While it hasn’t yet translated into votes, and may never, the Government is clearly losing control of the asylum seeker debate, Essential Research’s latest poll shows.

While the 2PP vote is static, with the Government retaining its handy 54-46 lead, Essential asked voters about how voters felt about the Government’s handling of asylum seeker issues.  65% believed the Government “too soft”, compared to only 18% who felt it was the right approach or 6% who thought they were too hard.

Worse, 56% of Labor voters think the Government is too soft. Surprisingly, even 25% of Greens voters think the Government is too soft.

Interestingly though, that lack of confidence doesn’t flow through to trust in the parties’ capacity to handle the issue — only 23% of voters trust Labor to handle the issue, but only 34% trust the Coalition. What that question doesn’t reveal is why voters don’t trust parties — it’s quite possible the majority of voters don’t trust the Coalition because of all the baggage they carry on the issue and their predisposition to demonise asylum seekers, while Labor isn’t trusted because of the perception that it is too soft.

Essential separately asked about house prices, in light of the growing debate about housing supply and the suggested role of foreign investors in driving prices up, which is attracting growing media interest amidst claims that young Australians buyers are being priced out of the housing market by Chinese investors.

Foreign investment does loom as an issue, though not a dominant one. Simple shortage of housing is the most common reason given for rising house prices (33%), which put it far ahead of overseas buyers (19%), and low interest rate (11%). However, there was an interesting split amongst those polled on how they viewed rising property prices. Asked by Essential if they wanted to house prices rising, staying the same or falling, more than half of 18-24-year-olds wanted them to fall, but 37% of 25-34-year-olds — who are more likely than younger voters to be in the housing market themselves — wanted to see prices actually going up.

Voters over 55 — both the 55-64-year-old group and those over 65 — mainly wanted prices to stay the same, perhaps conflicted because they benefit from rising house prices but often have adult children trying to break into the housing market themselves.

And, heading into a 9-day “Pollie Pedal” event, Tony Abbott’s predilection for Speedos and lycra appears not to be an issue with voters — only 32% thought he should spend more time doing his job, with 45% thinking he’d got the balance right.