The Coalition’s electoral fortunes have tumbled in every indicator since winning the last federal election, the latest Newspoll survey has revealed, as the Abbott government marks two years in office.
Labor has widened its lead in the two-party preferred stakes and now holds an eight-point lead of 54% to the Coalition’s 46%. At the 2013 election, those numbers were reversed, with the Coalition ahead 54-46.
Tony Abbott’s personal popularity has taken a huge hit since the poll. In 2013 the prime minister’s net satisfaction rating was -6. Today, it is -33. Satisfaction with Abbott’s performance has stayed steady in the past fortnight, at 30%, while his dissatisfaction rating is 63%.
The prime minister’s approval rating was at its lowest ebb shortly after he survived a leadership spill in February, sinking to -44%.
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, remains preferred prime minister on 41% to Abbott’s 37%, but Shorten’s personal ratings have tumbled a massive 10 percentage points in the past fortnight, sinking to -28% on Monday.
Abbott told reporters on Monday that the government was sticking to the policies it took to the last election and that voters would respond positively to those policies.
“The plan is working and we are sticking to it,” he said. “I am very confident that people will be choosing between a government which has delivered on its commitments and an opposition which hasn’t learned and can’t change.”
The Coalition’s popularity has been falling for 30 consecutive polls in a row. All eyes are on the Western Australian federal electorate of Canning, which will go to the polls this month for a byelection after the sudden death of sitting member Don Randall.
The assistant treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, is optimistic despite the negative indicators. “There’s also a glass half full in every poll, and I can see that our primary vote has gone up in today’s poll,” he told Sky News on Monday, pointing to the fact the primary vote went up one point from 38% last fortnight, to 39% on Monday.
That is still down significantly from the 2013 poll, when the Coalition boasted a primary vote of 46%.
The shadow immigration minister, Richard Marles, pointed to a series of expenses scandals involving the former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop and questions of bias surrounding the royal commissioner for the trade union commission, Dyson Heydon, as reasons for the Coalition’s electoral misfortunes.
“We don’t need a poll to let us know that this is a government which has a debacle every single week, from Bronwyn Bishop to Dyson Heydon to Australian Border Force, to two absolutely appalling budgets,” Marles told ABC Radio.
“That all adds up to a government in disarray and a prime minister in Tony Abbott that is utterly toxic out there in the electorate.”
He brushed aside concerns about Shorten’s increasing unpopularity, saying he hadthe confidence of the party. For us to be in the position that we are in now is a real testament to the leadership of Bill Shorten,” Marles said.
The Newspoll survey, taken at the weekend, also found that more than a third of voters had concerns about the government’s proposed China free trade agreement.
More voters – 43% – supported the proposed deal, compared with 35% who opposed it. Sixty-four per cent of Coalition voters supported the deal, compared with 35% of Labor voters.
An expensive and “brutal” ad campaign by the unions was scaring voters off the potential deal, the trade minister, Andrew Robb, told Sky News on Monday.
“It’s certainly having an impact,” he said.
