Rudd vs. Gillard vs. Abbott

This week’s Essential Report comes in unchanged in all respects with the primaries running 44/38 to Labor, washing out into a two party preferred of 55/45 the same way. The Greens are on 10 and the broad “Others” are on 8. This comes from a rolling two week sample of 1830, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 2.3% mark.

A few of the additional Essential Report questions meld with the Newspoll questions, so we’ll run both of them together. The additional Essential questions ran off a sample of 1033, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 3% mark, about the same as Newspoll.

First up, the Julia Gillard/Kevin Rudd preferred leader head to head. Newspoll asked:

Which one of the following do you think would be the best candidate to lead the Labor Party

Essential asked:

Who do you think would make the better Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard?

Put the small difference in results down to the question wording. Essential also ran some cross-tabs:

Greens voters are the only cohort that prefer Gillard over Rudd.  The other cross-tabs went:

In terms of age differences, support was strongest for Rudd amongst the 18 – 24 year olds (55%). Rudd’s support decreases as age increases with 40% of people aged 55 years and over favouring Rudd as Prime Minister.

Newspoll also ran a hypothetical Abbott vs Gillard Better PM question, so we’ll throw the Rudd vs Abbott result in there as well for context.

Abbott does slightly better against Gillard in the political beauty contest than he does against Rudd.

Moving right along, Newspoll asked more questions on the CPRS and climate change beliefs. The CPRS results can be seen over here and continue on the pattern that we witnessed with the recent Morgan polls on the issue, suggesting that support for CPRS continues to dive. Support for the scheme came in at 57%, down from 67% last September while opposition to the scheme increased 12 points to 34%. The interesting result from the question is that there are still 42% of Coalition voters supporting the CPRS with 50% against.

On the climate change front, Newspoll asked the following two questions.

1. Do you personally believe or not believe that climate change is currently occurring

For those that answered “YES”, a follow-up question was asked:

2. Do you believe climate change is:
– Entirely caused by human activity
– Partly caused by human activity
-Or do you believe climate change is not caused by human activity at all.

The results of those questions can be seen over on the Newspoll graphic, but we can derive the following approximate tables out:

Those results are pretty interesting in and of themselves!

Essential also had a number of other questions – starting with a “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Lindsay Tanner/ Barnaby Joyce is doing as Finance Minister/ opposition shadow Finance Minister?”

Essential says on the cross-tabs for Joyce:

Results followed party lines – Coalition voters were more likely to approve of the job Joyce is doing (47%), while Labor voters were more likely to disapprove (53%).

56% of Green voters and 23% of Coalition voters disapprove of the job Joyce is doing as opposition shadow Finance Minister.
Males were more likely to disapprove of the job Joyce is doing (43%), while females were more likely to indicate they don’t know (47%).

And on the cross-tabs for Tanner:

Results followed party lines – Labor voters were more likely to approve (56%), while Coalition voters were more likely to disapprove (49%). 43% of Green voters approve of the job Tanner is doing as Finance Minister.

Males were more likely to approve of the job Tanner is doing (39%), while females were more likely to indicate they don’t know (55%).

People aged 55 years and over were more likely that those in other age groups to disapprove (36%).

Next up, Essential asked a question on the Feds taking over public hospitals:

The cross-tabs went:

People aged 55 years and over were more likely that those in other age groups to support a Federal Government takeover of hospitals (79%).

People in NSW were more likely than those in any other states to support a hospitals takeover (67%), while people in Western Australia (18%) and South Australia (17%) were more likely to oppose such a move.

Males were more likely than females to support a hospital takeover by the Federal Government (65% v 52%).

Support for a Federal Government takeover of hospitals from the State Government was highest amongst Labor voters (70%), followed by Coalition voters (63%) and then Green voters (54%).

Finally, a question on an increase in the national population by 2050

Here the cross-tabs went:

Labor voters were more likely than Coalition and Green voters to think it is a good thing (32% Labor v 24% Coalition, 17% Green).

People aged 55 years and over were more likely to think it is a bad thing (51%), while people aged 18 – 24 were more likely to think it is a good thing (34%).

Males were more likely than females to think it is a good thing (29% v 20%).

What I find interesting – and just like with climate change – is that that the people most against population growth (and climate change policies) are also the ones with the least skin in the game. They’ll be long dead by the time the consequences of either event occurs.