Essential Report – Ozcar Fallout Edition

This week’s Essential Report comes in with the primaries running 48 (up 1) /36 (down 1) to Labor, washing out into a two party preferred of 58/42 the same way– a one point increase since last week. This comes from a rolling 2 week sample of 2006 giving an MoE that maxes out around the 2.2% mark.

Essential asked additional questions this week on descriptions of Rudd and Turnbull, approval ratings, how Utegate changed opinion and the CPRS. These ran off a sample of 1145 for an MoE that maxes out around the 2.9% mark.We’ll also throw in the additional questions from Galaxy and Newspoll that me missed earlier as we go through.

First up, Essential asked the following on Approval – the smaller charts can be expanded.

Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job Kevin Rudd is doing as Prime Minister?

The cross tabs said:

Labor voters split 96% approve/strongly approve and 1% disapprove/strongly disapprove. 19% of Coalition voters approve/strongly approve and 72% disapprove/strongly disapprove.

On the same question for Turnbull, the results came in as:

The cross-tabs for Turnbull give us:

50% of Coalition voters approve/strongly approve and 35% disapprove/strongly disapprove. Labor voters split 13% approve/strongly approve and 78% disapprove/strongly disapprove.

Which of the following describe your opinion of the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd?

Which of the following describe your opinion of the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull?

As a result of recent events concerning the Prime Minister, Opposition Leader and the Treasurer, is your opinion of these politicians more positive, more negative or is your opinion unchanged?

On the cross-tabs, Essential says:

On balance, opinions of Kevin Rudd are positive – 25% have a more positive opinion and 21% a more negative opinion. These views are strongly associated with voting intentions – Labor voters split 46% positive, 5% negative and Coalition voters split 5% positive, 48% negative.

Opinions of the Treasurer Wayne Swan have shifted negatively – 7% have a more positive opinion and 27% more negative. Coalition voters are strongly negative (56% negative, 1% positive) but Labor voters are more likely to be unchanged (15% positive, 12% negative, 61% unchanged).

Galaxy and Newspoll both ran questions on Ozcar today, and they came in looking like this:

All three pollsters show pretty much the same thing across their different questions – Turnbull has been severely damaged as a result of this Usegate business and Rudd got off pretty much unscathed. The only emerging problem for Rudd on these metrics is the increase in his arrogance perception – something Newspoll also picked up, having it increased from 47  last year to 51 on the weekend.

Moving along on to other matters, Essential asked:

Thinking about addressing climate change – if the Opposition are unsuccessful in amending the Government’s legislation for an Emissions Trading Scheme to tackle climate change, should the Opposition vote in favour or against the Government’s legislation?

The short cross tabs say “Among Coalition voters 14% think they should vote in favour and 51% against.”

Next up – running the polls through Pollytrend.