Over the weekend, the Coalition got the band back together just in time to tear it apart.
Angus Taylor’s supporters are expected to use the dismal polling figures to push for a spill of the Liberal leadership this week.
Newspoll reports that the Coalition’s primary vote has fallen to 18%, while One Nation’s voter support has soared to 27%.
Sussan Ley is the most unpopular major party leader in 23 years.
One Nation’s core support has increased by five points in the last three weeks.
Newspoll appears so horrified that it did not produce a two-party-preferred result for anyone.
Pollbludger puts Labor in the position of a one-party state in TPP terms. Moreover, One Nation is now taking votes only from the LNP.
What has happened? The ABC would usually be the last to explain, but Alan Kohler has used his protected species status to argue that, although Hanson has no ideas, she is the only candidate who has made it explicit that she wants to reduce migration.
Her net favorability score is suddenly higher than Albanese’s, and 30% of millennials have a “very or mostly favourable” opinion of her.
This is not because they are racist, argues Kohler.
It is because they understand that having a million unplanned temporary visa holders in the nation will force them out of the housing market and make life more difficult overall.
That will include higher rents, higher prices for new dwellings, and impossible prices for existing ones while receiving lower wages than otherwise.
Of course, MB has argued all of this for a decade. Now it is happening. Is there anybody to fix it?
Under the federal Labor government, Angus Taylor has positioned himself as an opponent of high net migration and has backed Coalition plans to lower migration levels.
But he has also stressed the importance of skilled immigration if done correctly.
This is not an encouraging stance for the incoming Coalition leader, whose primary challenge is to snuff out an anti-immigration groundswell. He will need to be much more stern and severe when it comes to cutting numbers.
We also know that Taylor owns at least one investment property, two properties in total, neither of which are in Canberra, and is a party to trusts that are heavily involved in large tracts of rural land and various forms of farming.
My view is that Angus Taylor more resembles a wealthy, blabbering sea bass than an effective leader of the LNP in today’s context.
Doubtless, there will be some kind of (unusually sour) honeymoon polling period for him, but he’s too patrician to be effective against One Nation on the issues that matter.
Andrew Hastie is the man the LNP needs. A proven patriot who is willing to cut immigration to zero.
As usual, Canberra will zig when it should zag.
