This weeks Essential Report comes in with the primaries running 45(up 2) /38 (down 2) to Labor, washing out into a two party preferred of 56/44 the same way – a 2 point gain to the ALP. The Greens are on 9 (steady) while the broad “Others” are on 8 (down 1).

This comes from a rolling two week sample of 1908, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 2.2% mark. This is the second week that Essential has moved back to Labor, suggesting that there’s been somewhat of a turning point in Labor’s fortunes over March. This is Labor’s equal best Essential Report all year on the voting intentions – but when you combine it with some of the results from the additional questions, it’s their best by far.

Speaking of which, the additional questions this week were particularly interesting, focusing on attributes of each party, competing paid parental leave schemes and interesting bits on current affairs consumption and trust of various media types. These additional questions came from a sample of an even 1000, giving us an MoE that maxes out around the 3.1% mark.

The Opposition leader Tony Abbott has proposed a scheme to give new parents 26 weeks leave at their normal rate of pay to be paid for by a 1.7 per cent levy on large companies. The Rudd Government plans to introduce a scheme to give new parents 18 weeks leave at the minimum wage rate paid for by the Government. Which scheme do you support more?

preferredpplThe cross-tabs are fascinating:

Among Labor voters, 61% supported the Government’s scheme and 15% supported the Opposition’s. However, only 37% of Coalition voters supported the Opposition’s scheme – 20% supported the Government scheme and 35% supported neither.

Young people were more likely to support the Opposition’s scheme – of those aged under 35, 35% supported the Opposition’s scheme and 39% the Government’s.

Older respondents were more likely to support neither scheme – of those aged 45-64, 36% supported neither scheme, 42% the Government scheme and 14% the Opposition’s.

Men and women showed similar levels of support.

“Too good to be true” with a chaser of “That’s not very Liberal” seems to be the public call here with Abbott’s PPL.

.

Here is a list of things both favourable and unfavourable that have been said about various political parties. Which statements do you feel
fit the Labor Party/Coalition?

laborviews1

lnpviews1

partyviewscombined

That last chart which compares the two parties, note that Labor is ahead of the Coalition on the positive statements and trailing the Coalition on the negatives for all themes except for “Too dominated by its leader” where Rudd outpolls Abbott by a statistically ambivalent single point.

The “will promise anything to win votes” is a nasty result for each party, but particularly nasty for Abbott – which his paid parental leave scheme no doubt contributed substantially too.

.

How frequently do you read, listen to or watch the following?

(click to expand)

newsconsump1

On the cross-tabs we have:

Newspapers tend to be read more by older people (38% of 65+ years read daily). 65% of those aged 55+ watch commercial TV news and current affairs daily. Internet news and opinion websites have similar patterns of usage across age groups but internet bogs are mostly used by those aged under 35 (10% daily).

.

How much trust do you have in what you read or hear in the following media?

(click to expand)

newstrust1

I told you lot that I’m untrustworthy!