Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor

Labor roars back in the latest Essential poll, despite a slump in Bill Shorten’s personal ratings.

The latest fortnightly Essential Research poll sharply reverses a recent trend away from Labor, who are back to leading 54-46 on two-party preferred after their lead fell to 51-49 in the previous poll. This is apparently driven by a four point drop in the Coalition primary vote, but as usual we will have to wait until later today for the full numbers. However, it’s a curiously different story on leadership ratings, on which Malcolm Turnbull gains two on approval since last month to reach 42% while remaining steady on 42% disapproval, while Bill Shorten is down four to 33% and up five to 46%. Turnbull’s lead over Shorten as preferred prime minister is unchanged, shifting from 40-26 to 41-27. Like ReachTEL and unlike Newspoll, Essential has posed a straightforward question on company tax cuts that finds approval and disapproval tied on 37%. The poll also finds 68% support for an increase in Newstart.

UPDATE: Full results here. The Coalition primary vote crashes from 40% to 36%, Labor’s rises one to 37%, the Greens are steady on 10% and One Nation are steady on 8%.

UPDATE 2: Further details from those ReachTEL polls for Sky News, which were conducted last Wednesday. In the national poll, after allocating results from a forced response follow-up for the 5.1% undecided, the primary votes were Coalition 36.5%, Labor 35.3%, Greens 10.7%, One Nation 9.3% and others 8.2%, translating into a 52-48 lead for Labor after respondent-allocated preferences favoured them by 54.8-45.2. Malcolm Turnbull’s lead on the forced response preferred prime minister question was almost exactly unchanged at 54.6-45.4 (54.5-45.5 last month); his very good plus good rating went from 29.9% to 30.8%, and his poor plus very poor from 32.6% to 37.0%. Bill Shorten went from 28.4% to 27.7% on good plus very good, and from 35.5% to 39.9% on poor plus very poor.

In the poll for the Braddon by-election, after allocating the forced follow-up results from the 5.9% undecided, the primary votes were Liberal 48.2%, Labor 34.5%, Greens 6.6%, independents 7.2%, others 3.5%, resulting in a 54-46 Liberal lead on respondent-allocated two-party preferred. In Longman, with the 7.1% initially undecided likewise allocated, the results are Liberal National Party 40.4%, Labor 37.3%, independents 5.5%, Greens 2.7% and others 14.1% (confirming there was no specific option for One Nation), resulting in an LNP lead of 52-48. Respondents for these polls were asked how they would vote “if a by-election in the federal electorate of X were to be held today”. The by-election polls were conducted last Wednesday, from samples of 824 in Braddon and 810 in Longman; the national poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 2523.

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.

2,057 comments on “Essential Research: 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. C@tmomma @ #47 Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 8:20 am

    KayJay might be onto something with the fan issue as well. Have you cleaned them lately, lizzie?

    Since lizzie had only just turned it on, it would have been cold, so I think we can rule out heat issues.
    That said, computers do draw in a lot of dust over time and it is a good idea to carefully clean it out from time to time.

  2. Sohar @ #142 Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 10:15 am

    I’m not sure Katharine Murphy’s attempt to put the blame on Barnaby for Mal’s bad Essential carries much water. The Barnaby’s party increased its vote from 2 to 3 and the Libs fell from 38 to 34.

    Just remember the First Commandment: It shall never ever be Mal the Forever Magnificent’s fault.

  3. a r

    the CPU is working fine, whether or not the BIOS thinks it has been detected.

    Thanks. I had a heating problem which turned off the computer last summer, and had the box cleaned out. At that time the fan was obviously noisy. I can hardly hear it atm but as the house has no central heating, the box stays cool of itself.

    However, I will pursue the fan possibility. Or perhaps, like the LNP, the computer is simply lying. 😉

  4. KayJay:

    Good luck and I leave you with the immortal words from The Wreck of the Old 97

    Great song KJ, not-least because it gave it’s name to one of my favourite bands, the Old 97’s. Wonderfully literate raucous alt-country band from Dallas y’all.

    I reckon you could add “Designs On You” or “Question” to your repertoire. “Barrier Reef” or “Four Leaf Clover” if you feel like jumping around.

  5. imacca (Block)
    Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 10:19 am
    Comment #146

    Thank you.

    It’s not my computer that’s faulty, although a few days ago I managed to delete (and retrieve) about 200,000 files.

    Several posters are trying to diagnose (tele) another computer sight/sound/temperature unseen.

    I have been playing around with personal computers from the time one had to build one’s own.
    I am not yet an expert but continue to learn.

    I can no longer delay my vacuuming and cleaning
    for tomorrow I die I am off to have a cancer removed courtesy of my GP.
    No worries, just a change in my almost random routine.
    Good luck with your daughter’s computer. 😷

  6. lizzie @ #52 Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 8:28 am

    KayJay

    There is NO WAY I will open the computer box.

    I’ve backed up my current docs.

    Could the problem be the temperature overnight???

    How cold does it get in your place?
    CPUs have a specified range of operating temperatures and I suppose it is possible you got below that range, but unlikely. Usually it is lower than what would normally be encountered in a Melbourne winter.

  7. I should add that a few years ago I decided to read ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac because it is apparently considered a classic in literature. Anyway, it wasn’t until about three quarters of the way through the book that I finally realised that when the characters were asking to take some tea they were referring to an illicit substance and not a cup of Liptons. I think I missed the meaning of the book somewhat?

    And I do like the odd episode of Midsomer Murders.

  8. All very well to advise the unemployed to start their own business (as if that is not laughable enough) but does she accept that only a very very small percentage of new businesses (particularly SMALL businesses without angel funding) succeed within the first two or three years – the rest fail and leave the ‘entrepreneur’ with little or no personal funds whatsoever and a large mortgage on their house.

  9. I hope this farce continues,

    It will be a distraction:

    ABC Politics
    ‏Verified account @politicsabc
    24m24 minutes ago

    Barnaby Joyce has confirmed he will recontest his New England seat at the next election, amid pressure from colleagues to consider his future https://ab.co/2LjSmMW #auspol (: AAP)

  10. The Wreck of the Old 97.

    It’s a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville ..

    Jack Daniel’s is perhaps the world’s most famous whiskey brand. It’s produced in the tiny town of Lynchburg, Tennessee, a rural town with fewer than 6,000 residents. Of course, one can only hope none of them like to imbibe, because it’s illegal to purchase their most famous product, as Lynchburg is in a “dry” county.Dec 6, 2013

    Location, Stillhouse Trestle, Danville, Virginia. Country, United States of America. Rail line, Southern Railway. Type of incident, Derailment. Cause, Excessive speed. Statistics. Deaths, 11. Injuries, 7. The Wreck of the Old 97 was an American rail disaster involving the Southern Railway mail …. Oh it’s a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville ……

    Over and out. 😵

  11. KayJay @ #73 Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 9:13 am

    Lizzie

    The CMOS battery can be seen at the top right of the case about 3/4 along. It’s the little round silver doover with a + sign showing. It can easily be removed and replaced. In my computer this battery is a CR2032.

    ” rel=”nofollow”>

    You may be on to something with the battery. Certainly makes more sense than temperature issues. These days they are readily available.

  12. Clem Attlee @ #77 Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 9:18 am

    I watched Q&A last night and it was most heartening. Never heard of that Grace Collier creature before, but apparently she is the industrial relations reporter for the Australian. My impression….what a blonk! If she is representative of the intellectual horse power that Labor faces then we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Fair dinkum, every time she and others of her ilk open their collective mouths, Labor’s primary must go up. Someone should contact her at News Limited and ask for her to appear more often on the ABC.

    She was apparently once a unionist but sold her soul and went across to the dark side.

  13. Hey everyone

    I said IF heat was a problem have a fire extinguisher handy. I was looking at worst case scenarios slightly tongue in cheek.

    For someone who does not want to go in the box the advice I gave Lizzie was good.

    I see no one is mentioning the first thing you do is make sure you are earthed even before you open the box as electric shocks can damage the computer. Even static electricity.

    It does help if people read the replies by lizzie where she did say she thought the battery dying was looking like the problem. 🙂

  14. Grace Collier seems very proud of the fact that she writes for the Australian and is therefore well known and can speak to important people. I’ve heard her talk much worse rubbish than last night’s effort.

  15. BK @ #29 Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 7:54 am

    Giles Parkinson writes about how South Australia is riding renewables boom to become an electricity exporter.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/05/south-australia-rides-renewables-boom-to-become-electricity-exporter

    Let’s hope this article – written by a pro-solar author – can finally lay to rest the nonsense about the “exponential growth” of solar that is destined to save us all.

    Some key points …

    1. The growth of all renewables continues to be basically linear.
    2. Wind continues to look far more promising than solar. It is cheaper, growing faster, and is the most likely candidate to provide the bulk of our electricity generation in future.
    3. Grid scale solar is still a minute proportion of the total generation, despite all the hype about a recent “tripling” of capacity.
    4. SA continues to get most of its electricity from gas, and its reliance on gas is currently rising, not falling.
    5. Rooftop solar is expected to continue to grow linearly till 2050, but even so will still only be able to provide about 50% of our electricity needs by 2050.

    To put all this into perspective, by 2050 C02 levels are expected to be around 560 PPM. 560 PPM is double the pre-industrial level, and is considered the level at which the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet becomes inevitable (leading to sea level rises of up to 7m) and which would lock in temperature rises of up to 4.5 degrees.

    In short, we have to do much, much more than just rely on the projected growth of solar to save us. As long as we continue to burn coal we are really only treading water (and may end up doing so quite literally!).

  16. lizzie @ #78 Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 9:20 am

    KayJay

    Your explanation is brilliantly clear. However, since I know no one who can help me, I may have to pay for a computer consultant to come out, dammit.

    For how long do you think the F1 boot fix will last? My son won’t be visiting for a month…

    Do any of your friends have a teenage son/grandson who is a bit of a computer geek?

    I think what happens when your battery has failed and you get that message is that the computer has lost its memory of your configuration but then automatically detects everything and goes on its merry way. You can continue like this indefinitely.

    You will probably be losing date and time settings but these will be retrieved if you are connected to the internet and you can manually set yourself it important to you. One to watch.

  17. lizzie

    Grace Collier showed why she is not a journalist but rather a propaganda writer with her comments on Qanda last night.

    A true journalist would have said herself and not left to others on the panel this shows a failure of the body that oversees that regulatory enforcement.

  18. If you are on the same team as crazy racist right wing conspiracy theorist Sean Hannity, and everyone employed by the global fox / news Murdoch propaganda machine is, you are not on a good team, you should avoid mirrors, because the propagandist that looks back at you is not a real journalist and is not a good person, the person looking back is doing very bad things.

  19. booleanbach @ #158 Tuesday, June 5th, 2018 – 8:37 am

    All very well to advise the unemployed to start their own business (as if that is not laughable enough) but does she accept that only a very very small percentage of new businesses (particularly SMALL businesses without angel funding) succeed within the first two or three years – the rest fail and leave the ‘entrepreneur’ with little or no personal funds whatsoever and a large mortgage on their house.

    Not only that but she neglected to inform the unemployed where they’ll get the start up capital, plus where they’ll get the cash to keep them alive until the business reaches critical mass.

    A total bonehead comment from a total bonehead.

  20. @Libertarian Unionist
    Ubuntu?
    Surely not…. Gentoo is just so much more 1337.
    Personally, Arch, FreeBSD and Ubuntu Server are my staples. TBH I’ve lost track of how many servers I’m running…
    Ubuntu only because it is supported as a platform for the systems I develop on.
    Posted from a Dell Precision M5520 running ubuntu server powering 3 4K monitors (if nothing else, 4K is awfully nice to write code on, should nearly be an OH&S requirement)

  21. Newcastle would have strayed little or not at all outside the limits of 10-20 degrees in the last few days. It’s had a lot of rain so would be very humid. Coastal parts of Newcastle would rarely drop below 5, inland suburban areas rarely below 0, during Winter.

  22. “Shep Smith seems to be (ahem) fair and balanced. He’s called out his fellow employee’s conspiracy theories a couple of times.”

    At some point you’ve got to weigh up the fact that being a rare and overwhelmed voice against the stream, is not actually providing balance it is at best merely providing an illusion of balance and objectivity that is misleading to viewers.

    Appreciate how much of the market the news propaganda organisation has, and I appreciate journos need to eat and pay the rent like everyone else, but you’ve got to draw a line somewhere, if you work for News / Fox in the US look behind you several years. While some could say the line is still in front of Sky / News in Australia, I doubt that, and even if I’m wrong that line is coming at you fast.

  23. WeWantPaul

    Take out David Speers and (if she survives) Sam Maiden and SkyNews is a joke. Its wall to wall conservatives spruiking a lot of hot air.

  24. Paul Manfort, committed another crime, isn’t there some clown on here telling us nothing has happened, that Mueller has found nothing, that it is a big nothing burger? How could Paul Manafort have committed another crime if he didn’t do the first one …

  25. “All very well to advise the unemployed to start their own business…”

    Exactly. It’s like telling someone who complains about hospital waiting lists to do their own surgery. Some people who find themselves unemployed do start a business and and a few succeed, but not everyone can do it. As pointed out, there’s the ‘small’ matter of capital. Few low-paid, irregularly employed people would have much, if any. Most won’t have family or friends, let alone a bank, willing to back them.

    And to start a business, you need contacts and business acumen to have any hope in succeeding. Someone who is retrenched after working in the back office or engine room of the same company for a decade or or more may not have contacts, nor much ability to develop them. In business more so that as an employee, it’s who you know as well as what you know.

    And business acumen, including negotiation skills, financial savvy and calculated risk-taking are not talents that everyone has. Some people are natural salesmen, some natural entrepreneurs, some natural craftsmen (I’d put myself in that category). Some can sit in a corner and do excellent work but would be hopeless at running a business. Should these people be asked to risk their house?

  26. Jenand others in the food debate

    I am not going to in to it in any detail ut I have read that we need to be cautious in extrapolating US research to Australia, largely because of the difference in sugar types. In Australia we mostly use sucrose as our sweetener. Sucrose is a disaccharide that is broken down after being eaten in glucose and fructose

    Now it is known that while glucose stimulates insulin and is easily converted to energy, fructose is converted by the liver into fat and is more suspect as a danger to eat in excess than is glucose.

    Now in the US it is much more common to use high fructose corn syrup rather than cane sugar as a sweetener in processed foods.

    I do not know how much is used here.

    My point is that US data needs to be interpreted with care, to ensure that results based on use of High fructose corn syrup are not directly equated with results using sucrose.

  27. For anyone that intends on opening the box and repairing a computer yourself I recommend this site.

    It got too hard using my leatherman to open some of those piddly little screws so I bought a kit. Still comes in handy though.

  28. Ms Collier is a writer for ‘The Australian’.

    I have heard that ‘The Australian’ is subsidised to the tune of $25 million a year.

    This is, of course, a business cost and is therefore tax deductible.

    In this sense, Ms Collier is skiving off the taxpayer.

    Perhaps the massive subsidy by her US paymeister distorts Ms Collier’s view of what is possible, business-wise, when Ms Collier has no other apparent talent, IMO, than excoriating the people whose taxes are subsidizing Ms Colliers bitter and twisted view of the universe?

  29. Any reaction to Tehan defending that the Federal Government did not oppose wage increases at the FWC – that it merely did not make a submission?

    The ALP made a submission as did various other Industry Goups some of whom opposed any increase

    Then we have Willox’s comments

    One man’s pay rise in another man’s job

    A defence which has been around since the 1970’s, at least

  30. isn’t there some clown on here telling us nothing has happened

    Sometimes the place resembles a clown line dancing festival. But FWIW I was often posting that the results coming from the inquiry were not harming Trump and would not harm him and the media craze around the inquiry was only helping him.

    That was until he started saying he might pardon himself. That, for me, is the biggest hint so far that a) he is in deep and b) that pardoning himself is the end of any chance of the Repugs selecting him in 2020.

    Also, if the dems do well enough in the midterms they will have a reason to refuse/delay SCOTUS nominations that come from Trump should the oldie lefties on the bench drop of the tree.

  31. Dave, seems a very good price for the Apple notebook. I am sick of my iPad (given to me as a present) and never really liked it so getting a keyboard etc would be nice.

    I leave my iPad on all the time so it is ready to use, can you do the same thing with the notebook?

    Lizzie, if you are not confident of opening your computer, wait for your son to come home. A good vacuum inside particularly over the fan (and heat sink behind the fan) over the CPU will help with heating problems.

    If you computer is remembering the current date, the battery (most likely a cr2032) should be ok, although when son has computer open, it may pay to replace it (cost about $3).

    When you said you can hardly hear the fan, I wonder if it is working at all! Should be very obvious when son opens case and turns the computer on. If not working it can be replaced for about $10.

  32. Speaking of things that people go on about here, there is a story in the West that Alcoa and Woodside look to switch the fuel mix to a greater proportion of renewables. The power plants that cool the LNG trains use a very significant proportion of the gas stream.

    Just think what it means when an LNG producer is considering switching to more renewables …

    I think gas will play a really really important backup role in Australia, but it missed has almost certainly missed the train (pun intended) as a transition fuel because Australia delayed the transition so long.

  33. SK

    One thing about polling for the Mid Terms its worth looking at.

    Turnout is going to be key. At the moment polling only tells us what Registered votes are saying. Not likely voters.

    Likely voters start being included in polls closer to the actual elections.

  34. “Also, if the dems do well enough in the midterms they will have a reason to refuse/delay SCOTUS nominations that come from Trump should the oldie lefties on the bench drop of the tree.”

    Yeah from what I hear the dems are running on real things (it is just the fox type sources that claim they are obsessed with Trump) like voting rights, healthcare, inequality etc. The midterms will be fascinating.

    For me the Mueller stuff is much more interesting as a study of how power and ‘justice’ intermix, usually that interaction, and particularly the pressures of power that deliver injustice do it in a pretty behind the scenes subtle way, but when the fight is so open and so explicit, and justice is almost certainly losing.

    I never thought the US Supreme Court was much good, too political, but it is much worse than I thought it is your typical partisan joke and a tool waiting for a republican … oh wait …

  35. Today’s Essential report has questions on Newstart. I was struck by the following.
    Of respondents:
    1) 27% knew that Newstart is between $250 and $300 per week. ($270 per week for a single with no dependants is implied as the ‘correct’ answer.)
    2) 50% thought Newstart (whatever it is) is too low versus 26% about right, and 9% who thought it too high.
    3) 68% supported an increase in Newstart versus 19% who disagreed.

    The trend is trying to say something. For me it points to an underlying urge to fairness and generosity in our society. Even when we don’t personally know what the amount is we feel it is too low or about right and we are happy for it to increase.

  36. I have not walked back through Lizzies computer issue – but that wont stop me throwing in my view.

    It depends on the quality of the computer. If you have a cheap computer – especially a laptop – and something goes wrong it is just the beginning of the end. Perhaps, if you are good at backing up your data then it might be worth a DIY fix. But even then, with basic computers so cheap these days, it is better to start looking around for a replacement.

    Keep in mind certified refurbished ones from reputable outlets like Dell if you arent keen on Dave’s Celeron deal.

  37. LR

    I am 100% certain that the next Labor Government will do something positive about Newstart. I don’t know what the parameters will be.

    I am 100% certain that the Greens will talk about Newstart having to go up. But I am also 100% certain that they will not form the next Government and they will sap Labor’s campaign energy to the extent possible.

    I am 100% certain that the Coalition will try to do nothing about Newstart but, if dragged kicking and screaming, will do the minimum it thinks it can get away with.

    People such as myself who think that Newstart is too low will vote Labor if they want a good outcome for Newstart.

  38. For me the Mueller stuff is much more interesting as a study of how power and ‘justice’ intermix…

    For me it is a study in the extent to which some people will tolerate injustice so long as their team wins. Group think, herd mentality, cultural segregation, identity politics, win at all costs, beliefs over rational thought…. fascinating. Scary.

  39. Not sure Barnaby can be blamed for this result, Lib primary -4, Nat +1
    Nat is just noise most likely, Libs regressed from the recent surge. It could just be the backlash against Labor ‘dual nationals’ has subsided, and the surge was never about the LNP at all.

  40. I also found the distinction between “fair government” and “responsible government” interesting. The terms are suggestive.

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