Polls stuck as Do-Labor Malcolm fights the wrong war

Murdoch man, Paul Kelly, says Straya has swung to the Left:

Australia is undergoing a decisive change in its political values — Malcolm Turnbull has reinvented his government as a pragmatic, populist, public investment vehicle and Bill Shorten in reply has taken Labor even further to the populist, ideological left.

The edifices of Australia’s aspir­ational politics and market-based reforms are being torched in an end-of-generation bonfire. Occasionally in a nation’s history you can identify a point of transformation and it is likely that this week is such a marker.

Politics is now a contest about the nature of tax increases, the scope of monumental social spending initiatives and the type of government intervention. Australia is becoming yet another Western-world laboratory for the anti-market, populist revolution fuel­led by resentment towards finance and corporates, the breakdown of the social contract, big-spending social democratic reforms and a drumbeat for redistribution and equality.

The Prime Minister and Scott Morrison have repudiated the 2014 Abbott budget, moved to assure Middle Australia, declared the worst is over, bet their government on higher economic growth, and displayed a ruthlessness to save their government and make it competitive again.

How did the Opposition Leader respond? In his budget reply Shorten doubled down on the strategy that nearly made him PM last year — he wants more redistribution and class warfare; more taxes on companies, multinationals and upper middle to high income earners; vastly more educa­tion spending and rejection of univer­sity cuts; he upholds penalty rates, backs the banks levy, still demands a royal commission, claims Turnbull and the Treasurer aren’t strong enough to stand up to the banks, and wants a top marginal rate of 49.5 per cent (you work for yourself one day and government the next).

The story behind this week is that Labor and the progressives have won the battle of ideas and politics since the 2013 election. The budget is a surrender document for the tougher Abbott-Hockey policies that prioritised the return to surplus. Shorten’s answer to the Turnbull reinvention reveals the political contest will critically shift further to the left.

Not much point debating the finer points of what is actually Left or Right with a guy who has forgotten what they are. In general he is correct. And?

None of this is going to make any difference to the next election. Nothing in what Do-Labor Malcolm has done addresses the major threat to his party’s rule. If you want centre-Left you’ll vote Labor not Liberal.

The Coalition’s real threat is obvious in the first poll released since the Budget:

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s hopes of securing a boost in the polls after switching the Coalition on to a more popular footing in this week’s budget, have so far failed to materialise.

The first serious poll since the big-spending budget reveals the Coalition still trails behind the Labor opposition by a solid six-point margin on 47 per cent to 53 after preferences.

The Sky News ReachTEL poll released on Friday afternoon surveyed 2300 people on Thursday evening. It showed the government’s primary vote remains alarmingly low, suggesting voters have either not absorbed the Coalition’s more people-friendly approach taken under Mr Turnbull’s leadership, or simply do not believe it will benefit them.

Both major parties recorded primary votes of just over 30 per cent – with the Liberal Party on 30.6 per cent and the ALP on 30.5.

The Nationals came in at 3.4 per cent, whereas Pauline Hanson’s One Nation was nudging double figures with 9.8 per cent.

Same for Newspoll:

The Turnbull government has ­failed to generate a swift reward from its dramatic move to “reset the budget” by using tax hikes to replace divisive spending cuts, with the government losing ground against Labor to trail by 47 per cent to 53 per cent in two-party terms.

In a blow to Malcolm Turnbull’s plan for a political recovery, voters have shifted to Labor and the Greens while voicing concern about budget tax increases, with 45 per cent saying they will be worse off from the budget.

The latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, reveals that 54 per cent of voters back the new $8.2 billion increase in the Medicare Levy amid a furious dispute over personal tax rates and Labor’s proposal to lift the top rate to 49.5 per cent over time.

IPSOS looks nominally better but all it really did was fall into line with the others (which doesn’t stop Domainfax going all-in on fake news around the poll bounce):

It shows that since the last poll six weeks ago, the Coalition’s primary vote has increased 4 percentage points to 37 per cent while Labor’s has risen 1 point to 35 per cent. As a result, Labor leads the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis by 53 per cent to 47 per cent, down from its 55-45 lead at the last poll but still enough to ensure a comfortable victory if an election were held today.

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation nudging double figures is the key.

The Coalition is desperately trying on mask after mask in a vain attempt to get traction with somebody, anybody. Meanwhile, every back-flip, every change of spots, every fake policy only serves to undermine it further where it counts. One Nation has stolen a crucial component of the Coalition’s base and it has done so because its voters desperately want a legitimate government that authentically looks after Aussies in its eyes.

We can debate what that means in policy terms across the spectrum but the one issue that carries the platform above all others, to the exclusion of all others, is immigration. One Nation is basically a single-issue, anti-immigration, splinter conservative movement, and Do-Labor Malcolm just recommitted the Coalition to more of that which it hates most.

Let me make this as plain as I can. High immigration is killing The Coalition. More infrastructure won’t fix it. Citizenship tests won’t fix it. Making business pay more for 457 visas won’t fix it. Bashing the unemployed won’t fix it. Running deficits won’t fix it. Bank levy’s won’t fix it. Not even cutting negative gearing will fix it. The Do-nothing Malcolm mask couldn’t fix it. The Do-Labor Malcolm mask won’t fix it. Any Do-Liberal Malcolm would’t fix it.

The only lever that the Coalition can pull to alter its fate, not just for the coming election but for every subsequent election until the end of days, is to cut to immigration hard.