Labor’s primary vote has fallen markedly, according to new polling from Essential Research, but to the benefit of the Greens rather than than the opposition. It leaves the two-party preferred on 50:50 less than a fortnight from the election.
Labor’s vote has fallen 2 points — a big shift given Essential’s fortnightly rolling average — to 38%, while the Coalition has fallen 1 point to 43%. The big mover is the Greens, up from 8% to 11%. The end result is the 2PP result hasn’t moved since last week.
The Greens have been underperforming in the polls since Bob Brown left, but a return to double-digits might yet see the Greens retaining their Senate spots and picking up an additional spot in Victoria, which would cement the party’s balance-of-power position in the upper house.
Kevin Rudd’s approval rating has gone negative; he’s now approved of by 41% of voters compared to 45% who disapprove, a reversal of 45-43% in August. Tony Abbott’s approval has remained broadly the same (37-52%), and Rudd’s lead as preferred Prime Minister has fallen from 12 points to 9 points.
Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave (PPL) scheme is still disliked by voters: 35% of voters prefer the government’s scheme compared to 24% who prefer Abbott’s scheme. There are plenty of people who are unsure or uninterested on the issue; 41% responded with “neither” is better, or “don’t know”.
…There’s some good news for Labor on their scare campaign about the Coalition having to “cut to the bone” to pay for its election promises; 61% of respondents think it’s unlikely that Abbott would be able to pay for his promises without making more cuts after the election, while just 25% think he can do it.
This will play havoc will any thoughts of a post-election surge in business investment (not that it’s real anyway). A potent Greens presence in the senate will prevent the abolition of the carbon and mining taxes unless Labor rolls over. At least one of its likely post-election leaders, Bill Shorten, has said he will not do so.
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Also from Crikey today, Guy Rundle elegantly described our politics this way:
Effectively, a centre-Left Australian polity is busy drafting a contract with Abbott at the moment, and that is, “we will support you to throw this mob out, as long as you keep much of what they’ve done”. The contract is akin to the one the public drafted with Rudd in 2007 — “You’re nice, you’ve got ideas, you keep these Labor gangsters in order, and we’ll back you”. He didn’t, and well, you know the rest. With Abbott it’s the same. The public is beginning to warm to him now he’s shucked the olde-time religion stuff, but they still remain wary of the revived United Australia Party he’s heading, the shoals of white puffer-fish, Sinodinos, Brandis, Minchin, Mirabella, Bishop et al, whose dearest aim is to lay waste to everything we’ve achieved as a country where working people can have a life and not live one payslip away from penury for the whole of their existence. For reasons best known to the general public’s self they would prefer Malcolm Turnbull rather than Abbott to play this gatekeeper (“yes, my gatekeeper”) role, but the strange and striking fact remains that the Australian public elects leaders to restrain the party they lead. Go figure.
On this poll at least, it appears that they will aim to restrain Abbott with the senate as well.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
