THREE out of five Australians are in favour of Tony Abbott confronting Russian President Vladimir Putin over the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 when he visits Australia next month.
But despite endorsing the Prime Minister’s tough talk, the latest Newspoll, taken exclusively for The Australian, shows overall support for the Coalition has dropped to a three-month low.
Labor continues to flatline, the Greens have received a bounce in primary vote, and Bill Shorten has marked his first year as Labor leader with his approval rating dropping to a three-month low and disapproval with him at its highest level.
The Newspoll, taken last weekend, reveals 63 per cent back Mr Abbott muscling up to Mr Putin, while 27 per cent are against that strategy.
Had the question been asked “are you in favour of Tony Abbott ‘shirtfronting’ Vladimir Putin” the result may have been more consistent with the TPP.
Then again, maybe not. According to Roy Morgan, ‘shirtfronting’ rocked, especially among shielas:
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In mid-October L-NP support rose to 48% (up 1%) but still trails the ALP 52% (down 1%) on a two-party preferred basis. If an election had been held the ALP would have won in a close election according to this week’s Morgan Poll on voting intention conducted with an Australia-wide cross-section of 3,131 Australian electors aged 18+ over the last two weekends.
Primary support for the L-NP was down 0.5% to 39.5% while ALP support rose 0.5% to 35.5%. Support for the other parties shows The Greens were at 12% (unchanged), Palmer United Party (PUP) 3.5% (unchanged) while Independents/ Others was unchanged at 9.5%.
Support for PUP is highest in Queensland (7%) followed by South Australia 5%. Support for PUP is lower in the rest of Australia: Western Australia (2.5%), Victoria (2.5%), New South Wales (2%) and Tasmania (2%).
Analysis by Gender
Analysis by Gender shows support is up for the L-NP amongst women: L-NP (46.5%, up 3%) cf. ALP (53.5%, down 3%). However, support for the L-NP amongst men is down slightly (49.5%, down 1%) cf. ALP (50.5%, up 1%).
My own relative performance chart based upon RM polling shows Tony “ditching the witch”, though Gillard was about to rally on the back of interest rate cuts:
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We can perhaps expect the PM to begin ‘shirtfronting’ all manner of world leaders!
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.
