Essential Research 2PP+: Labor 48, Liberal 46, undecided 7

Essential Research joins in on the tightening race narrative, although it gets there through preferences rather than primary votes. Also featured: many seat polls, one of which has independent Kate Chaney leading in Curtin, and even polls for the Senate.

The final Essential Research poll for the campaign has Labor leading by 48% to 46% on the pollster’s “2PP+” measure, in from 49% to 45% a fortnight ago, with the remainder undecided. However, both the Coalition and Labor are steady on the primary vote at 36% and 35%, the change mostly being accounted for by respondent-allocated preferences. For the minor parties, the Greens are down one to 9%, One Nation is up one to 4%, the United Australia Party is down one to 3% and independents are up one to 6%. Leadership ratings are little changed: Scott Morrison is down one on approval to 43% and up one on disapproval to 49%, Anthony Albanese is up one to 42% and steady on 41%, and Morrison’s lead as preferred prime minister moves from 40-36 to 40-37.

My reading of the state breakdowns is that the results are likely too strong for the Coalition in Victoria and too weak in New South Wales, at least in relative terms — using previous election flows, Labor leads by about 53-47 in New South Wales and 51-49 in Victoria, respectively compared with 51-49 to the Coalition and around 53.5-46.5 a fortnight ago. The Coalition is credited with a lead of about 52-48 in Queensland, a swing to Labor of over 6%, compared with about 50-50 in the previous poll. Sample sizes here would have been about 500 in New South Wales, 400 in Victoria and 300 in Queensland.

The poll was conducted Wednesday to Tuesday from a sample of 1599. It has made little difference to the BludgerTrack aggregate, since it goes off primary votes which are little changed. The more heavily weighted Newspoll and Ipsos polls that are yet to come stand more chance of moving its needle, which they will want to do in the Coalition’s favour if it is to end up with a two-party preferred reading that I personally would think plausible.

Other polling news:

The West Australian today had a poll by Utting Research showing independent Kate Chaney leading Liberal member Celia Hammond in Curtin by 52-48 on two-candidate preferred, from primary votes of 38% for Hammond, 32% for Chaney, 13% for Labor, 9% for the Greens and 3% for the United Australia Party. The poll was conducted on Monday from a sample of 514.

Katherine Murphy of The Guardian reports Labor is “increasingly bullish” about Brisbane and Higgins, and further perceives “opportunity” in Bennelong and Ryan. The report says Labor internal polling has Scott Morrison’s disapproval rating across the four seats at 62%, 65%, 57% and 58% respectively, whereas Anthony Albanese is in the mid-forties in approval and mid-thirties on disapproval.

Samantha Maiden of news.com.au reports on uComms polls for GetUp! of five seats chosen because of the effects on them of fires and floods. These have Labor member Fiona Phillips leading Liberal challenger Andrew Constance by 57-43 in Gilmore, but Liberal candidate Jerry Nockles leading Labor member Kirsty McBain by 51-49 in Eden-Monaro. Labor’s Peter Cossar is credited with a 55-45 lead over Liberal National Party member Julian Simmonds in Ryan, although his primary vote of 27% is not far clear of the Greens on 22%. Labor member Susan Templeman leads Liberal candidate Sarah Richards by 56-44 in Macquarie, and Nationals member Kevin Hogan leads Labor’s Patrick Deegan by 51-49 in Page, which he won by 9.4% in 2019. I have tended to think this pollster’s results have been flattering to Labor due to a limited weighting frame encompassing only age and gender, a notion disabused here only by the Eden-Monaro result.

• Speaking of which, The Australia Institute has a now dated uComms poll of Higgins from May 2 that had hitherto escaped my notice, showing Liberal member Katie Allen will lose either to Labor by 54-46 or the Greens by 55-45. Using the results of the forced-response follow-up to allocate the initially undecided, the primary votes are Liberal 36.9%, Labor 29.8% and Greens 19.9%, in which case it would clearly be Labor that won the seat.

• Redbridge Group has published full results of its poll for Climate 200 in North Sydney which, as noted here yesterday, had Liberal member Trent Zimmerman on 33.3%, independent Kylea Tink on 23.5% and Labor candidate Catherine Renshaw on 17.8%, with 7.5% undecided. The full report has results on a follow-up prompt for the undecided, and much more besides.

Senate news:

• The Australia Institute has Senate voting intention results for the five mainland states, which suggest the Greens are looking good across the board, One Nation might be a show in New South Wales as well as Queensland, the United Australia Party are competitive in Victoria, a third seat for Labor is in play in Western Australia, and Nick Xenophon might be in a tussle with One Nation for the last place in South Australia. With a national sample of 1002 though, there are naturally wide margins of error on these results. The accompanying report also include interesting data on respondents’ levels of understanding of the Senate voting process.

The Advertiser reports an “internal party polling” – it does not say whose – of the South Australian Senate race has Labor on 34%, Liberal on 23%, the Greens on 12%, Nick Xenophon on 6%, One Nation on 4% and Rex Patrick on 3%. I imagine the most likely outcome of such a result would be two seats each for Labor and Liberal plus one for the Greens and one for Nick Xenophon. The poll had a sample of 644, with field work dates not disclosed.

• A joint sitting of the Western Australian parliament has just confirmed that Ben Small of the Liberal Party will fill his own Senate vacancy, having addressed the dual citizenship issue that forced his resignation. Small has the third position on the Liberal ticket at Saturday’s election.

Non-polling news:

Sky News has obtained a voicemail message from 2019 in which Dai Le, who is threatening Kristina Keneally’s effort to use Fowler to move from the Senate to the House of Representatives, stated she still had control of the Liberal Party’s Cabramatta branch despite having been suspended from the party after running as an independent mayoral candidate in 2016. Le has been keen to express her independent credentials in a seat where the Liberal Party has little support.

Samantha Maiden of news.com.au reports Labor focus groups in Bennelong, Deakin and Pearce registered negative reactions to the Liberal Party’s policy of allowing home buyers to make use of their superannuation.

• The count for the Tasmanian Legislative Council seat of Huon has been completed, with the distribution of preferences resulting in a victory for independent candidate Dean Harriss over Labor’s Toby Thorpe at the final count by 11,840 votes (52.55%) to 10,693 (47.45%). Thorpe led on the primary vote, but Liberal preferences flowed to Harriss more strongly than Greens preferences did to Thorpe. This maintains the numbers in the chamber at four Labor, four Liberal and seven independents, although an ex-Labor member has been replaced by one with a conservative pedigree, his father having served in parliament both as an independent and with the Liberal Party.

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.

989 comments on “Essential Research 2PP+: Labor 48, Liberal 46, undecided 7”

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  1. I’m feeling much better now..

    Australian Election Forecasts
    @aeforecasts
    For those who like to see how the model sees the polls after adjusting for house effects, here are the results for the latest four:
    Newspoll: 53.3
    Morgan: 52.8
    ResolvePM: 52.0
    Essential: 52.7

  2. “And before you shoot back about it not being good enough and bring up certain things (because we’ve been through this before), let me point out four things:”

    ***

    1. Labor is committed to backing new coal, oil and gas. This is in direct contradiction to what the science of climate change is telling us is required to avert catastrophic climate change.

    2 & 3 are just meaningless motherhood statements. We don’t have time to delay further while Labor wakes up to the urgency of the crisis, which they still show no signs of doing. There’s nothing to suggest they will be any different next time – remember they’ve gone from having a 45% target in 2019 to cutting it to 43% in 2022! At this rate they’ll be offering 41% in 2025.

    4…

    Labor digs in on support for coal to negate damaging climate debate

    Anthony Albanese has committed a federal Labor government to supporting new coal mines, matching the pro-mining stance of the Coalition, as the opposition targets blue-collar workers in crucial seats for the coming federal election.

    Albanese’s move is a nod to Labor’s traditional blue-collar base as well as a bid to avoid a repeat of the 2019 election, when controversy over the Adani coal mine in Queensland’s Bowen Basin dogged then leader Bill Shorten.

    “If coal mines stack up environmentally, and then commercially, which is the decision for the companies, then they get approved,” he said in Queensland on Monday.

    “Labor would welcome any jobs that would be created from that.”

    The two main parties have committed support to new fossil fuel projects as long as there is international demand for exports.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/labor-digs-in-on-support-for-coal-to-negate-damaging-climate-debate-20220418-p5ae8h.html

    Labor rejects anti-coal pledge: Albanese

    An anti-coal pledge will not be signed by a Labor government but Australia could still host key climate change conferences, the opposition leader says.

    Anthony Albanese confirmed Labor would not sign a pledge to phase out coal use if elected, despite 40 countries agreeing to it at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow last year.

    Asked why Australia wouldn’t sign the pledge, Mr Albanese said coal was still part of the country’s energy mix.

    https://7news.com.au/politics/labor-rejects-anti-coal-pledge-albanese-c-6506084

    Labor backs coal beyond 2050

    Labor’s opposition resources spokesperson Madeleine King has come out in support of thermal coal exports beyond 2050, in a position at odds with achieving the ambitions of the Paris climate accord. In an interview with The Australian, the West Australian MP simultaneously backed Anthony Albanese’s commitment of net-zero emissions by 2050 and continued export of both thermal and metallurgical coal for decades to come. “I think we go beyond the middle of the century, I really do,” she said. King said Labor was “absolutely not supportive one bit” of a push by Malcolm Turnbull for a moratorium on new coalmines in the Hunter Valley and that coal will experience “a slow gradual decline in demand”. According to analysis by Climate Analytics, coal for electricity needs to be phased out globally by 2040 to limit global warming to 1.5°C, the desired outcome of the Paris climate agreement. King’s comments come ahead of a virtual climate summit of world leaders this week, to be livestreamed for public viewing. The United States and China released a joint statement ahead of the summit pledging to cooperate to tackle the climate crisis.

    https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/thebriefing/max-opray/2021/04/19/labor-backs-coal-beyond-2050

    PM seeks a tax fight with Labor in bid for WA votes

    …Mr Albanese has repeatedly refused to cut any deals with the Greens on policy in the event of a hung Parliament.

    On Monday, he said a Labor government would not stand in the way of new mega coal mines in Queensland’s Galilee Basin if they stacked up economically and environmentally, welcoming jobs associated with new projects seeking to leverage infrastructure built for Adani.

    https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pm-seeks-a-tax-fight-with-labor-in-bid-for-wa-votes-20220418-p5ae3m

  3. @Luke – they tried… it was bad. Without Eddington, Hawthorne and Fowlds… it can’t work.

    and James Corden is just AWFUL.

  4. @Luke – they tried… it was bad. Without Eddington, Hawthorne and Fowlds… it can’t work.
    ______________
    Was there EVER a better example of perfect casting?

  5. Good report on Ch10 news of Albo’s NPC speech. Sounds like he knocked it out of the park, and that’s pretty much how the news segment framed it.

  6. Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce is now on Sky News, accusing Labor leader Anthony Albanese (whom he calls Albanayyyz) of “measuring up the drapes” and asking who the acting PM would be if Albanese is elected and goes to the Quad.

    The ABC reported that role would automatically fall to deputy leader Richard Marles.
    _____________
    And he’d be no better than Barnaby Joyce? Come on!

  7. Re – a Tory MP arrested for rape in the UK. I missed the full quote from Boris Johnson on Tuesday.

    The prime minister told his cabinet on Tuesday morning: “Crime, crime, crime is what we want to focus on”

    The PM said sexual and domestic violence victims needed to know the Government was on their side, adding:

    ‘We want to see more rapists brought to justice.’

  8. 2GB this afternoon, Jim Wilson practically wetting himself interviewing his hero Scott Morrison, the same Jim Wilson who has not had one Labor person on his program in 6 weeks. It is Radio Morrison after all.

  9. Lars at 4.51

    So, the Angel of Death visiting with Deves.

    Stegall must be happy to learn of her impending re-election.

  10. BK @ #315 Wednesday, May 18th, 2022 – 5:21 pm

    Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce is now on Sky News, accusing Labor leader Anthony Albanese (whom he calls Albanayyyz) of “measuring up the drapes” and asking who the acting PM would be if Albanese is elected and goes to the Quad.

    The ABC reported that role would automatically fall to deputy leader Richard Marles.
    _____________
    And he’d be no better than Barnaby Joyce? Come on!

    It’s all they’ve got left, BK.

  11. @BK
    Agree!! Fowlds consistently had me in stitches. Hawthorne in particular absolutely nailed the role.
    ______
    Luke
    Yes (Prime) Minister is one of those timeless things. Unsurpassable!

  12. Firefox says:
    Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 5:17 pm

    Please give it a rest… no one but no one here is ever going to vote Green (that didn’t 15 years ago)… it’s a lost cause on your part..

  13. The federal health department has referred Liberal election campaign adverts using its website to attack Labor to the Australian Electoral Commission as the major parties accuse each other of misappropriating official materials.

    Opposition health spokesman Mark Butler wrote to departmental secretary Brendan Murphy on Monday to complain about the Liberal party’s use of the Health Funding Facts website in political advertisements, accusing Labor of “telling lies about Medicare … again”.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/health-department-refers-liberal-campaign-ads-to-electoral-commission-20220517-p5am28.html

  14. BK

    “Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce is now on Sky News, accusing Labor leader Anthony Albanese (whom he calls Albanayyyz) of “measuring up the drapes” and asking who the acting PM would be if Albanese is elected and goes to the Quad.

    The ABC reported that role would automatically fall to deputy leader Richard Marles.
    _____________
    And he’d be no better than Barnaby Joyce? Come on!”

    Most governmetn changeovers see frantic paper shredding by the departing side.
    I imagine Barnaby will be clearing the liquor cabinet in his office.
    In his case there may not be any paperwork to shred.

  15. Confessions.
    Murphy became an instrument of Morrison’s. If Labor get up, Murphy will be spending a lot more time with his family thinking how stupid he was to fall into Morrison’s control.

  16. Again hearing a good report of Channel 10s fair coverage…..In this age of Fox News, Sky News, Murdoch, Tucker, channel 7, stokes etc etc….its actually a relief that there might be a tiny bit of jounalism and love of democracy still cowering in a corner somewhere

  17. I think we can now be certain that Mundo isn’t a Graeme Richardson sock puppet account given this article, by said GR in The Australian (paywalled so intro only):

    “Labor’s march to victory continues unimpeded.

    The attack advertisements from the Liberals are in full swing but they are falling on deaf ears.

    The mob have made up their mind and it is looking very likely that Anthony Albanese will be the victor on Saturday.”

    He will emerge with a comfortable majority in his own right. He will not need to negotiate with the independents.

  18. Holdenhillbilly at 5.11

    Your mention of the Ethereal One Fleurieu Grenache 2020 reminds me of a terrible lost opportunity for Australian wine exporters.

    Decades ago the French put their foot down and prevented the non-French use of (French) regional names for wines – Champagne etc.

    A decade ago, Cadel Evans wins the 2011 Tour de France.

    That was the moment.

    Australia’s ambassador should have spoken with the French govt THAT NIGHT informing them that, as we now own Le Tour, we’ll be re-initiating using French regional names for wines.

    I’m sure the French would’ve rolled over!

  19. Well this is a peculiar election. It is boring, at a fundamental level, in terms of its leader offerings, policies and themes, with an absolute dearth, from both sides, of nation-building (specific) plans.

    However, the behaviour of voters seems to be like nailing jelly!

    TPP polls are, according to Bilbo’s typically astute analysis, narrowing, but also giving us peculiar anomalies on a state to state basis.

    Once again, looking at the betting markets, the “dartboard throw” that is the TPP punt is just broadly echoing the sentiment apparent from the TPP polls. However, at the seat level, there is definitely movement… but some of it is towards the ALP.

    My modelling today is showing:

    ALP: 75
    LNP: 70
    IND: 5
    GRN 1

    Applying new TPPs with correction factors to these marginals shows the most likely outcomes to be:

    1. ALP Minority Government
    2. LNP Minority Government
    3. ALP Majority Government
    4. LNP Majority Government

    So I still pretty much have it as an ALP win. Firmer than it was on Monday night.
    There are so many pre-polls that the state we were in 10 days ago can’t be predicted and that may well make the difference in this election.

    There is a slight possibility that the ALP might actually end up with a higher TPP than the Coalition but the Coalition forming government. This is mostly due to the 12 seats under 3%, many of which could go either way, but the Coalition only having 5 such seats, that may well do the same thing. The other reason is that Rebekah Sharkie has already thrown her support behind a Coalition minority government, ostensibly just because they are incumbents, not necessary due to their perceived virtues over the ALP (though she is an ex-member of the Libs).

    Having said all that, I would put an ALP win a nose in front at this stage.

  20. Once again Morrison stages a performance.
    I’m so jaded with his deceptive character, my first thought was, he’s bowled the kid over to crowd the nightly news.

  21. One thing I’ve noticed since seeing a lot more of Anthony Albanese this election campaign, he’s got big feet and big hands. And you know what they say about that. 😉

  22. I find it hard to see Xenophon snagging a spot without an actual campaign. He’s in almost the same position as every other non-party jostling for attention, and any lingering name recognition is outweighed by the “you haven’t done anything for me lately” sentiment.

  23. “While this lunacy is pretty funny, I do get frustrated that genuine issues with Dan’s leadership get lost in this stupidity. I felt the lockdowns were handled poorly, but it’s impossible to get a reasonable conversation on this matter amongst the tripe coming from the anti vaxxers and ‘freedom fighters’. It has become so ‘Team Dan’ versus ‘Team-anti Dan’ down here that a civil conversation on the topic just isn’t possible.”

    Indeed.

    I do not hate Andrews as you do, nor do I think he did a perfect job or a great job. The awful media coverage did not help regularly focussing on the wrong thing (months of hysteria about private security guards when they ought to have been looking at contact tracing, for example) and being more results focussed than process focussed which led to NSW being praised when it was mostly gambling and getting lucky, until it didn’t.

    But having useful discussions about it was rarely easy because people wanted to be either “Dictator Dan!” or hashtagIstandwithDan and not have in between.

    Also not helped by the fact that the Victorian Opposition are complete muppets. If Matthew Guy was premier for the pandemic we’d have had bodies piled up in the streets while being told by the Herald-Sun that the opposition wasn’t being supportive enough. So it’s a choice between a guy who made mistakes trying to do the right thing and a Guy who would have done the dumbest things possible, on purpose.

  24. I am a lot better thanks C@t…but still testing positive …(and still feeling positive)…..I was busy this morning doing some long put off accounting stuff for my BAS return……so alas, I probably missed out on a lot of Mundo inspired existential angst…..( I shall NOT be scrolling back to see)

  25. BeaglieBoy @ #344 Wednesday, May 18th, 2022 – 5:38 pm

    I am a lot better thanks C@t…but still testing positive …(and still feeling positive)…..I was busy this morning doing some long put off accounting stuff for my BAS return……so alas, I probably missed out on a lot of Mundo inspired existential angst…..( I shall NOT be scrolling back to see)

    Great to hear! And you certainly don’t need to go through the mundo stress test. 😆

  26. BK @ #329 Wednesday, May 18th, 2022 – 5:30 pm

    Confessions.
    Murphy became an instrument of Morrison’s. If Labor get up, Murphy will be spending a lot more time with his family thinking how stupid he was to fall into Morrison’s control.

    Indeed. The APS has been shamefully politicised under the coalition, going all the way back to the Howard era. Remember Jane Halton used to be the Health Secretary?

  27. Just as in 2007 the LNP will still think they are the government even if they lose on Saturday. Their born to rule mentality runs deep. Much like the GOP.

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