The prime minister has recovered slightly in the esteem of voters but still remains deeply unpopular, new polling from Essential Research finds. But she has pulled ahead of an increasingly unpopular Tony Abbott as preferred PM.
Gillard reached her nadir with voters in early September, when just 28% of voters approved of her performance and nearly two-thirds disapproved. Since then, she has clawed her way back to 37% approval and 55% disapproval — poor numbers but significantly better than mid-year.
Abbott, however, has gone further backwards with voters. Right through the year, Abbott’s approval rating has hovered in the high 30s — it was 40% in October. This week it is back to 36%, his lowest approval rating this year but not, in the scheme of things, significant. However, throughout the year his disapproval rating has been edging up, and has now reached 52%, his highest ever and not much shy of the prime minister’s level of unpopularity.
Worse, Gillard has overtaken Abbott again on preferred prime minister, for the first time since June, with a 41-36% lead.
Both leaders, it seems, are locked in a deathmatch of voter disenchantment, but Gillard has turned her momentum around, while Abbott is going the wrong way.
And for the first time this year, some evidence has emerged that Labor has stopped the rot on its branding and values, which has seen a systematic deterioration since the beginning of 2010. Essential re-asked a series of questions last asked in May about which party was better at representing various interests.
In May, little differentiated Labor from the Coalition for a range of interests, even those traditionally associated with Labor — families with young children, students, pensioners, indigenous people, ethnic communities. Now, however, Labor has kicked clear of the Coalition for all of those — 42-31% on families with young children; 39-27% on pensioners; 28-17% on indigenous people.
The Coalition only leads in representing the interests of “working people with high incomes”, “small business and the self-employed”, “big business”, “the next generation of Australians” and “rural and regional Australians”, although Labor has shrunk the gap on all of those except, interestingly, big business. Around 60% of voters identify the Coalition as the better representative of big business, compared to only 11% Labor.
If there’s any sort of Labor turnaround, it may have started in Labor’s base. Or, at least, the self-inflicted damage there has stopped.
Essential also asked about relationships with other countries. Voters seemed to have cool on foreign relations generally, with the level of importance attached to relationships down since March 2011 for every country except China. New Zealand, Britain and Japan were all downgraded by voters significantly — our relationship with New Zealand was rated as “very important” by 69% of voters in March, but only 61% now, for example.
But voter support for a closer relationship with China increased three points to 35%; similarly, support for a closer relationship with India increased by four points to 23%.
Support for a closer relationship with United States fell six points to 19%, but 63% say the relationship should “stay the same”, second only to Britain (67%). And 20 years after Paul Keating urged Australia to pursue its future in Asia, 74% of voters say out future is most closely tied to Asia, rather than North America (9%) or Europe (7%).
On voting intention, the slow Labor recovery of late has paused: the Coalition is up a point to 47%, Labor is steady on 35% and the Greens up one on 10%, for a two-party preferred that has levelled at 54-46%.
And much of the ‘unpopularity’ has been fed by the unrelenting attacks on Gillard, to the exclusion of her obvious talents and successes. Keane has been one of the worst, constantly harping on and on about her unpopularity. No PM has ever had to suffer such hysteria and viciousness from the likes of Jones and rent a crowd Truckers, let alone what emanated from the so called quality journalists like the Oz and ‘Crikey’. I live in a rarified world, but I ask all I encounter, ( say, 40 ppl a week) and am yet to encounter evidence of this election losing unpopularity. Oh yes, one man, a bricklayer, called her ‘a bitch’, but was unable to say how she was a bitch. There’s her accent… but have you heard Howard, Fraser or Hawke speak lately? Not one other person – male, female, old, young, whatever – not one has expressed anything but admiration for what she has achieved and against such odds. So who are the pollsters asking? Oh yes, the swinging seats… in Elizabeth?
I think we have to face it. She’s the first female AND MY HEAVENS UNMARRIED IN A DE FACTO RELATIONSHIP with such power in this misogynistic country; it just didn’t sit comfortably. It has taken Australia time to get used to the phrase ‘ Prime Minister Julia Gillard’. But she has risen to the challenge, always dignified, always calm, while the Mad Monk stamps his feet, Pyne slithers about and radio queans slather. She is looking positively Presidential now.
Gillard is a talented team player, and she creates such loyalty because of her inclusiveness and ability to mend bridges and then build some more. Its about time Keane and all the rest of the Gallery got over it and supported obvious ability and talent, despite their own unease.
i have been saying for quite some time the tide seems to be turning for the govt, the libs should be getting paritcularly worried, with good support for the mining tax and with the carbon tax certain not to live up to the Abbott scare campaign the govt’s support could be significantly higher in 12 months.
And now that all the pundits seem to agree Gillard is incredibly safe as leader how long until the “leadership specualtion” is centred around Abbott, after all if the MSM doesn’t have that topic to report how could they fill all those pages?
The almost daily publishing of voting polls has a tendency to skew voter sentiments.
If polls were only monthly and without the corresponding bad Labor press that always accompanies them, the Fiberals would be toast.
Wait until they get to within 4 points of each other (aka margin for error) – then the sparks will fly. 8 points (or 6 according to Newspoll) is still quite a gap.
It is extremely unlikely that Gillard is going to win any popularity contest, but I think Paul Keating put paid to the idea that you need to be popular to win an election.
If you can’t be popular you have to go for being respected. Labor’s only salvation is to hang around long enough, and do enough genuninely good policy, to be able to earn the respect of the electorate.
Plus hang around long enough for the carbon tax to come in and for people to see that it makes not a hell of a lot of difference to their quality of life.
And Jimmy is right. Abbott has taken a huge risk with his one trick pony oppositionism, and his numbers falling much will see the pressure shift very quickly.
The Gallery don’t really care whose blood is in the water, they just want to see blood, so as soon as Abbott is at greater risk than Gillard they will start to nip away.
The first signs are already there.