Methodology

Methodology Disclosure Statement

The data gathered for this report is gathered from a fortnightly online omnibus run by Essential Research with sample provided by Qualtrics from online panels.

The online omnibus is active from the Wednesday night of each week and closed on the following Sunday. The target population is all Australian residents aged 18+. Participants were invited to participate and completed the survey online without an interviewer present and incentives are offered for participation.

The response rate varies each week, but usually delivers 1000+ interviews. Quotas are applied to be representative of the target population by age, gender and location.

RIM and cell weighting is applied to the data using information sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). The factors used in the weighting are age, gender, location, previous vote (May 2022 Federal Election) and, starting with the late October 2023 poll, education.

Information for the weighting efficiency, effective sample size and margin of error for each poll (from June 2021) can be found here.

Following the May 2022 Federal Election, we undertook an extensive review of our methodology. Information on our post-election methodology review can be found here.

Each fortnight, the team at Essential Media Communications discusses issues that are topical and a series of questions are devised to put to the Australian public. Some questions are repeated regularly (such as political preference and leadership approval), while others are unique to each week and reflect current media and social issues. Full text for all questions from the most recent Essential Report can be found in the link above. No questions were asked prior to the standard voting and regular political preferences questions which have a material influence on results.

Participants not eligible to vote in federal elections (either for age, residency or other reason) are excluded from voting intention. Eligible participants are able to select ‘Unsure’ for voting intention. They are then asked a ’leaner’ question which also includes an ‘Unsure’ option. Participants answering ‘Unsure’ are NOT excluded from published results, or any subsequent questions. 2 party preferred (2PP) calculations use stated preference. Preference flows from previous federal and state elections are only used for participants answering ‘Unsure’ for stated preference.

All Essential Research staff hold Research Society membership and are bound by professional codes of behaviour. This research is compliant with the Australian Polling Council Quality Mark standards. The Australian Polling Council standards can be found here.