Tony Abbott has improved his standing with voters after the government’s second budget, according to two new opinion polls, which paint a different picture of people’s voting intentions.
Fairfax Media’s Ipsos poll and the Australian’s Newspoll both showed increases in the prime minister’s approval rating in the wake of a budget that stood in contrast to its 2014 budget, which was widely criticised for its unfair impact.
On the two-party-preferred measure, the Ipsos poll suggested the Coalition had drawn level with Labor at 50% apiece, a four-point bounce for the government since the previous poll in early April.
But Newspoll suggested Labor maintained an election-winning lead of 53% to 47%, a one-point rise for the opposition since early May.
Newspoll showed satisfaction with Abbott’s performance had risen two points since early May to 39% while dissatisfaction dropped four points to 52% – a big improvement on his figures in February when he faced an attempted leadership spill.
Ipsos, meanwhile, showed an eight-point lift in Abbott’s approval rating to 42% and a 10-point drop in his disapproval rating to 50%.
The Ipsos poll also asked voters whether they thought the federal budget was fair or unfair. A slender majority (52%) said it was fair and a third (33%) said it was unfair. These were more favourable results for the government than the 2014 budget, which 33% said was fair and 63% was unfair.
The trade minister, Andrew Robb, who is a former federal director of the Liberal party, said the budget had been “very well received” but he would not be advising Abbott to call an election this year.
“The fact of the matter is you go into politics to get into government and you seek to get into government to do good things and I think we use every minute of every day that we’ve got to keep doing those good things.”
Asked whether he would urge Abbott to stay the course for the full three-year term, Robb said: “I think that’s absolutely the case and I think that’s his instinct, by the way.”
The comments followed speculation last week about the budget setting the scene for a potential election this year, despite one not being due until the second half of 2016. The budget contained tax breaks for small businesses and increased spending on childcare.
When asked last week to guarantee that he would not take people to an election this year, Abbott said he could “guarantee the public that we will well and truly and faithfully do what we told them we were going to do at the last election”.
The Newspoll survey of 1,160 people’s voting intentions was conducted from 14 to 17 May and has a stated margin of error of up to three points. The Ipsos poll’s sample was 1,403 people and the survey took place between 14 and 16 May.
