This week’s Essential Report comes in with the primaries running 40 (down 2)/ 39 (steady) to Labor, washing out into a two party preferred of 53/47 the same way – a one point gain to the Coalition since last week. The Greens on 11 (up 2), while the broad “Others” are steady on 10. This comes from a rolling two week sample of 1772, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 2.3% mark.
This is Essential’s lowest ever primary vote estimate for Labor and their equal lowest two party preferred result since the Rudd government.
Additional questions this week looked at approval ratings, perceptions on broken promises, interest in the budget and the postponement of the ETS.
These additional questions ran from a sample of 965, giving is an MoE that maxes out around the 3.2% mark.
Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job Kevin Rudd/Tony Abbott is doing as Prime Minister?
First off for Rudd:
Now for Abbott and before him Turnbull:
The net approval head to head gives us:
On the cross-tabs for Rudd we get:
90% of Labor voters approve and 5% disapprove. 12% of Liberal/National voters approve and 81% disapprove.
Those aged over 55 are more likely to disapprove – 38% approve and 57% disapprove.
While the cross-tabs for Abbott tell us:
74% of Liberal/National voters approve and 18% disapprove. 23% of Labor voters approve and 66% disapprove.
Those aged over 55 are more likely to approve – 49% approve and 41% disapprove.
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Thinking about the Federal Budget – how interested are you in reading and hearing about the Federal Budget?
On the cross-tabs we have:
74% of both Labor and Liberal/National voters say they are interested.
73% of men and 60% of women are interested. Younger people are less interested – only 46% of those under 35 are interested compared to 81% of those aged 55+.
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Compared to previous Federal Governments, do you think the Rudd Labor Government has been better or worse at keeping their promises?
The cross tabs tell us:
Opinions split strongly according to voting intention. 62% of Labor voters think they are better, 14% worse. 77% of Liberal/National voters think they are worse and 8% better.
Older respondents were more likely to think the Rudd Government has been worse at keeping its promises – those aged 55+ split 27%
better/58% worse while the under 35’s recorded 39% better/ 30% worse.
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The Federal Government has announced that it has postponed introducing an emissions trading scheme (ETS) to address climate change for 3 years. Do you approve or disapprove of the Government’s decision not to introduce an ETS for 3 years?
On the cross-tabs, Essential tells us that “46% of men approve (39% disapprove) compared to 31% of women (43% disapprove).”
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8 Comments
Well, after all that golden goose hissing today (isn’t there some great maxim about plucking the goose with the minimum of hissing? LOL) the next poll should show what the punters think about Rudd’s new role in Sherwood Forrest! If this one is the blowback he’s taken on the climbdown on Climate Change, the bruising on Roofgate (erk!) and the now strong suspicion (implanted daily by the Opposition Orifice), that Rudd and Co. have been dropping helicopter dollars (ie ours) on all and sundry schoolyards, will this Robin Hood gesture be enough to turn the tide?
Oh boy, I can’t wait until the next poll…
A bit puzzled by Essential’s apparent 50/50 split of Green preferences when the APH Library says that 79.7% Green preferences went to Labor nationally in 2007.
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2007-08/08rp30.htm
Helen,
A pref flow heavy from the Greens to the ALP with a rouhgly even split for the “Others” would have delivered an ALP TPP of around 53.something, rounded to give 53%.
Thanks, Poss – but still a bit confused by the straight 2% transfer in first prefs from Labour to Greens – it was the apparent 50/50 split in that 2% that got me going. I struggled with statistics 101 and it shows.
Interesting that Greens supporters disproportionately disapprove of postponing the ETS, and yet the Greens opposed it in the Senate.
The polling result of the greens probably shows that they support, philosophically, a supposedly green form of legislation even if they hated the CPRS.
This is where polling is misleading — people answer questions from a philosophical standpoint, rather than what they’d actually do in an election when push comes to shove.
For instance, you have so-called “Labor all my life” voters saying that because of this issue they’d vote coalition. But would they? Honestly? When they get to the ballot box, many are likely to say to themselves .. if I vote Green, I am really just throwing away my vote (because the green candidate hasn’t got a hope in hades) or voting for Labor by proxy, therefore I might as well vote Labor. Or, even if they think the coalition is right about one or two issues … the whole package isn’t worth the risk — so despite their bravado in making a point about the ETS or refugees, or whatever, they’ll most likely come back to their ‘home party’ regardless. (Same applies to the Libs/Nats)
That’s spot on Jen,
The polling for a party on the vote estimates is usually and often different from the sum of its parts on any and all given issues at any given time (assuming of course a government isn’t completely hated on absolutely everything!)
A lot of the results just reflect the superficial absorption of the media issues of the day. Yet, when a parties vote fortunes start to fall, they’re usually accompanied by what looks like an almost generic fall on perceptions of how well the government is doing on nearly every and all issue.
We looked at how the basic “Better Party to Manage” stuff doesnt have any real statistical relationship to the vote estimates at all back here:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/02/18/the-pitfalls-of-better-party-to-manage/
And that same theme probably applies to most.
But!
The questions on this sort of polling do provide valuable information on what is actually irking people. The big question is whether it’s the chicken or the egg.
How of a govs drop is due to the cumulative effect of negative views about a given set of issues and how much of the drop in support for those given issues a government experiences is as a result fo the general zeitgeist running against them?
the OZ figures must be wrong..’.others ” couldn’t have 12%,,and thereby lies the problem with this poll
Sorry Tony !!! blame Uncle Rupert !!