Malcolm Turnbull has capped off a torrid parliamentary year with a positive shift in his approval rating, and he remains ahead of Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.
But while Turnbull ends the parliamentary year buoyed by the passage of a bill legalising same-sex marriage and Barnaby Joyce’s win in the New England byelection, the latest survey of 1,831 voters confirms again that the ALP remains well in front of the Coalition, leading on the two-party preferred measure 54% to 46%.
The Turnbull government has not led Labor on the two-party preferred measure since 1 July 2016. The gap between the major parties narrowed briefly around the time of the May budget but widened for the remainder of 2017 as the government became bogged down in infighting and multiple challenges – from the dual citizenship fiasco to settling energy policy, to the eventual resolution of the marriage debate.
The government has now been behind for 72 polls.
A fresh Newspoll published by the Australian on Tuesday morning also has the critical byelection contest in the Sydney seat of Bennelong on a knife edge, with the Liberal and Labor parties on 50-50.
In terms of approval ratings in the latest Guardian Essential survey, Turnbull got the thumbs up from 41% of the sample (up 4% from last month) and 44% disapproved (down 5%) – which translates as a shift in his net approval rating from -12 to -3.
Shorten ends the parliamentary year with a smaller positive shift in his approval rating, with 36% of the sample approving of his performance as opposition leader (up 1% from last month) and 45% disapproving (down 3%) – which is a change in Shorten’s net approval rating from -13 to -9.
On the preferred prime minister measure, Turnbull led Shorten on 42% (up 2% from last month) to 28% (no change), and 31% couldn’t nominate who they thought would be a better prime minister.
Voters split along partisan lines, with 80% of Coalition voters rating Turnbull as better prime minister and 55% of Labor voters backing Shorten. Greens voters were split but a majority favoured Shorten (51%) to Turnbull (29%).
Larger proportions of women and men prefer Turnbull to Shorten (49% of men and 35% of women prefer the prime minister and 28% of men and 27% of women prefer Shorten).
The past week in politics has been dominated by intensifying controversy about foreign interference in Australia’s political system, and pressure on Labor’s accident-prone New South Wales senator Sam Dastyari, who is on hot water over his personal dealings with the Chinese businessman Huang Xiangmo.
With the government constantly on the warpath, two Labor colleagues on Monday said publicly Dastyari should consider his position in the parliament.
And with China furious over Australia’s proposed legislation designed to curb foreign interference, Turnbull used a combative appearance on the ABC’s current affairs program Q&A on Monday night to dismiss arguments that his government was anti-Beijing.
“There are a million Australians of Chinese ancestry, a million, you could not imagine modern Australia, the most successful multicultural society in the world, without them, and among those one million Australians with Chinese ancestry is our granddaughter,” Turnbull told the program.
It was “completely absurd” to suggest he was anti-Chinese, he added.
With stories of sexual harassment and predatory behaviour dominating media coverage throughout the year both in Australia and internationally, and with the #MeToo movement emboldening women to tell their stories, survey participants were asked a series of questions this week about their perceptions on the issue.
A sizeable majority, 71%, thought it was important to expose cases of sexual harassment and discrimination, and 17% thought exposing these cases could cause harm.
Just over half the sample, 55%, believed that the current public focus on sexual harassment and discrimination would bring about lasting change, while 30% felt the controversy would soon be forgotten.
A clear majority, 60%, believed sexual harassment in the workplace limited career opportunities for women and a slimmer majority, 53%, believed workplace hiring policies often favour men over women.
A majority (58%) felt workplace discrimination against women remained a problem.
But while there is a clear focus on the problems, the series of questions this week also exposed a divide in perceptions across gender lines, with Australians women more inclined to see workplace inequality and harassment as a persistent phenomenon than men.
Men were significantly more likely to agree with the statement: men and women are treated equally at work (62% of men agree, 28% of women agree).
A majority of women (55%) believed harassment was widespread in the Australian workplace while only 37% of men agreed.
Men were more inclined to believe women exaggerated stories of workplace harassment (40% of men agreed, compared with 21% of women).
When it comes to the statement “discrimination against women in the workplace is no longer a serious problem”, 38% of men agreed while 17% of women agreed.
With the statement “compared to previous generations women have little to complain about in the workplace”, 40% of men agreed, while 21% of women agreed.
Voters were also again for their views on energy policy. Voters were asked to consider the outcomes of government energy policy and rank in order of priority cost, reliability and emissions reduction.
Since the question was last asked in June, there has been a substantial increase in the number of voters favouring keeping the cost of energy down – up from 28% to 37%.
The 37% said keeping the costs of energy down should be prioritised over reducing emissions and maintaining network reliability, and the trend was consistent across Coalition voters (39%), ALP voters (40%) and other party voters (40%).
The most popular option among Greens voters was to prioritise the reduction of carbon emissions (38%).
