.

    Still, if you think Rudd’s hurt feelings justified tearing down one Labor government and justifies undermining the present LOTO, that says as much about you as it does about Rudd.

  2. Voice Endeavour says:
    Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 11:12 am
    Essential primaries up – Labor and Greens +1 each, ON -1

    VE
    Thanks for that. Great to see Essential back to normal (53-47). It looks like the tax imputation stuff has had little effect so far.

  3. Old Prime Ministers never die, they merely fade away… then eventually die.

    We are graced with seven living Prime Ministers, including the incumbent: Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott plus Turnbull. That doesn’t include Deputies who did short stints as acting PM.

    A little under four years ago there were eight. Whitlam and Fraser were still with us, while Abbott was still in office and Turnbull yet to ascend.

    And there is also an unknown number of future PMs, hopefully not including Dutton, Morrison or Bishop.

  4. guytaur says:
    Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 11:17 am
    J3

    I think the LNP are going to be in for a surprise with the budget reply. The way Mr Shorten is campaigning now I am starting to expect some real policy announcement in his speech.

    That will take the wind out of the LNP budget media coverage.

    That’s exactly what I was thinking Guytaur. It will be a very interesting night, that’s for sure.

  5. guytaur @ #150 Tuesday, April 10th, 2018 – 11:17 am

    J3

    I think the LNP are going to be in for a surprise with the budget reply. The way Mr Shorten is campaigning now I am starting to expect some real policy announcement in his speech.

    That will take the wind out of the LNP budget media coverage.

    Turnbull is going to put a lot of pork out there including tax cuts.
    But I don’t think it will work.

  6. zoomster @ #151 Tuesday, April 10th, 2018 – 11:19 am

    bemused, like Rudd, you are stuck in the past.

    Nothing that happened to young Ruddykins way back then justifies his behaviour now.

    I understand his feelings were hurt.

    Lots of people in politics (and out) have met worse fates with far more dignity.

    Still, if you think Rudd’s hurt feelings justified tearing down one Labor government and justifies undermining the present LOTO, that says as much about you as it does about Rudd.

    I don’t accept the hypothesis in your last sentence.

  9. Luke Henriques-omez@lukehgomes

    The Nick Xenophon Team, now sans Nick Xenophon, says it will be changing its name to the Centre Alliance #auspol

  10. What was the liberals tag line “Changing leaders won’t change the spots”?

    Phillip Coorey
    ‏Verified account @PhillipCoorey
    5m5 minutes ago

    NXT to call itself the Centre Alliance #auspol

  14. Ides
    “As Nick Xenophon is no longer a parliamentary member of the federal NXT party, the management committee of the federal party has today lodged an application with the AEC to change the party name to Centre Alliance” #auspol

    Media release: https://twitter.com/political_alert/status/983517937460953088/photo/1

    It may be a hit to Xenophon’s ego but it certainly is in the best interests of those in the party if its going to be long term.

    If there is a place between Labor and the LNP this party i going to go find out.

  16. guytaur @ #159 Tuesday, April 10th, 2018 – 11:29 am

    Luke Henriques-omez@lukehgomes

    The Nick Xenophon Team, now sans Nick Xenophon, says it will be changing its name to the Centre Alliance #auspol

    Any organisation that keeps changing its name just looks dodgy.

    This ‘centre’ has me intrigued. What does it stand for? Not being something else?

  20. Josh Bavas
    ‏Verified account @JoshBavas
    2m2 minutes ago

    The National Gallery of Australia has defended the decision to spend almost $30,000 on armchairs for its exclusive members’ lounge. http://bit.ly/2IGFEGZ via @canberratimes

  21. You mean yesterday’s petty and melodramatic tweet bemoaning imaginary “coups” wasn’t enough for the man, and he’s coming back with more?

  22. Australia’s political history does seem to move in eras, with periods of stability separated by periods that are more or less chaotic.

    So we had UAP dominance from 1932 into the early WW2 years when it started to fall apart.

    Then ALP securely in power from 1941 into the late 40s – the Curtin-Chifley era. It started to unravel with the coal strike in 1949 and Labor’s loss of office for what turned out to be nearly a generation.

    Then the Menzies era, prosperous, with all the graphs pointing up, full employment, conservative and stodgy 1949-72. It started to unravel after Holt chose a bad day to go for a swim.

    Then the Whitlam era – short but momentous, his legacy mostly survived.

    Then Fraser marked the start of the unravelling of the post war consensus, but maintained and enhanced part of Whitlam’s legacy.

    Then the Hawke-Keating era. I’m not sure whether we have a Fraser-Hawke-Keating era.

    Howard marked a definite break. His nearly 12 years in power changed Australia to the smaller, meaner and far less fair and equal country it is today.

    Then Rudd, who started well but unravelled after two years. A chaotic era started late 2009 which is still playing out. At one stage it looked like a Turnbull era might have started, but his probably short reign will most likely just be lumped in with Rudd-Gillard-Abbott-Turnbull in a decade of chaos.

    I am hopeful and fearful about what comes next.

  23. I reckon this branding might work reasonably well, though not because there’s anything particularly great about it. Without Mr X, who had aspirations far above being a balance of power party, they should do significantly better out of preferences than NXT. And there’s a well-established demographic of non-major party voters in SA that’s older than in other states. No coincidence that the party holds Mayo, the seat nearly won by the Dems in 1998. But those people have shifting alliances, from the Dems to the Greens to NXT so they’re not welded on to any particular non-major. They won’t be winning seats left right and (ho!) centre but they’ll be good for a Senator now and then, and Sharkie seems well-placed to retain Mayo.

  24. Bemused – genuine? Do you have any concern with the letter Kevin Rudd submitted to the financial review?

    What useful purpose did it serve?

  25. A few of Confessions gems from late last night on the old thread, that I thought bare repeating here in case any of her many supporters might have missed them.
    Her bullying attacks were directed at both myself and one other person (not Bemused) and were both unprovoked and idiotic…

    Confessions says:
    Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 12:15 am

    “Oh please. Criticising Rudd’s comments is akin to giving the Liberals a pass? Where do you get this hysterical bullshit from?”

    “And speaking of hysterical bullshit, you seem to have a particular penchant for it.”

    “If that were true you wouldn’t be so sensitive to my criticism of you as just another hysterical moron and you would ignore me.”

    “Would you like me to hand you a tissue? Yeesh, grow a pair instead of carrying on like a whiny little hysterical so and so.”

    …
    Now I admit that early on in her tirade, I told her of she was a “dimwit” and told her to “fuck off”.
    But I claim a truth and self preservation defense.

    Now, a person who makes unwarranted, abusive attacks, then accuses the person they are attacking of abuse, and then tells that person they are a “whiny, hysterical, moron who should grow a pair”, that person is a bully, full stop.

    She did the same thing a week or so ago, has done it any number of times in the past to various people, most of whom don’t operate on the same sub-optimal mental plane she does.

    I repeat, she is ignorant, and a bully and should fuck off, or the bloke in charge of this blog should make her do so.

  27. Ok. Rudd wrote a letter. That is so Rudd. What a petulant child. He probably acted the same way when he wasn’t picked as captain of the schoolyard marbles team.

  28. “Centre Alliance”, yes, that name is a bit washy-washy. And anything with ‘alliance’ in its title sounds dodgy these days, given that’s often used by Astroturf groups to opposed to things like same sex marriage or tobacco plain packaging. ‘Australian Democrats’ is sort of still taken. There was the ‘Australia Party’ but that would now sound like some Far Right group. Ditto “Australia Best”.

    What X is trying to do is create a new version of the “Liberal” party which isn’t full of RWNJs. I’m not sure what a good name for that would be.

  30. I don’t know, Absence – I’m pretty sure the decline in standards here recently coincides with when you started posting.

  32. Seems to me that Labor would require some good fortune, being able to navigate global externalities, deliver a surplus along with popular policies, and overcome perceptions of them being the reckless economic managers.
    How different Australia could have been if Labor was governing through the late 90’s early 00’s

  36. Fraudband is getting more Fraud:

    James Pinnell
    ‏ @JamesPinnell
    1h1 hour ago

    Haha, trumped by #NBN’s own press release.

    I wrote last night in a piece I’m submitting today that NBN Co were going to replace a bunch of too hard basket HFC/FTTN connections with FTTC.

    They literally announced it this morning.

  37. Oh, and several of the things she said were simultaneously misandristic and misogynous, which is particularly jarring and confused.

  40. zoomster says:
    Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 12:07 pm

    …”I don’t know, Absence – I’m pretty sure the decline in standards here recently coincides with when you started posting”…

    …
    That began in 2010, when a group of people suddenly began having collective memories of stuff they couldn’t possibly have known.

  42. Absence

    No, there were toxic times before that – the Hillary/Obama wars spring to mind – but the present nastiness pretty much began when you started posting.

    As for myself, I’ve got to talk with people who were actually there, and I report what they say happened. Posters can accept that information or not, it’s absolutely no skin off my nose. I’d just suggest it’s more reliable that anything put out by the CPG.

  43. “zoomster says:
    Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 12:07 pm
    I don’t know, Absence – I’m pretty sure the decline in standards here recently coincides with when you started posting.”

    Actually I’m pretty sure that the infantile judgement and commentary on others, and ridiculous or imbecilic attitudes of some of the most prolific posters here has been going on for ages.
    I find it hard to think of any other website I know of where the idiocy and abusiveness of the regular commentators is so far removed from the content they are supposedly responding too.
    The comments here are like the proverbial toilet wall really, and have been for ages. Covered in so much pointless, useless ignorance and delusional graffiti, that if you have to use it, you get out from the stinkhole others are festering in, as soon as possible.

    Profound mediocrity dressed up as intelligence, sloppily dressed and all.
    Seems sadly appropriate for contemporary Australia. No wonder we’ve become nation of obese ignorant slobs whinging about everyone and everything, too lazy, too ignorant and abusive but expecting everything.

  45. How different Australia could have been if Labor was governing through the late 90’s early 00’s

    Even if Labor had managed have convert a 2PP majority to a majority of seats in 1998 or, as was widely expected early that year, 2001.

    Prime Minister Beazley would have been the beneficiary of the Mining boom. He would not have politicised terrorism or asylum seeker policy. He would have handled the Tampa crisis with compassion according to our legal obligations. Ditto 9/11. We would still have gone to Afghanistan, but likely not Iraq.

    And he wouldn’t have handed the proceeds of the mining boom to faux middle class ‘battlers’, nor outsourced Government functions to dodgy private operators. Maybe the private health funds and private schools could have been allowed to gradually wither.

  46. You do not “fix” stagnant wages growth thru the tax system

    In the same way you do not address any inadequacy of safety net income thru the tax system

    With the references to Rudd, the $900- to all who paid tax was the proto type treatment because it did not impact on future revenue

    The tax system is compromised without using it for the wrong purposes and to address matters which are not related to taxation

  48. Don

    We certainly have our share of dodgy types.

    There is some coverage in the WA media this week of investors who pumped millions into a company promoting an app to facilitate international money transfers (or something like that) being a little concerned about where the money has gone.

    There are some high profile sporting figures involved including boxer Danny Green and footballer Mark Ricciuto.

    Not sure they are people I would want to rip off.

    There are stories about people being visited by crime figures asking about where the money has gone.

    Probably happens in Sydney and Melbourne all the time …

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