This post has been updated from earlier after a reader noted my Tony Abbott chart was overly flattering. Apologies!
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I know the recent Coalition leadership stoush has been stirred up by the usual loud-mouths, but one still has to ask just how badly and resonant the collapse in confidence around Prime Minister Tony Abbott is affecting the nation. Here is the chart of PM Abbott’s honeymoon period versus other PMs:
There are several points to note. PM Abbott is more unpopular than Julia Gillard at a comparable stage. The big sink for Julia happened as the economy laboured through the high interest rates of the mining boom and house prices fell (as well the kerfuffle around the carbon price grew). PM Abbott has rising house prices and long-term issues so this can only be put down to self-inflicted. Julia’s fortunes turned several months later when the RBA started cutting interest rates so I’ll keep tracking this chart over the months ahead and see where we end up.
In a general sense, then, it’s unlikely the nation has ever seen such an unpopular PM so early in his tenure (I cant get older data but I’d bet it’s true). Blind Freddy (and John Howard) can see that Malcolm Turnbull is far better equipped to navigate Australia through the adjustment ahead – given his superior communication skills and centrist leanings – than is Tony Abbott, and that basic truth is likely to drive ongoing tensions. Even the PM thinks so:
However, he admits he’d be “amazed” if some of his senior cabinet ministers didn’t harbour leadership ambitions.
“I think there’s been a bit of over-excited chatter in recent days,” Mr Abbott told reporters.
“We are a good and strong team that’s been in government for less than nine months and all of us are getting on with it.”
This probably is a factor in the consumer confidence collapse. The PM needs to listen to the polls to resuscitate his leadership and wider faith in the economy. Normally I wouldn’t say so but the Budget has been so badly botched that the polls are dead right about it. From Laura Tingle:
We’ve had another week of the Coalition crawling through the mud of its budget sales job to a hostile electorate.
…Here is just one example of how some unrelated policy shifts in the budget may interact with potentially disastrous implications for our health system.
The fastest growing area of the workforce is health. That’s not a bad thing, given our ageing population.
Health Workforce Australia forecasts a shortage of 109,000 nurses by 2025.
The only trouble is that nursing – along with a range of allied health professions – risks being priced out of the market for rational economic career decisions by the budget.
In the debate about cuts to government contributions to university course fees and, as a result higher student debts, the talk tends to be about students who may reap significant income returns for the cost of their university education.
Nurses are not such a group. Modelling released by Universities Australia this week suggest nurses’ uni debts will rise from $19,398 to as much as $37,390 under the budget proposals. This is for a job paying a starting income of $48,729.
…As more and more is known about the budget, the concerns mount.
The Budget fractures are very deep and the changes needed to fix it very large yet PM Abbott is a poor communicator and overly pugnacious politician. One very much wonders if he can turn it around.
