Essential Research: carbon, coal and coronavirus

A quick look at this week’s Essential Research report, and a deeper one at last week’s ANU survey on the impact of the bushfires.

The latest fortnightly poll from Essential Research finds 75% support for a net zero carbon pollution target by 2050, with only 25% opposed; 32% wishing to see coal-fired power plants phased out as soon as possible and another 47% wanting an end to subsidies and government support, compared with 21% wanting government support for both existing and new plants; and 80% support for the government preventing people entering the country from China due to coronavirus, with only 6% opposed. There are further questions and breakdowns in the report, but not a lot to get excited about on the whole – I can only beseech the pollster to bite the bullet and get back in the voting intention game.

To add more meat to this post, I will instead probe deeper into the report on the political impact of the bushfires published last week by the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods. This was based on a regular panel survey conducted by the centre on a roughly quarterly basis, largely dealing with questions such as satisfaction with governments, public institutions and life in general. Since most of the respondents had also completed previous surveys, the report is able to explore changes in voting intention and attitudes over time. On this occasion, the survey was supplemented by questions on respondents’ exposure to the bushfires.

The study found a slump in electoral support for the Coalition, from 42.6% in the October survey to 37.2%, with Labor up from 33.7% to 35.8%, the Greens up from 14.4% to 14.7% (which is obviously too high at both ends) and others up from 9.3% to 11.2% (after excluding non-respondents, of which there were 5.1% in October and 6.6% in January). However, it did not find evidence that the fall in Coalition support was particularly pronounced among those who had been exposed to the bushfires.

Some of the factors that did associate with defection from the Coalition suggest an intensification of trends evident at the election, with university-educated voters more likely to have abandoned the Coalition and voters aged 75 and over less likely to have done so. However, the Coalition had a particular drop in support outside capital cities, though not in a way that suggested exposure to the fires was the reason. Out of the sample of 618 Coalition defectors, 43.9% supported Labor, 14.3% the Greens and 24.7% others, with the remainder uncommitted.

Consistent with the findings of the Ipsos Issues Monitor survey in January, the number of respondents rating environmental issues as the first or second most important facing the country rose from 41.5% in the October survey to 49.7%. For whatever reason, there was a significant effect here for indirect exposure to the bushfire (having friends or family whose properties were damaged or threatened, having travel plans affected, or exposure to smoke or anxiety), but not for direct exposure. However, as the report notes, what the survey registered as concern for environmental issues extended to blaming “the greenies” for the extent of the fires.

Support for new coal mines was down from 45.3% in the June survey to 37.0%, with the fall particularly pronounced among Coalition voters, down from 71.8% to 57.5%. However, those directly exposed to the bushfires who had expressed support for coal mines in June were relatively resistant to this trend.

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.

1,024 comments on “Essential Research: carbon, coal and coronavirus”

Comments Page 3 of 21
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  1. Been listening to the radio abt coronavirus. Seems to me public Heath officials are relying heavily on corporate speak when discussing their preparedness for the virus. I am not filled with confidence.

    One listener called in and asked – will the hospital system in SA cope with say 400 cases of seriously ill virus patients (additional to the existing load)? A dammed good real life example question. The answer was straight from the Karsten Leith and Rhonda Stewart school of wishy washy.

  2. If everyone in the world catches it, and approximately the current death rates obtain, around 150 million people will die from it.

    Since the death rate of otherwise healthy under 60s appears to be about .5%, and the death rate of over 70s appears to be in the range of 2-10%, I am inclined to think that the Millenials have cooked this one up to bump the Boomers.

  3. The biggest problem with housing unaffordability crisis as currently is, will be that any work to fix the problem will cause massive problems for those who have recently purchased a home at a massively over-inflated price.
    I just hope that the price crash occurs within the term of the current government…

  4. Alpha, it’s only going to take the slightest of upward pressure on rates for the whole house of cards (pun un intended) to collapse.
    What are the chances of continued low rates for the next 3 years ?

  6. All those Aussie peeps who carry individual, family, national, or race memories of famine will be squirreling away food and medicines right now.

    If C-19 gets away, those whose who have never suffered famine/war/hunger/horrific materials shortages will wonder what hit them.

  8. The Government is just so in touch with young Australians.

    James McGrath is only 45 years old.

    That would make him Gen X.

    But quotes like this

    How would it be unethical for a political party to say write to the over 65s to say this is what we’re doing with the pension and to the person under the age of 21 to say this is what we’re doing with … I don’t know, under 21 issues, whatever they are.”

    He is displaying BIG boomer energy. Proving, once and for all, that boomer is a frame of mind.

    He’s right if that’s what they did, but when your message is an inaccurate one about your opponent’s policies, well that’s entirely different.

    From the Guardian blog

  10. ‘Alpha Zero says:
    Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 11:30 am

    The biggest problem with housing unaffordability crisis as currently is,…’

    ….is and will remain for some time, the national habit of creating unmet demand by way of the net migration Ponzi scheme.

    …is, and will remain for some time, the notion that we actually need the world’s highest per capita housing footprint.

    …is, and will remain for some time, the tax regime that promotes build to sell rather than build to rent.

    …is, and will remain for some time, the capital gains tax breaks for home owners.

    …is, and will remain for some time, sick real wages growth.

    …is, and will remain for some time, the notion that not only do we all need vast housing space per capita, we also need to fill it with HP furniture, the latest in every electrical item and consumer patterns that include regular recreation in places were peeps pay through the nose for coffee, dancing, grog and smashed avos.

  11. Yessirrebob, you are obviously not aware, but Labor’s negative gearing and CGT plans are just weaker versions of Greens policies that they adopted in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

    Perhaps instead of just blindly attacking the Greens because Labor people have told you we’re evil, you should take a look at our very detailed policies for yourself.

    The 10 big issues of election 2016: how Coalition, Labor and Greens policies compare

    Housing affordability

    Coalition: The government has promised not to touch negative gearing or the capital gains tax discount. It says the best way to make housing more affordable is to increase supply, and for that reason, it says zoning laws and land releases ought to be targeted.

    Labor: Labor wants to limit negative gearing to new housing, from 1 July 2017 (while losses from new investments in shares and existing properties could still be used to offset investment income tax liabilities). It also wants to cut the capital gains tax discount from 50% to 25%, after 1 July 2017. It says this will improve the budget bottom line by $32.1 billion over ten years.

    Greens: The Greens want to abolish negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. They plan to phase out negative gearing for all non-business asset classes, with grandfathering arrangements for existing investment. They also want to phase out the 50% CGT discount by 10% each year from 1 July 2016, until there is no discount at all, from 1 July 2020. They say their policies will save $119.5 bn over ten years.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/11/the-10-big-issues-of-election-2016-how-coalition-labor-and-greens-policies-compare

  14. “Firefox, so just what is a Greens policy to tackle the increasing housing unaffordability crises ?
    You do realise that pricing an entire generation out affordable housing is unsustainable and will lead to a significant economic downturn, don’t you ?”

    ***

    https://greens.org.au/policies/housing

    4:To reduce the impacts of negative gearing on housing affordability.
    Should have VOTED ALP!.

  15. I know that all Greens policies are always as extreme as may be (after all, they will never have to deliver on them) but possibly the single weirdest Greens policy is the one that appears to be intended to stop the live export of animals intended to spread tuberculosis.*

    ‘An end to the export of live animals for consumptive purposes.’

    https://greens.org.au/policies/animals

    ‘consumptive’
    ‘affected with a wasting disease, especially pulmonary tuberculosis.
    “from birth he was sickly and consumptive”

    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=consumptive+meaning

    *Possibly on a parallel track, of sorts, the Chinese Government yesterday put a comprehensive ban on the sale and consumption of wild animals. IMO, if this is rigorously pursued, a massive drag on animal survival around the world will be lifted. It is not clear if live crays (a $500 million WA export trade to China) will also be banned. As a side note, pangolins have been mentioned for the first time as being possibly implicated in COVID-19

  21. Yessirrebob @ #104 Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 – 11:33 am

    Alpha, it’s only going to take the slightest of upward pressure on rates for the whole house of cards (pun un intended) to collapse.
    What are the chances of continued low rates for the next 3 years ?

    Exactly the same Debt to GDP Bubble is holding the American Economy together with the flimsiest of threads, as Warren Buffett observed the other day.

  22. Bushfire Bill @ #92 Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 – 10:13 am

    The truth is: countries that actively discriminate against Chinese travellers are doing best in combating the disease. For better or worse, whether it’s “racist” or not, regarding anyone who’s been in China in the past month as potentially infectious has slowed the progress of the disease.

    Bullshit. The truth is that if you exclude China’s neighboring countries the U.S., with its Trumpian border protection policies and all, ranks third for having the most cases (Italy and Iran take first and second). Australia, with Dutton manning the fence, ranks fifth.

    With cases now confirmed across much of Europe, the U.S., and the Middle East, the time when you could prevent infection by discriminating against people traveling from China is well and truly over. That window probably closed about a week or so before the initial outbreak started making news.

  23. BW,

    Crayfish are excluded from the ban:

    The full list of species protected under the new ban is still unclear. It covers wildlife already protected by law, other terrestrial animals of “important ecological, scientific and social value,” and terrestrial wild animals in breeding farms, according to China’s People’s Daily. It does not apply to aquatic animals, livestock, or poultry.

  24. The answer was straight from the Karsten Leith and Rhonda Stewart school of wishy washy.

    Until governments give CLEAR indications that medicine trumps PR, things will only get worse.

    The problem appears to be that the higher echelons of various state and national public service have become hopelessly politically compromised. We’ve seen it regarding Global Warming, criminal and civil justice, and now we’re seeing it in the medical sciences.

    It will be a brave Chief Medical Officer of any government – especially one that has gone out of its way to render its economy:

    ● brainless,

    ● undiversified,

    ● based on patronage and payola,

    ● and substantially dependent upon shipping unimproved primary products to China (or any other similarly dominant customer)

    who drifts too far away from what their political masters “require” of them.

    We have put all our eggs in one basket, and now we are in danger of becoming a basket case.

    It’s as if the drought, followed by bushfires, coupled with species die-offs, coral bleaching, businesses ruined, thevdumbingvdown of the workforce,ba ridiculousc resurgencenin unsustainable real estate prices, and now Coronavirus … all in the past six months … have conspired together to teach us, as Australians, a lesson we and the rest of the World will never forget.

    The Ponzi scheme that was the Australian economy is falling apart. The days when we had unlimited, exploitable natural resources to flog off cheap, with a cheer and a wave, are coming to an end.

    All that is left is for us to be declared a pariah state, an example not to be followed.

    How good WAS Australia?

  25. FF, Under the current political climate, going the whole hog on negative gearing is unfortunately, electoral poison. Just look how difficult it was for even modest reform that would have made meaningful change in the last election. Labors position on this might not have been perfect, but at least it was a start.
    The abolishment of Negative Gearing, CGT and even DI, will have to be addressed, at some stage. But it’s useless to even try to start in a cancerous political environment that’s beholden to a narrow sectional interest that controls the narrative.

    Politics is, after all, the art of the compromise, a concept that the Greens seem unable to grasp.

  27. From the “Dawn Patrol”:

    [‘Professor Raina MacIntyre, head of the Biosecurity Program at UNSW’s Kirby Institute said Australia could still manage the virus, but widespread transmission could result in 25 to 70 per cent of the population getting infected.

    Considering the mortality rate of COVID-19 is 2 to 3 per cent, “if 50 per cent of Australians became infected, that is 492,000 to 738,000 people dying, over 3 million people needing a hospital bed and over 1 million people needing an ICU bed,” Professor MacIntyre said.

    …

    The document flags a “precautionary approach”, emergency pandemic legislation, and provisions for the “Prime Minister to assume prime responsibility” [my emphasis] for efforts to contain the disease.’]

    I’m sure he’ll do a better job with COVID-19 than he did with the bush fire crisis(?):

  28. So AR is saying that China is now a minor consideration regarding numbers of COVID-19 cases?

    Apart from being keen to see his sources for that preposterous sounding statement, perhaps he’d like to tell the tens of millions in lockdown or quarantine in China that it’s OK to come out now, the crisis has passed?

  31. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cleanstate.org.au/article_much_worse_than_adani_browse_and_burrup_hub&ved=2ahUKEwjqjvaygO7nAhVIzDgGHbjrAOIQFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw3JXVgjzRlIJoA4MyJC3WGy&cshid=1582678435080

    A bit of an eye opener listening to Piers Verstegen this morning on Rn Breakfast re the climate damage associated with the Browse and Burrup gas fields being far worse than Adani (note; I’m opposed to Adani). I’d be interested why Adani has become almost the total focus when these developments appear far more polluting.

  32. FF, no I’m attacking the Greens for attacking Labor (as always) for not being pure enough, whilst refusing to attack the very people who caused the problem in the first place.
    As I said, politics is the art of the compromise. And yet, the Greens would rather see the perfect become the enemy of the good.

  33. The other thing is the demographic of who the housing bubble will burst on.

    Generally it will hit relatively young and well to do couples that the coalition want to have more babies from.

  34. Trump Is Tweeting About Fox News Ratings As Global Health Crisis Rages

    As fears grow about a looming coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday to demonstrate that he is super concerned – about the ratings of his favorite cable news network.

    Trump shared a tweet that boasted about Fox News’ ratings, claiming that the network’s numbers are up “because they cover your favorite President relatively well.”

    That is because they cover your favorite President relatively well. @CNN & MSDNC are dying in the ratings! https://t.co/dhlZlbyg2N

    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2020

    https://www.politicususa.com/2020/02/25/trump-tweeting-about-fox-news-ratings-as-a-global-health-crisis-rages.html

  35. This morning I overheard two university students, both female, discussing a Romeo y Juliet moment of time in the life of one of the protagonists:

    ‘I am yur …uh, like, um, uh, like, soooo totally over him, um, huh, ye ah, like fuck, like uh… ‘

    I felt as if I were walking past the death throes of Western Civilization.

  37. bakunin
    That is a johnny come lately bizzo.
    But it sort of fits.
    The Greens ARE always against someone else consuming what the Greens want for themselves.

  38. Bushfire Bill @ #128 Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 – 10:58 am

    So AR is saying that China is now a minor consideration regarding numbers of COVID-19 cases?

    No. I said it’s spread to enough places now that focusing on people traveling from China isn’t going to stop it from spreading further. So perhaps it’s best to stop beating that horse. It died ages ago.

    As for sources: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

  39. Bushfire Bill @ #92 Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 – 11:13 am

    Discrimination during the HIV scare was based on the mistaken belief that HIV was easily transmissible. We know now that it was mostly transmitted by close contact with the blood (and some other bodily fluids) of infected people.

    That’s not how I recall it. The HIV panic was not about its infectivity so much as its then prognosis, which was a death sentence. The early Grim Reaper campaign emphasised that while increasing awareness that any one could get it (the family bowled over by the bowling ball in death alley) not because it was easy to get, but to remind people that just because you weren’t homosexual, a sex worker, or an intravenous drug user – the then recognised cohorts – didn’t mean you couldn’t get it.

  40. Kate @ #131 Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 – 12:02 pm

    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cleanstate.org.au/article_much_worse_than_adani_browse_and_burrup_hub&ved=2ahUKEwjqjvaygO7nAhVIzDgGHbjrAOIQFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw3JXVgjzRlIJoA4MyJC3WGy&cshid=1582678435080

    A bit of an eye opener listening to Piers Verstegen this morning on Rn Breakfast re the climate damage associated with the Browse and Burrup gas fields being far worse than Adani (note; I’m opposed to Adani). I’d be interested why Adani has become almost the total focus when these developments appear far more polluting.

    Because. Earrings. 😐

  41. Greens 2019 election housing platform, more public housing, renters rights, changes to tax regime and funding support for homeless/temp accommodation and tenant services
    Basically seeing affordable housing as a human right for all

    A Home For All
    https://greens.org.au/platform/homes

    Our plan to make sure everyone has an affordable home:
    ▲
    Build 500,000 rent-controlled and well-designed public & community homes · More »
    ▲
    Give renters real rights including long term leases, a home for your pet, and no more unfair rent increases · More »
    ▲
    Provide $30 million for tenancy advocacy services, to help renters defend their rights · More »
    ▲
    Support first home buyers by phasing out unfair tax rules, including reforming negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount · More »
    ▲
    Increase funding for temporary accommodation services so that no one has to sleep on the streets · More »

  42. Kate @ #131 Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 – 11:02 am

    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cleanstate.org.au/article_much_worse_than_adani_browse_and_burrup_hub&ved=2ahUKEwjqjvaygO7nAhVIzDgGHbjrAOIQFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw3JXVgjzRlIJoA4MyJC3WGy&cshid=1582678435080

    A bit of an eye opener listening to Piers Verstegen this morning on Rn Breakfast re the climate damage associated with the Browse and Burrup gas fields being far worse than Adani (note; I’m opposed to Adani). I’d be interested why Adani has become almost the total focus when these developments appear far more polluting.

    Larissa couldn’t fit

    stop the browse and burrup gas fields

    onto her ear rings

  44. Yessirrebob says:
    Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 11:33 am
    Alpha, it’s only going to take the slightest of upward pressure on rates for the whole house of cards (pun un intended) to collapse.
    What are the chances of continued low rates for the next 3 years ?

    There is almost no chance that interest rates will rise. If inflation were to lift, if wages were to start growing, if there were signs that excess capacity – including especially unemployed labour – in the economy had been used up, then interest rates would rise.

    None of these things are likely. The economy has begun to shrink. Unemployment has begun to rise. Inflation remains low and may tip into deflation.

    We should expect to see real interest rates to fall even further.

    The risk to the housing market at the moment is not from rising interest rates but from declining economic activity and rising unemployment. These can very quickly affect loan quality, bank income and bank balance sheets….and in turn reduce the willingness and capacity of banks to write new loans.

    Declines in credit would almost immediately send land/housing prices tumbling.

    Obviously the Australian property market is very richly priced. Any threat to credit is a threat to those values, which could fall a long way in an economic downturn.

    Let’s hope we don’t get one.

  45. On the tragic loss of skills and expertise, the now fatal XPT is a masterclass:

    The loss of engineering and management capacity thanks to privatisation has exacerbated the problems.

    “The Australian government has become a passive consumer of services delivered by overseas companies as part of global networks of services providers,” Haywood says.

    “The only way to deliver now is through private means, where once the opposite was true. We had the capability. The politics might have been against you, but we could still do it.

    “The capacity has since been lost.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/26/from-showpiece-to-goat-track-the-long-dangerous-decline-of-sydney-to-melbourne-rail-travel

  46. Boerwar:

    [‘I fear that we are about to see a wave of Greens left lunatic zombies deliberately infecting decent Aussies.]

    I prefer the theory that I think you advanced earlier in the thread, that COVID-19 is a millennial conspiracy to knock off Boomers given their death rate is in the 2 to 10% range.

  48. I wholly support the housing/land policies proposed by the Greens.

    The problem is not the policies. It is their pursuit of a political strategy that means such policies can never be implemented.

  49. Mavis

    …The document flags a “precautionary approach”, emergency pandemic legislation, and provisions for the “Prime Minister to assume prime responsibility” [my emphasis] for efforts to contain the disease.’]

    I’m sure he’ll do a better job with COVID-19 than he did with the bush fire crisis(?)

    I’m sure that Morrison is busy searching for the part of the world least likely to be infected, as his next holiday destination when the sh*t hits the fan.

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