This week’s Essential Report comes in with primaries running 45 (down 4) /39 (up 4) to Labor, washing out into a two party preferred of 55/45 the same way – a 4 point drop from last week. This comes from a rolling two week sample of 1977, giving us an MoE of… well, figure it out for yourself! 
Turnbull has finally started to make some inroads into Labor which we might see more of come out in tomorrow’s Newspoll – not that I know, but the trends seem to be favouring a steady position to slight drop in Labor’s support over the last 2 weeks.
Essential asked additional questions on economic issues, the CPRS, politicians honestly and swine flu. These came from a sample of 1113 for an MoE of around the 2.9% mark.
Thinking about the Federal Government, which political party does a better job when it comes to:
(click to expand)
Note the issues where the shifts in voter sentiment have occurred, note the arguments filling up the popular press lately and feel the zeitgeist.
Thinking about climate change, the Government says legislation for an emissions trading scheme needs to be passed before the world summit on climate change being held in December. The Opposition says Australia should delay making any decisions on an emissions trading scheme until after the world summit. Who do you agree with most?
On the cross-tabs Essential tells us:
Respondents aged 55 years and over were more likely to agree with the Opposition’s argument that Australia should delay making any decisions on an ETS until after the world summit (opposition 46%, Government 30%), while respondents aged under 35 were more likely to agree with the Government’s line that the ETS should be passed before the world summit on climate change in December (Government 34%, opposition 27%).
The argument people agreed with tended to follow party lines, with 60% of Labor voters agreeing with the Government and 70% of Coalition voters agreeing with the Opposition on the issue. Among Green voters 49% agree with the Government’s argument and 29% with the opposition.
Overall, which party would you trust more to handle the issue of climate change?
The cross-tabs have us:
Which party people trust tended to follow party lines – 74% of Labor voters trust the Labor Party by a lot/a little when it comes to handling the issue of climate change and 55% of Coalition voters trust the Liberal party by a lot/a little.
65% of Green voters trust the Labor Party by a lot/a little when it comes to handling climate change.
Thinking about the Members of the Federal Parliament, do you think that most of the Members are dishonest, about 50/50, or that most of them are basically honest?
The cross-tabs have:
Older respondents were more likely than younger respondents to think that most Members of Federal Parliament are basically honest (50% of 65+ year olds vs 15% of 18 – 24 year olds).
And how would you rate the honesty of your local Federal Politician?
The cross-tabs tell us:
Older respondents were more likely than younger respondents to think that their local Federal Politician is very honest/quite honest (59% of 65+ year olds vs 31% 18 – 24 year olds).
Overall, how do you think the Government is handling the threat of swine flu in Australia?
Essential says on the cross-tabs that, “76% of Labor voters and 49% of Coalition voters think the Government is handling the threat of swine flu in Australia very well/quite well.”
Tomorrow is Newspoll Tuesday, and we’ll also run through today’s Galaxy tomorrow.
5 Comments
Let’s be honest, if Labor received a primary vote of 45% at the next election it would be a wipeout. Not even I believe that will happen.
I think the thing that scares me more than the silliness of the debate over the last week (from a public debate perspective, from the perspective of a political junkie it was hilarious) is the prospect of 18 months straight of ‘debt and deficit’ coming from the coalition; no more no less. FFS both parties have put out TV ads. As if they don’t give us the shits in a 4-6 week campaign enough, we could get it for 74-76 weeks (a rough calculation of 18 months.) I mean, all the best to Turnbull; he’s got to do what he’s got to do, but it’s going to get painful if we don’t get a DD.
True TWM, and Labors ad din’t do them any favours. All it did was confirm their weakness.
The thing about that first table, ‘who does a better job?’ is that it shows Labor has dropped 10 points on every issue mentioned.
The questions in the table are from this week’s sample. Given the 4-pt drop in Labor’s vote over a 2-wk rolling sample, this week’s was probably a 52-48. Hence, comparison with the last time that question was asked will tend to favour the Libs by more than one would expect.