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Essential Research has rolled together its polling for November and December to produce results on state voting intention from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, with respective sample sizes of 1386, 1170 and 719, and respective margins of error of 2.7%, 2.9% and 3.7%. The results are readily in line with the general impression of polling elsewhere, to wit:

• The Coalition continues to look strong in New South Wales, with a primary vote essential unchanged on the election result at 51%, Labor up from 25.6% to 31% and the Greens down from 10.3% to 8%. The Coalition’s two-party lead is 60-40, compared with an election result of 64.2-35.8.

• The going is considerably rougher for the Baillieu government, who are at 50-50 after snatching the narrowest of victories at the November 2010 election from a result of 51.6-48.4. The primary votes are 43% for the Coalition, 39% for Labor and 11% for the Greens, compared with election results of 44.8%, 36.2% and 11.2%.

• The result in Queensland is at the strong end of the polling trend for Labor, who trail by just 53-47 on two-party preferred after the 62.8-37.2 demolition inflicted at the election. The LNP primary vote is at 41% compared with 49.7% at the election, with Labor up from 26.7% to 35% and the Greens up from 7.5% to 8%. Pollsters seem to be struggling at getting a believably high figure for Katter’s Australian Party, although Essential has done better than Newspoll in having it at 7%, compared with 11.5% at the election.

All three governments score net negative ratings on “heading in right/wrong direction”, health, education, economic management, “managing the economy in the interests of ordinary working people”, industrial relations, unemployment, planning, public transport, the environment and water. The strongest results across the board are for police/public safety, with the only net positive rating in the entire survey being the score on this measure in Victoria. The Newman government does particularly badly on health, ordinary working people, industrial relations and unemployment, while the Baillieu government does poorly on education and gets savaged on public transport.