Essential Research leadership ratings

Scott Morrison records a preferred prime minister lead for the first time this year, although his personal ratings remain in net negative territory.

Essential Research continues to disappoint on the voting intention front, but its latest fortnightly poll does include its monthly leadership ratings, which record a recovery in Scott Morrison’s personal standing after the battering it copped during the bsuhfires. Morrison now leads Anthony Albanese 40-35 as preferred prime minister after being tied 36-36 in the last poll, which his first lead out of the six sets of results published so far this year (three apiece from Essential and Newspoll). His approval rating is up two to 41% and disapproval down three to 49%, while Albanese is respectively steady on 41% and up two to 33%.

As related by The Guardian, the poll also finds 71% want investigations into sports rorts to continue, but I suspect that should actually say 51%, as 43% favoured the alternative option that the resignation of Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie should be the end of the matter. The poll also has the unsurprising finding that concern about coronavirus is growing, although we will have to wait for the publication of the full report later today to see by how much.

Other questions produce familiar findings on energy sources (71% favour further taxpayer research into renewables, compared with 57% for hydrogen, 50% for “clean coal” and 38% for nuclear energy) and economic management (the Coalition was rated better overall, but was also seen to favour big business whereas Labor was better at managing the economy to benefit workers). The poll was conducted from 1096 respondents from an online panel, no doubt from Thursday to Sunday.

UPDATE: Full report here. It turns out the poll doesn’t really find an increase in concern about coronavirus over the past month: there’s a two point increase in “very concerned” to 27%, but a five point drop in “quite concerned” to 36%, a two point rise in “not all that concerned” to 28% and a three point increase in “not at all concerned” to 9%. I’d have been interested to see breakdowns by party support on this – Democrats in the US are far more concerned than Republicans – but no such luck.

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.

3,649 comments on “Essential Research leadership ratings”

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  1. Advantage is a better soldier than rashness. —Henry V, Act III, Scene 6

    A loquacious David Walsh outlines a gambler’s perspective on dealing with a virus outbreak as Dark Mofo gets the chop for the year:

    Rational consequences of risk are defensive planning (toilet rolls), and late decision-making. Kirsha, my wife, was planning a fundraiser for her garden project, in April. She sold just two tickets (thanks, and sorry, Tim and Irene). Her events are very popular, so what happened?

    Fear is what happened. That fear is compelled by uncertainty. Fear is the right response. And that right response means we would have trouble selling tickets to Dark Mofo events, also.

    https://darkmofo.net.au/statement

  3. lizzie @ #99 Wednesday, March 11th, 2020 – 11:17 am

    Stephen Spencer
    @sspencer_63
    ·
    5m
    AKA “crisis is an opportunity cut wages, cut benefits, cut super, and cut taxes for big business”.

    ” rel=”nofollow”>

    Doesn’t that guy look like a right royal bastard? He looks like he’d chop your mother off at the knees if he had to in order to survive!

  4. “C@tmommasays:
    Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 11:28 am

    Doesn’t that guy look like a right royal bastard? he looks like he’d chop your mother off at the knees if he had to in order to survive!”

    Not to engage in class warfare snark, but he looks like he’d do that just for the sport of it.

  5. I don’t know where Dan Andrews learned his organising abilities, maybe through bushfire experience, but he can run rings around Morrison when it comes to providing a strong message and promoting confidence. One centre, all parts of government working together. Already set up in advance of building needs.
    Morrison, OTOH, praising self, Hunt praising “marvellous doctors”.

  7. Max Boot’s latest, on the Coronavirus:

    I live in New York, which now has more confirmed coronavirus cases (142 and counting) than any other state, including Washington. A friend whom we saw recently came down with flu-like symptoms. My son played basketball with a friend who now has a 104-degree fever. Are they suffering from coronavirus? No one knows, because almost no one can get tested. South Korea, with a population of 51.4 million, has already conducted 196,000 coronavirus tests. As of Saturday, the Atlantic could only confirm 1,895 tests out of a U.S. population of 327 million.

    I find myself paranoid — or is it prudent? — every time I leave the house. Every subway car, every restaurant, every store is full of hitherto unsuspected microscopic dangers. I have become wary of doorknobs; I try to either push with my elbow or grip the knob with a glove or napkin. I don’t know whether to fly on a long-scheduled vacation Saturday, especially after the official who runs New York-area airports came down with the coronavirus. Being trapped in an airplane for many hours raises the danger of infection but being cooped up at home for the next few weeks will be depressing. Grocery stores and drugstores have been visited by what looks like a plague of locusts; everyone is hoarding everything. I have resisted the impulse until recently, but I finally gave in and ordered a bunch of packaged goods that we probably don’t need. If only I could buy more hand sanitizer …

    There is still a sense of normalcy in most restaurants I have visited recently — all but the Chinese restaurants are full. I can’t decide whether those who are still dining out cheek by jowl with strangers are suffering from dangerous complacency or displaying a commendable desire to “keep calm and carry on.” We simply don’t know how bad the current situation is and what is to come.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/09/life-new-york-time-coronavirus/

  8. Is it just me but the Victorian government appears to be a lot more proactive and ‘out in front’ on The Virus response than say the NSW government?

  9. DarC

    This is what the Vic govt have enacted. Not sure what NSW has done as yet

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    Jenny Mikakos MP
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    The public health of Victorians is our absolute priority. That’s why
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    & I have today activated the State Control Centre to endure a coordinate response to #COVID-19 https://premier.vic.gov.au/state-control-centre-activated-to-oversee-covid-19-response/… #springst

    State Control Centre Activated To Oversee COVID-19 Response
    The State Control Centre (SCC) has been activated to oversee and coordinate Victoria’s response to the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), as another Victorian tests positive for the virus. Victorian…
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  11. This is a bit radical, I know, but wouldn’t it be marvellous if the outcome of this pandemic was beefing up government support for all medical services and hospitals.
    Sorry, just dreaming there.

  12. But you know who got the ‘Politician of the Year Award’ yesterday? NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian! She projects control very well

    _______________________________

    Dan Andrews was entered in the ‘leader of the year’ category, not the politician one. The Coalition will always win ‘politician of the year’ awards.

  13. As of Saturday, the Atlantic could only confirm 1,895 tests out of a U.S. population of 327 million.

    And a full half of those have come back positive.

  14. And the only guy who projects real humanity in the NSW government, Andrew Constance, whose house almost burned down in the bushfires in January, has announced he is leaving politics.

  15. lizzie @ #111 Wednesday, March 11th, 2020 – 11:44 am

    This is a bit radical, I know, but wouldn’t it be marvellous if the outcome of this pandemic was beefing up government support for all medical services and hospitals.
    Sorry, just dreaming there.

    lizzie, think like a Liberal! Productivity Flexibility and Tax Cuts for Business is what will do the trick! 😆

  16. Paul Krugman: The coronavirus crisis exploded because conservatives can’t deal with the truth

    According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, no one should be surprised that Donald Trump and the Republican Party are lagging behind dealing with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic since they have a history of being too slow to react when a crisis hits the country.

    “The bottom line is that like so much of what is happening in America right now, the coronavirus crisis isn’t just about Trump. His intellectual and emotional inadequacy, his combination of megalomania and insecurity, are certainly contributing to the problem; has there ever been a president so obviously not up to the job? But in refusing to face uncomfortable facts, in attributing all bad news to sinister conspiracies, he’s actually just being a normal man of his faction,” he wrote before concluding :

    “In 2020 we’re relearning the lessons of 2008 — namely, that America’s right-wingers can’t handle the truth.”

    https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/paul-krugman-the-coronavirus-crisis-exploded-because-conservatives-cant-deal-with-the-truth/

  18. Dandy

    Australia was very fortunate to have a Federal Labor government when HIV/AIDS hit the world.

    Nothing has happened to change my mind.

  19. Cat, a rather kind comment by you of Constance who, until his recent Damascene moment, has been an awful Minister and greater prick!

    Dandy, they’re not on the back foot

  20. The Pell Appeal – 2 Issues

    1. The forensic decision to argue it was impossible for the offences to have occurred.

    Richter submitted to the jury that on the evidence it should be found that it was impossible for the offences to have occurred. The submission created a factual hurdle Pell did not have to jump. The jury could have found it was possible but sufficiently improbable to satisfy them beyond reasonable doubt for the offences to have occurred as alleged by the complainant.

    Being an experienced and brilliant advocate the question needs be posed: Why did Richter (like an over-optimistic Olympic high jumper) set the factual bar higher than required?

    My speculative answer is that Richter was concerned the jury would not be impressed by the failure of Pell to give evidence. Although the jury would have been directed strongly by the trial judge in respect to Pell’s right to silence, juries are not idiots. They knew Pell could give evidence if he wanted to and had chosen not to.

    To counter this Richter put his eggs in the impossibility basket which tied in with Pell’s videoed interview with the police shown to the jury. Thus there was no need for Pell to give evidence since, the event being impossible, there was really nothing he could usefully add. On this basis Pell NOT giving evidence was capable of being used to reinforce confidence in Richter’s submission to the jury that the offences as alleged were impossible; i.e. “We have not wasted your time members of the jury by calling Pell since you will be satisfied anyway the offences were impossible.”

    Although not calling Pell and the impossibility argument hurdle were risks, the risks would have been ameliorated by the trial judge’s directions including that even if the jury found the offences were not impossible that was only the start of their enquiry as to whether the prosecution had proved the offences beyond reasonable doubt.

    2. Compounding improbabilities argument

    The argument was that the possibilities (i) Pell would be unaccompanied at the time of the offence; (ii) that Pell would not have been greeting parishioners on the front steps; (iii) that choirboys could peel away from the choir unnoticed; that choirboys could rejoin the choir afterwards through locked doors; (iv) Pell could get his penis out of the robes; etc etc were each so improbable that, when considered together, the compounding improbabilities must have caused any jury to have reasonable doubt that there was any opportunity for the offences to have occurred.

    The majority and the minority (Weinberg) in the Court of Appeal differed in their treatment of Pell’s compounding improbabilities theory. Weinberg dealt with it thus:

    1063 Mr Walker’s point, in oral argument before this Court, was really an application of what statisticians call ‘the product rule’ of probability theory. That rule postulates that the probability of the joint occurrence of mutually independent events equals the product of the individual probabilities of each of the events.
    1064 In order for the complainant’s account to be capable of being accepted, a number of the ‘things’ set out by Mr Richter at [840]–[[262]] of my reasons, had to have taken place within the space of just a few minutes. In that event, the odds against the complainant’s account of how the abuse had occurred, would have to be substantial. The chances of ‘all the planets aligning’, in that way, would, at the very least, be doubtful. This form of ‘probabilistic analysis’, if properly applied, suggests strongly to me that the jury, acting reasonably, on the whole of the evidence in this case, ought to have had a reasonable doubt as to the applicant’s guilt.

    The majority dealt with the argument thus:

    170 What emerges, therefore, is not a ‘catalogue of impossibilities’, as the applicant contends, but a catalogue of uncertainties and possibilities. So far from the evidence of individual witnesses supporting each other to establish impossibility, the evidence of the successive witnesses served only to confirm that what A claimed had occurred was not impossible. Plainly enough, uncertainty multiplied upon uncertainty does not — cannot — demonstrate impossibility. Moreover, the Crown could rely on the evidence in discharging its burden to establish that there was a realistic opportunity for the offending to have occurred.

    Pell’s written submissions to the High Court states [49]:

    It was also not in dispute that if any number of the practices of the Cathedral were followed there would be no opportunity for the offending {CA 11661 CAB 230,13881-14011 306-81. The majority did not conclude that so many departures from practice would not have been, at least, highly unlikely. Indeed, the majority did not engage with the argument about compounding improbabilities at all.

    The Crown’s response at [48] of its written submissions:

    The applicant criticises the majority for not accepting his “compounding improbabilities” argument. However, the notion of “compounding” relied upon by the applicant was flawed. As Weinberg JA stated, the applicant’s argument was an attempt to apply the product rule of probability theory. That rule is only valid where one has mutually independent events. The various “improbabilities” relied upon by the applicant, however, were evidently not all independent in this way. The notion of compounding improbabilities may be an attractive rhetorical device but, in this case, it was unhelpful and inaccurate. This is particularly so when a careful examination of all of the evidence discloses that the “improbabilities” relied upon by the applicant were not, in fact, improbable.

    3. The expected resolution of the compounding probabilities argument by the High Court.

    The Crown is correct that each isolated alleged improbability is not relevantly independent to enable the product rule for assessing probability to apply. The product rule simply says the probability of tossing 2 heads with an unbiased coin is ½ x ½. This approach is used in fingerprint evidence where the probability of having X number of similarities might effectively prove beyond reasonable doubt the owner of the fingerprint.

    Weinberg’s observation quoted above “That the chances of all the planets aligning, in that way, would, at the very least, be doubtful” is therefore plainly erroneous. There are all sorts of events which have happened in the past that, retrospectively, seem highly improbable. The chance of one’s own birth happening is a very good example. Applying probability theory in this way to disprove the offence occurring is as illogical as applying probability theory to disprove one’s own existence (leaving aside the paradox).

    The other, more substantial, problem with applying the product rule is that there was really no evidence as to the probabilities to be multiplied. What was the probability that Pell did not greet parishioners outside the Cathedral? What was the probability Pell might be in the sacristy alone with the boys for 5-6 minutes? What was the probability of the boys leaving the choir undetected (clearly not an independent event since, had they been detected they could never have got to the sacristy at all)? Since there were no specific probabilities there was nothing to be multiplied.

    The test for the Court of Appeal was whether any and/or all of those alleged improbabilities in combination should have caused the jury to have concluded they could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt. The majority statement that “uncertainty multiplied by uncertainty cannot demonstrate impossibility” is dubious mathematically (whatever lower bound of probability above zero that is set below which it is agreed equates to zero can always gone under by multiplication of sufficient independent uncertain events).

    But the majority conclusion must be right that once there was evidence of possibility the jury were entitled to conclude there was a realistic opportunity for the offending to have occurred, notwithstanding the various improbabilities, and without using the product rule of probability.

    Conclusion

    There is a substantial error in Weinberg’s reasoning on the application of probability theory. This error helps explain the differing conclusion of the majority and the minority in the Court of Appeal. That is not a good start for Pell.

    I do not pretend to be across every other argument in the case and can therefore make no prediction in respect of the outcome of the appeal.

  21. Darc,
    Yes, I know. I remember him from the last State election campaign. All smug confidence. However, coming face to face with your, almost, mortality, can tend to shatter your Liberal illusions of invincibility.

  22. Ante Meridian @ #67 Wednesday, March 11th, 2020 – 9:01 am

    The top twenty one COVID-19 countries by number of cases are all in the northern hemisphere (including the Republic Of Diamond Princess, still remarkably in the top 10). Coincidence?

    Australia is flying the flag for the south at number 22.

    Canada is doing an impressive job of containment at just 80 cases.

    No, not coincidence. Same reason seasonal flu is a wintertime phenomenon. Virus prefer cool conditions to hot conditions and people huddled together for warmth.

  24. No, not coincidence. Same reason seasonal flu is a wintertime phenomenon. Virus prefer cool conditions to hot conditions and people huddled together for warmth.

    Yep. It’ll really hit the fan for us here in Australia in a few months.

    Conversely things will get better in the northern hemisphere. Almost certainly not in time for Trump’s arbitrary prediction of ‘April’, but probably by June or so the warmer conditions should be making a a difference.

  25. I don’t know if this has been mentioned as yet, but with Daniel Andrews saying schools may have to close, one parent is going to have to look after the younger ones.
    Yet another reason for people to be missing from work and adding to the need for some level of compensation for those affected.

  26. Just watching the ABCnews report on the Pell HC case and it appears Pells lawyers are essentially basing their argument on the jury just getting it wrong.

    I can’t imagine the High Court overturning the guilty verdict just on that …?

  27. The Nightmare is real. Trump’s favourite pick has won the Democratic Nomination. Sanders campaign is over bar the shouting. Michigan won by Biden.

  32. Victoria

    He will win. The virus and economic connection combined with anger at Trump we saw in 2018 Midterms will do it.

    I hope Biden picks up Buttigieg’s suggestion about the court.

  36. Windhover
    Thank you so much for that Pell HC comment. The absence of probability values, even rough, is a key flaw in the arguments of Pell’s briefs.

  38. guytaur
    “The Nightmare is real. Trump’s favourite pick has won the Democratic Nomination. ”

    Huh? Trump wanted Sanders to win. Facing off against a socialist was Trump’s dream.

  39. Biden drew Michigan support from groups that backed Sanders in 2016, exit polls show

    From CNN’s Grace Sparks

    Joe Biden’s projected Michigan win was carried by voters over the age of 65, moderates, and black voters, according to exit polls.

    Rick Wilson‏Verified account @TheRickWilson

    Someone told you that old people vote. SOMEONE.

  41. Kakaru

    Not true. As you will see Biden is a bad candidate.

    Sanders failed in not attacking him.

    The dementia attacks. The Hunter Drain the Swamp attacks etc are going to happen.

    We have enough election results that have proven the socialist thing wrong.

    Biden will win but be in no doubt he is not the same man that debated Paul Ryan.

  42. a r @ #124 Wednesday, March 11th, 2020 – 12:09 pm

    No, not coincidence. Same reason seasonal flu is a wintertime phenomenon. Virus prefer cool conditions to hot conditions and people huddled together for warmth.

    Yep. It’ll really hit the fan for us here in Australia in a few months.

    Conversely things will get better in the northern hemisphere. Almost certainly not in time for Trump’s arbitrary prediction of ‘April’, but probably by June or so the warmer conditions should be making a a difference.

    And so it will keep on going, back and forth, during the rotating Winter months, north and south of the equator, for years to come.

  47. guytaur
    “We have enough election results that have proven the socialist thing wrong. ”

    So you want to believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I’m not going down this rabbit-hole again

  49. Cat

    Yeah yeah go on a personal attack because I disagree with you.

    The progressives need a better candidate than Sanders.
    So too do the moderates need a better candidate than Biden.

    If only Klobuchar or Buttigieg had been able to get black support.

    Be in no doubt about how bad a candidate Biden is.

    Trump is going to lose the election. Not the Democrats win it.

  50. the latest in Victoria

    Jenny Mikakos MP
    @JennyMikakos
    ·
    31m
    More info on latest 3 #COVIDー19 cases here: https://www2.health.vic.gov.au/about/media-centre/MediaReleases/three-more-cases-covid-19-victoria… #springst
    Three more cases of COVID-19 in Victoria
    Three new cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) were confirmed yesterday and overnight – bringing the total number of cases in Victoria to 21.
    health.vic.gov.au
    Show this thread

    Jenny Mikakos MP
    @JennyMikakos
    ·
    32m
    #COVID-19 confirmed Case 21 – Man in his 50s on flight QF94 from LA to Melb on 6 March. He went to Yeshiva-Beth Rivkah college. School has closed today. Passengers and school contacts will be contacted and are encouraged to call the hotline on 1800 675 398. #springst
    1
    3
    Show this thread

    Jenny Mikakos MP
    @JennyMikakos
    ·
    35m
    #COVID-19 confirmed Case 20- Woman in her 20s on flight UA60 from USA- Melb on 29 Feb. The flight has previously been reported and contact is ongoing. Passengers will be contacted & are encouraged to call the hotline on 1800 675 398. #springst

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