An apparent recovery in the Coalition’s primary vote, which strengthened in the last poll, was also sent backwards. It dropped a point to 36 per cent, returning the government to where it was a month ago.
While still three points higher than the record low of 33 per cent recorded in the aftermath of Malcolm Turnbull’s demise, it is six points down on the 2016 election result which delivered the Coalition a one-seat majority.
The slide in popular support has translated into a one-point drop in the two-party-preferred split — the likely election outcome after a distribution of preferences — with the Coalition returning to where it was a month ago, trailing Labor 46-54.
Six months to go and all of that but the baseball bat is out and it is only a matter of how big the bashing.
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.
