Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor

Both parties up on the primary vote in the latest Essential poll, which concurs with Newspoll in finding Malcolm Turnbull’s personal ratings edging upwards and Bill Shorten’s edging down.

The latest fortnightly Essential Research poll has Labor’s two-party lead unchanged at 52-48, and The Guardian report provides full primary votes for a change: both major parties are up two, the Coalition to 40% and Labor to 37%, with the Greens steady on 11% and One Nation down one to 6%, with the “others” vote presumably well down. Also featured are Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, which tell a remarkably similar story to Newspoll: Malcolm Turnbull’s approval is up one to 43%, his best result since March 2016, and his disapproval is down two to 40%, his best since the eve of the July 2016 election; while Bill Shorten is respectively down two to 31% and up one to 47%. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister is out to 42-25, compared with 41-27 last time.

The Essential poll also finds only 15% of respondents expect the government’s national energy guarantee will reduce power prices, compared with 22% for increasing them (down nine since the same question was asked last October) and 38% for making no difference (up seven). The government’s proposed tax cuts for big companies have 41% support, up four on a month or so ago, with 36% opposed, down one. Further on company tax cuts, The Australian has a comprehensive set of further results from the weekend’s Newspoll, which find respondents tending to be persuaded that the cuts will be good for employment (50% responded cuts would create more jobs versus 36% who said they would not, and 43% believed repealing them would put jobs at risk versus 37% saying they would not), yet 52% supported Bill Shorten saying cuts for businesses with $10 million to $50 million turnover would be repeated if won office, versus only 37% opposed.

UPDATE: Full report from Essential Research 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.

2,074 comments on “Essential Research: 52-48 to Labor”

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  2. Interesting post fulvio re the West – owned by Seven West Media also part owners of Health Engine, which has attracted some unfavourable reviews of late.

  3. Citizen, yes, but sometimes you can convince yourself to buy something you hear about on the shopping channel …

  4. A Liberal supporter, questioned about the withdrawal of weekend penalty rates, *always* says that it was a decision made by the Fair Work Commission (wait for it) appointed by Labor, therefore no one has the right to criticise.

    I’d like to hear the PB experts’ reply.

  6. FS…………..I don’t know if you scan the L-to-the-E section – that is if you read the paper – but the correspondents are the same old, same old people…………shallow gene pond I suppose.
    I buy the paper as OH likes it and the Cryptic C Word gives me a bit of a challenge. Other than that, the TV mag is useful.
    I have speculated the local Sunday Times is the worst metro paper in Oz but the West is not far behind.

  9. Tricot, my understanding is that the same company owns both Mastheads and they are run out of the same building, with the same production and other staff, with a concession made in retaining Spagnolo from the Sunday Times to enhance the West’s right-wing credentials.

    I don’t read or subscribe to the shit sheet, glancing at it occasionally, as there is always a copy in the office, which very few read.

  10. Fulvio Sammut says:
    Friday, July 6, 2018 at 6:07 pm
    Citizen, yes, but sometimes you can convince yourself to buy something you hear about on the shopping channel …

    Every so often there are temporary stalls at shopping centres selling the stuff advertised on shopping channels at a big discount.

    It’s easy to see why that sort of stuff usually doesn’t make it into regular stores!

  12. adrian

    IMV the problem is that Labor appointments tend to be even-handed, unlike the LNP ones. I get really annoyed at the constant “you appointed them”, which is off the subject .

  13. lizzie

    https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/legislation/the-fair-work-system/australias-industrial-relations-timeline

    2009 – Fair Work Australia was formed and replaced the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

    1 January 2013 – Fair Work Australia renamed the Fair Work Commission.

    FWC Board members and dates of appointment:
    https://www.directory.gov.au/portfolios/jobs-and-small-business-part-jobs-and-innovation-portfolio/fair-work-commission/fair-work-commission-board

    In government, both major parties attempt to stack the board with their own partisan appointments, and snipe at each other for doing so.

  15. FS
    Sunday Times is a News Corps paper, but some time ago they decided to join forces, so now they are basically joint production of seven west and news Corp. Seven west got a whole lot of rwnj content and news got that content into WA. Win for everyone bar the newspaper reading public.

  16. lizzie says:
    Friday, July 6, 2018 at 6:26 pm
    adrian

    IMV the problem is that Labor appointments tend to be even-handed, unlike the LNP ones. I get really annoyed at the constant “you appointed them”, which is off the subject .

    The LNP, like Trump, take it for granted that you only appoint partisan hacks. They cannot comprehend that people might occasionally be appointed on the basis of their expertise and experience.

  19. BK

    Senators Ian MacDonald and Barry O’Sullivan have lost positions 1 & 2 at LNP pre selection. Meaning, they’ll be in unwinnable positions come the election

    I’m still celebrating this news. Both have, in their own way, white-anted Senate estimates and turned them into farce.

  20. Lizzie, I hope they fight for the coveted 1 & 2 positions to their last breath, spilling the contents of their extensive dirt files all over their competitors.

  21. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/06/lnp-dumps-ian-macdonald-and-barry-osullivan-from-senate-ticket

    O’Sullivan, the lead Nationals-aligned senator in Queensland, lost by just one vote, according to LNP sources in the room. Having not nominated for any other position, the result means O’Sullivan will vacate the Senate next year.

    His challenger, Susan McDonald, is well known in the state’s beef circles, with her father, Don, a former party president, and has built a reputation as a “solid and reliable” voice for regional communities.

    Macdonald, the father of the Senate, a term given to the longest-serving senator, lost the top spot to Paul Scarr, a Brisbane mining executive known as an LNP moderate, a move that was all but set in stone in the weeks leading up to the vote. Macdonald eventually won the fourth round, which was described as “winnable, with an emphasis on the quotation marks”.

    Scarr had previously gained notice fighting back against more conservative elements in the party on issues such as suspending migration from Islamic nations.
    ::::::
    “Queensland has had a bit of a reputation of being held back by dinosaurs, and I think this is the membership rewriting the party, looking to the future. …

  22. The fascists are at it again:

    Judy Woodruff
    ‏Verified account @JudyWoodruff
    11h11 hours ago

    14 month old boy separated from immigrant parents at the border, was returned after 85 days, covered with lice, had apparently not been bathed – part of lawsuits filed by states against Trump administration @LisaDNews reports @NewsHour tonight

  24. Interesting the LNP getting rid of their logs in QLD, whilst Labor’s (Vamvakinou, Snowden, Fitzgibbon) graze peacefully undisturbed in parliament.

  26. Pauline Hanson’s decision to preference neither party in Longman, makes me even more optimistic for Labor to retain it in the by-election. I am still pretty optimistic for Labor to retain Braddon as well and Sharkie to retain Mayo.

    Right now I am betting on a May 2019 election, which would mean that the campaigning period will begin just after the NSW state election, it would conflict with ANZAC day although.

  27. As we are on the eve of a Global Trade War, I thought I should do some reading about it. This article neatly encapsulates the Trump camp’s economic motivations, classical Mercantilism, explains it and then broadens out the explanation to show us how it will likely play out:

    Trump’s trade policy is stuck in the ’80s — the 1680s

    John Maynard Keynes once said that men who fancy themselves independent thinkers are usually just slaves to some defunct economist. But what do you call a man who can’t even manage to get his guiding economic anachronism right?

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-trade-policy-is-stuck-in-the-80s–the-1680s/2018/05/31/f8e2f7c2-6510-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html?utm_term=.8d33195e99d2

  28. Tristo,

    I would suggest Pauline may have been getting a bit of blow back.

    Labor has been targeting and will continue to target ” a vote for Hanson is a vote for Turnbull “.

    Pauline buckled on tax cuts for banks and now on putting labor last.

    She is a perfect example of a canary in the coalmine when looking at where she is getting hurt by the labor ground campaign.

    Cheers.

    Cheers.

  29. I reckon Pauline Hanson got massive blowback from her original decision to preference the Liberal Party candidate in Longman. Nothing else can explain her backflip.

  32. adrian

    ABC have always been Hanson booster under the guise of balance & non-censorship… I’d expect them to allow me on under the same selection process but they wouldn’t .

    Orange flames die without oxygen!

  33. Has Hanson backflipped? Interesting news. Perhaps Labor’s robocalls linking her with the LNP, together with her prior decision on preferencing bit PHON in the backside!

  35. That clip with Hanson was an epic example of her lack of self awareness

    She said “SHY is a nasty piece of work in senate” and the very next sentence she says “We shouldn’t get personal” I mean WHAT?

    She didn’t even realise the contradiction

  36. And her thought process was disjointed, and her syntax all over the place.

    The woman is exactly what we all know her to be, a bigoted, bogan fishwife with delusions of importance well above her station, intellect and capacity.

  37. Tricot @ #1956 Friday, July 6th, 2018 – 4:11 pm

    FS…………..I don’t know if you scan the L-to-the-E section – that is if you read the paper – but the correspondents are the same old, same old people…………shallow gene pond I suppose.
    I buy the paper as OH likes it and the Cryptic C Word gives me a bit of a challenge. Other than that, the TV mag is useful.
    I have speculated the local Sunday Times is the worst metro paper in Oz but the West is not far behind.

    You obviously have not experienced the Herald Sun or the Daily Telegraph. They are even worse, as hard as that is to believe.

  38. Roger Miller

    Having got rid of as many journalists as it has over the last decade The West Australian would struggle to fill even its ever diminishing news columns without a copy sharing agreement with the Murdoch empire.

    Running the likes of Bolt would be pandering to who at they would know is their primary readership: older conservatives in the inner suburbs.

  39. Confessions

    Has Hanson backflipped? Interesting news. Perhaps Labor’s robocalls linking her with the LNP, together with her prior decision on preferencing bit PHON in the backside!

    Earlier today:

    One Nation won’t be directing preferences to either Labor or the Liberals in the Longman by-election, Pauline Hanson says.

    Preferences from the minor party will be key to winning the July 28 by-election in the Brisbane seat, which is being recontested by Labor’s Susan Lamb, who was forced to resign over her dual citizenship.

    Senator Hanson released a video in which she talked down suggestions her party would favour the Liberals’ Trevor Ruthenberg, who was campaigning with Malcolm Turnbull in the seat on Friday.

    “The political parties are putting out there that One Nation are directing our preferences to the Liberal party or we are directing our preferences to the Labor party – that’s not true,” she said, in a direct message to voters.

    https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/no-direction-on-preferences-hanson/news-story/79e0d5afc83ee5cd4c4a7d608892cdf0

  43. Rossmcg says:
    Friday, July 6, 2018 at 8:13 pm
    Roger Miller

    Having got rid of as many journalists as it has over the last decade The West Australian would struggle to fill even its ever diminishing news columns without a copy sharing agreement with the Murdoch empire.

    Running the likes of Bolt would be pandering to who at they would know is their primary readership: older conservatives in the inner suburbs.

    Aside from being a Fairfax publication and lacking Bolt, the Canberra Times would almost fit this criterion.

  45. Tristo @ #1976 Friday, July 6th, 2018 – 4:33 pm

    Pauline Hanson’s decision to preference neither party in Longman, makes me even more optimistic for Labor to retain it in the by-election. I am still pretty optimistic for Labor to retain Braddon as well and Sharkie to retain Mayo.

    Wasn’t she telling voters to put Labor last the other day?

  47. Booleanbach

    I for one still read The West. After all, it’s not all politics, just as there is much more to the ABC than 730, QandA, RN Breakfast etc.

    It still covers local news, in an amazingly parochial fashion by some standards, but WA is like that.

    When you get to Bolt, Paul Murray et al, you just turn the page. I haven’t read an editorial or the letters page in years.

  50. The West definitely belongs in the class with fox news and its propaganda not journalism character. It is a joke and a disgrace and they all share Sean Hannity’s credibility and integrity.

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